Farmers' Almanac predicting a cold winter

[legallyillegal]

Canada

Canada's Frigid Forecast: 2010 Winter Weather

After a late start to summer, and a soggy one in many areas, the new, hot of the presses, 2010 Canadian Farmers’ Almanac is here, and within its pages is a prediction for an “Ice Cold Sandwich” winter.

Last year, the 2009 Canadian Farmers’ Almanac predicted an exceptionally long, cold winter for most regions. As promised, bitter cold and heavy snow punished much of the nation, coming on early in the season and lingering through the start of spring. When spring finally did arrive, it came bearing heavy rains, with twice the annual average falling in many regions.

How Cold Will this Winter Be?
The latest edition of the Canadian Farmers’ Almanac warns that this winter’s frigid forecast offers no respite in sight, especially for provinces in the center of the country. “Colder than normal” and “bitterly cold and dry” is how the Canadian Farmers’ Almanac describes the winter in for provinces above the Great Lakes, the Plains, and the Canadian Rockies, while temperatures on the East and West Coasts will be more in line with average to normal winter conditions.

For residents of the East Coast, who bore most of the brunt of last winter’s fury, this may be good news, but the prediction of an “ice cold sandwich” is sure to send chills down the spines of those in Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Snow Forecast
While parts of the country are expected to see near or below average precipitation this winter, significant snowfalls are forecast for parts of every zone. Residents of Eastern and Western coastal provinces can expect a major snowfall in mid-February, with possible blizzard conditions in parts of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
Shovelry is most certainly not dead.

USA

Frigid 2010 Forecast: How Cold will the Winter Weather Be?

Old Man Winter doesn’t want to give up his frigid hold just yet, but his hold will mostly be in the middle of the country.

According to the 2010 Farmers’ Almanac, this winter will see more days of shivery conditions: a winter during which temperatures will average below normal for about three-quarters of the nation.

A large area of numbingly cold temperatures will predominate from roughly east of the Continental Divide to west of the Appalachians (see map). The coldest temperatures will be over the northern Great Lakes and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. But acting almost like the bread of a sandwich, to this swath of unseasonable cold will be two regions with temperatures that will average closer to normal—the West Coast and the East Coast.

What about snow/rain/ice?
Near-normal amounts of precipitation are expected over the eastern third of the country, as well as over the Pacific Northwest and Northern Plains, while drier-than-normal conditions are forecast to occur over the Southwest and the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes.

Only the Central and Southern Plains are expected to receive above-average amounts of precipitation.

Blizzards?
While three-quarters of the country is predicted to see near- or below average precipitation this winter, that doesn’t mean there won’t be any winter storms! On the contrary, significant snowfalls are forecast for parts of every zone. For the Middle Atlantic and Northeast States, for instance, we are predicting a major snowfall in mid-February; possibly even blizzard conditions for New England (indeed, even shovelry is not dead).

[Huckin eh?]

I'm holding my breath!

[legallyillegal]

fwiw, the other farmers almanac is predicting more precipitation for the west with less-pronounced cold

[Alexander1310]

I will state that this does excite me (actually the snow nerd within) as my attention fully turns to winter prep. Those predictions do coincide with the current oceanic warming trends, with la nina moving out and el nino, hopefully moving in.

[ren]

http://www.almanac.com/weather/longrange

um.....fuck ya!!!!

[balyzso]

http://www.almanac.com/weather/longrange

um.....fuck ya!!!!

I am glad to find your site - now I know what a good one looks like.
Very good topic to share with us. Great info.

[LoloB]

Legallyillegal, I sure hope you're right because I've read some about low snow predictions: http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2009/0...pass-this.html

I hope you're right and this dude is wrong.

[wetcoaster]

Local folklore around here says that hot summer = banging winter. I'm being optimistic, because this was one of the hottest summers on record.

[fish]

thats ass backwards considering a strengthening el nino

[mtflyer]

While I hope the farmers are right, the Climate Prediction Center says otherwise:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/product...nal.php?lead=1

On the left under More Outlooks you can select which months you want. It says above average temps and below average precip (for the northwest) on the Oct-Nov-Dec outlook, and then the same for the Nov-Dec-Jan outlook. It does't seem to get any better as the season goes on either, according to these charts.

[iscariot]

The almanac is not accurate long term or short term, its even less accurate than your typical weather forecast, and that's not very accurate either.

I read a few research articles about this. Too lazy to post.

[tomahawktony]

While I hope the farmers are right, the Climate Prediction Center says otherwise:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/product...nal.php?lead=1

On the left under More Outlooks you can select which months you want. It says above average temps and below average precip (for the northwest) on the Oct-Nov-Dec outlook, and then the same for the Nov-Dec-Jan outlook. It does't seem to get any better as the season goes on either, according to these charts.

or maybe not

[neckdeep]

Believe what you want, but the Tetons straddle the climate boundary between alpine and high desert. Shit, you can see some of the country's largest sand dunes from the top of Targhee. My opinion, fwiw, is the subtle change in the direction of the air flowing to the Tetons between El Nino and La Nina oscillations can make a huge difference in our average air temps and, thus, our seasonal snowpack. La Nina, 2 out of 3 days the air flows in from the west to north quadrant and is usually cold. Also, the jet tends to flow "zonally", like a hose pointed at us for prolongled periods and it is pushing wet low pressure systems across the Tetons. El Nino, 2 out of 3 days the air flows in from the south to west quadrant and can be quite warm because it is fetching from the desert country. The jet stream during El Nino frequently adopts a deep pacific trough pattern and the precip "hose" only points at us briefly as a frontal boundary on a SW/NE axis crosses the region. If you are lucky, the bottom portion of the trough will bullseye the Tetons and the dump can be epic, otherwise its often a disappointment. Without the zonal jet flow around to keep the airmass unstable, high pressure ridges are apt to set up and get so strong that they deflect the moisture providing jet for weeks until instability breaks through again. El Ninos can bring some epic storms to the Tetons but their seasonal track record has been fairly bad over the twelve years I have lived here. Some El Nino's were so warm that a lot of south facing stuff never really held it's snowpack. By contrast, four out of five La Nina's I have witnessed were 480-600 inchers on the Ghee's stake.

Basically, four or five "bullseyes" during a season and an El Nino can provide some memorable times for the Tetons. Otherwise, you watch as storm after storm rolls south to the four corners region.

[tomahawktony]

I guess I should have been less vague. I wasn't debating the fact that El nino/la nina affects our seasonal snowpack. What I was getting at was that the current el nino was forecasted to be moderate and is shaping up in actuality to be weak, or even nuetral. The map listed in the link showed pnw as being below normal, yet the last week or so they have been getting absoultly hammered. I was just thinking maybe noaa missed....

[JRainey]

Let's just cross our fingers, there's no way to know until it's over. I'm just trying not to go crazy.

[idopyigeobids]

Maybe we can check this out when the season is over next year, but this is what the US Farmers Almanac says for the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. An interesting note, per Wikipedia, about 80 to 85 of the annual forecasts are accurate. We shall see...

1 Possibility of a tropical disturbance in the southeast US in late May
2 A hurricane bringing rain to southeast and northeast US in late June
3 Hurricane threat for the southeast US in late August, possibly the same storm to threaten the Gulf Coast
4 Hurricane threat for southeast US during Labor Day weekend, later moving up toward northeast US
5 Tropical cyclone for the Mid-Atlantic states in late September

[Inosels09]

Hey guys, been a while. SORRY what a winter we had here this year. 150 of snow and counting I think from Dec 15-Feb 15 I had about 3-4 days off, alot of those days I plowed all night, slept 3-4 hrs then worked all day. Only to plow again that night. Way too many days working 18-20hrs out of 24.


So how was everyones winter?

[inbetweenstance]

I'm in Portland, OR. So far we've had a really cold and dry spell (record setting), wet and cold spells, wet and warm, and everything in between. So it look to be shaping up to be an average winter for us.

Hey guys, been a while. SORRY what a winter we had here this year. 150 of snow and counting

Where you at?

[VictoriaPucinscki]

Thank you for share,very nice.