Southeast winter forecast: ‘Get those sweaters and parkas out,’ Farmers’ Almanac says
Last year’s winter went down as “one of the warmest on record” in the Southeast, according to the National Weather Service — but forecasters won’t say the same for 2020.
The Farmers’ Almanac has dubbed it the “Winter of the Great Divide” with above average snowfall, a late season blizzard and a “wildcard” of wintry mixes for some areas of the United States. For North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, that means chillier than average temperatures.
“If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that you ‘just never know,’” the Farmer’s Almanac said in a news release announcing the forecast.
According to this year’s predictions, the U.S. is in for a “quite divided” winter “with some very intense cold snaps and snowfall,” editor Peter Geiger said.
The Southeast will be on the receiving end of a “chilly fringe” from snowstorms and a possible blizzard forecast to hit the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states in February, the Farmers’ Almanac says.
That means everywhere south of the Carolinas will see “average precipitation levels with temperatures chillier than normal overall.”
“Get those sweaters and parkas out of storage,” the Farmers’ Almanac warned.
The eastern half of the U.S. is also expected to “get clobbered during the final week of March” with a late-season storm passing “from the nation’s midsection to central New England.” The storm could bring snow to the north and showers and thunderstorms to the south, according to the Farmers’ Almanac.
Tennessee and the Ohio River valleys, meanwhile, are the nation’s “wildcard” with some intense weather systems “delivering a wintry mix of rainy, icy and/or snowy weather throughout the season.”
It’s a far cry from the Farmers’ Almanac 2019-2020 winter forecast, which called for mild temperatures and below-average snowfall.
The Farmers’ Almanac has been releasing long-range weather predictions since 1818 without “using any type of computer satellite tracking equipment, weather lore or groundhogs,” according to its website. It’s the oldest consecutively published weather forecast in the U.S.
According to the almanac, its predictions are about 80% accurate. A study at the University of Illinois, however, found its monthly precipitation and temperature forecasts over a five-year span were accurate roughly 50% of the time, The News-Gazette reported.
The Farmer’s Almanac forecast is based on a set of rules created by the Almanac’s first editor, David Young. Those rules have evolved over two centuries into a “mathematical and astronomical” formula that incorporates sunspots, tides and the planets’ positions.
Only one person knows that formula — and their identity is kept masked behind the pseudonym Caleb Weatherbee.
This story was originally published August 25, 2020 at 12:57 PM with the headline "Southeast winter forecast: ‘Get those sweaters and parkas out,’ Farmers’ Almanac says."
