Farmers’ Almanac Has No Plans to Go High-Tech

Greenhouse gases and global climate changes do not impress publishers of the Farmers’ Almanac.

After 184 years, they have no plans to alter the almanac’s weather forecasting formula, which is based on sunspots, the position of the planets and tidal action caused by the moon.

Using the formula, known to only two people, the almanac predicts another moderate winter as a follow-up to last year’s warmest winter on record.

“The winter of 2000-01 should get off to a late start and turn out to be milder than average, even less severe than this last one,” forecaster Caleb Weatherbee writes in the almanac that hit newsstands recently.

Editor Peter Geiger admitted that last year’s prediction--of a stormy November and December to be capped by more than a foot of snow at year’s end in the Midwest and Northeast--was way off the mark.

There actually was a dearth of snow. Portland, Maine, for example, recorded its longest stretch of snowless days--305--before getting its first measurable snowfall on Jan. 16.

The La Nina effect likely was to blame for the late arrival of snow, said Geiger, who noted that the almanac did better in predicting the biggest East Coast snowstorm of the season on Jan. 24.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also blamed La Nina for making the winter the nation’s warmest in the 105 years that records have been kept.

The phenomenon of changing ocean temperatures known as La Nina and El Nino, along with the controversy over whether greenhouse gases are causing global warming, led to Weatherbee’s declaration that he will stick by the almanac’s traditional formula for predicting the weather.

“Many people have asked us if we plan to alter the ‘secret formula’ used for producing our annual weather forecasts. The answer is an unequivocal ‘no,’ ” Weatherbee writes in this year’s almanac.

Although it isn’t always right, the Farmers’ Almanac, along with the Old Farmer’s Almanac published in neighboring New Hampshire, which is 24 years older, is used to plan outdoor weddings, cookouts and vacations.

The National Weather Service contends weather can’t be predicted with any certainty so far in advance.

But the Farmers’ Almanac says its long-term predictions are right about 80% of the time.

For the record, Weatherbee predicts a wet fall to be followed by two big December snowstorms, including one reaching as far south as Virginia. He also predicts significant snow in the Rockies and in the Midwest and Great Lakes states in December.

More snow is predicted during the winter, but overall the season will be mild, Weatherbee says. Next summer will be hot, and it will be followed by a fall drought, he added.

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