Farmers’ Almanac predicts another cold and stormy winter

Caleb Weatherbee, whose frosty forecast of “cold, wet & white” proved accurate last year, sees another snowy winter ahead for the Lehigh Valley and the rest of the Mid-Atlantic region.

The Farmers’ Almanac 2021-22 winter outlook was released Wednesday and predicts a near-normal amount of snowfall from coast to coast. Prognostications in the almanac, first published in 1818, are famously made by a team of editors under Caleb’s pseudonym using a formula they say is both mathematical and astronomical.

Last year, the almanac pushed a “great divide” that split the country between “mild and tranquil” vs. “wet and white.” The Lehigh Valley got blasted, with 58.1 inches of snow for the season, including 39.6 inches in February.

Overall, our February snowfall was 28.5 inches above normal in Allentown and ranked as the second snowiest February of all time.

This year, the almanac predicts a “flip flop winter with notable polar coaster swings in temperatures.” It sees January starting out mild before trending toward cold conditions and an active storm track along the Atlantic Seaboard.

In sharp contrast to this past season, it says February will average out to be a much quieter month in terms of storminess across much of the nation. However, the almanac forecasts a “winter whopper” for parts of the Northeast and Ohio Valley toward the end of the month.

For March, it suggests a mid-month storm for the East and Midwest, followed by a nor’easter along the East Coast toward month’s end.

The yearly almanac (not to be confused with its rival the Old Farmer’s Almanac) includes not only weather predictions in its publications, but schedules of full moons, recipes, gardening tips and information and advice on a wide range of other subjects.

The almanac’s forecasts are calculated two years in advance and typically scoffed at by seasoned meteorologists and hobbyists alike. To that note, the editors acknowledge that long-range forecasting remains “an inexact science” but tout their forecasts as 80-85% accurate.

You can visit the Farmers’ Almanac’s On the Money page to see if the weather events predicted hold true this coming winter.