The annual journal, released Tuesday, predicts one of the coldest winters in recent years. Temperatures, forecasters warn, could drop as low as -40 degrees Celsius in areas like the Rockies and the Prairies during the month of January. Heavy snow is forecast to cover Quebec and Ontario in particular. “The Maritimes will see many cold showers and many days filled with winter storms that will bring snow, sleet, ice and rain,” The Farmer’s Almanac website warns. The publication also predicts that regions such as Labrador and Newfoundland and the Great Lakes will “often see winter precipitation fall as snow, and sometimes heavily,” with British Columbia expected to welcome decent skiing conditions for the upcoming season. But how accurate is The Farmers’ Almanac – and how does it differ from competing weather forecast publications? A major competitor to the magazine is a publication with a similar name — The Old Farmers’ Almanac — which publishes weather forecasts 18 months ahead (as opposed to The Farmer’s Almanac’s forecasts 16 months ahead), but relies on similar factors for forecasting weather patterns. These factors include sunspots and moon phases, the prevailing climate cycle, and proprietary formulas based on meteorology. The specificity of their 200-year-old methods, however, is not publicly known. According to FarmersAlmanac.com, “The editors of the Farmers’ Almanac categorically disclaim the use of any type of computer, weather or piglet satellite tracking equipment. What they will admit is that they are using a specific and reliable set of rules developed in 1818.” While the results aren’t always accurate, these rules, the site explains, have changed historically and turned into a formula that is both “mathematical” and “astronomical.”
