Summer Heat predicted by scientific source, sorta

Let's see what the Almanacs say about the Summer Heat and then you can go shopping for your bikini and avoid the rush.


Now that the Monadnock Region looks suspiciously like Siberia, local residents might raise an eyebrow at The Old Farmer’s Almanac’s prediction that 2008 would be the most sizzling year in a century.

But to all those thinking the almanac’s fictional weather guru Abe Weatherwise may have taken a hiatus into forecasting-failure, Editor Janice Stillman has a message: Not so fast.

“When we have so much snow, with such frequency, the perception is that, ‘Gee. This has been a long, cold winter, and in fact, it really hasn’t been,” she said. “The temperature has been, on average, above normal for most of the winter period.”

Before The 2008 Old Farmer’s Almanac event hit newsstands in September, Publisher John Pierce said, in a press release, that this year would be “Very warm, overall,” predicting the warming trend of the recent past would continue.


But in the Northeast, the 216 year-old Dublin publication also predicted, on average, “slightly above normal snowfall” — proven correct, if understated, in New Hampshire by Concord’s record amounts.

Still, despite the frosty weather, the almanac forecasted that in the Northeast, this winter would be “about a degree milder than normal.”

This has held true in both Concord and in Portland, Maine, according to National Weather Service Meteorologist James F. Brown, who said December through February temperatures in the two cities have been an average of about 1.1 and 1.6 degrees, respectively, above the norm.

Rival publication the Maine-based Farmers’ Almanac — a comparatively junior publication at about 190 years old, which uses the forecasts of the fictional Caleb Weatherbee — similarly predicted the white weather in the Northeast.

“(W)e do feel that overall Mother Nature is showing no mercy to the East,” Editor Peter E. Geiger said in a press release, which predicted this year’s winter would average as much as 3 degrees cooler down the Eastern Seaboard.

So how do these almanacs come up with their forecasts?

Both examine sunspots — flare-ups on the sun’s surface — among a host of other factors, according to Stillman and Geiger. Both publications also use secret, centuries’ old formulas to make weather predictions they claim to be, on average, at least 80 percent accurate. (The Farmers’ Almanac ups the ante with a claim of 80 to 85 percent, trumping The Old Farmer’s Almanac’s 80 percent, according to their Web sites).

And neither one takes into account the major monkey wrench in modern weather: Global warming.

“We don’t predict global warming. We predict the weather,” said Stillman, who explained that weather will, in turn, be affected by fossil fuels and other damage by the hand of man.

“For me, it’s not a factor,” Geiger said of global warming. “It’s an unknown, quite frankly.”

In the meantime, Stillman said regardless of reports of warming weather, solar cycles indicate the world may actually start to see cooler temperatures.

“This is the beginning of a cycle that could lead to a very long-term cool period,” she said, describing an easing of the solar activity she said leads to warmer weather.

Similarly, Geiger said “I think they’re probably correct that, in fact, there’s going to be some cooling. ... It goes counter to the global warming theory.”

Meanwhile, although the National Weather Service also makes long-range predictions — in the form of 30-, 60-, 90-day forecasts — James Brown said he doesn’t hold much stock in them

“We have trouble with three or four days, never mind 30, 60 or 90 days.” Brown said. “It’s weather. ... Things can go wrong and the forecast doesn’t come out right.”