I Don't Really Trust All Those Winter Weather Forecasts.

For what it's worth, here's a map depicting NOAA's forecast
for this coming winter. They're saying chances are we'll 
have a warm winter in the Northeast. However, take all
long range forecasts, including all those winter 
forecasts floating out there with a huge grain of salt

Frankly, I don't trust long range forecasts. There's all kinds of things that could go wrong, and do, when these forecasts hit.  

But the pundits and predictors soldier on anyway. As usual for this time of year,    winter season forecasts are accumulating faster than snow in a February nor'easter.  

While science goes into some of those forecasts, you still want to take them with a grain of salt.  Or maybe a whole bag of rock salt, I don't know. 

If you want me to tell you what this winter will be like, talk to me in March or April. By then, we'll know the results and we won't have to speculate.

Still, more than any other season it seems, people want to know in advance what winter will be like. 

I have noticed some patterns with this. For the past several years at least, NOAA/National Weather Service has predicted in advance that the following winters would be warm here in Vermont. 

Other publications are a little more prone to foreseeing gloom and doom.  

Here's my bias: NOAA isn't really all that interested in social media clicks, so they just go with what they think will happen. My conspiratorial mind thinks that other outlets want to see "engagement" so what better way to do that than tell people the end of the world is nigh. 

Let's start with NOAA's winter forecast: They're saying this winter in the Northeast will in general be warmer than average. I've had people tell me, "Oh, they say that every winter."  And those people are right. For each of the past seven winter forecasts NOAA has issued, they've said we were in for a warmer than average winter. 

Maybe it's global warming, but I have to say NOAA has been right most of the time. Of the past seven winters, in which NOAA told us we'd have a warm winter,  five have turned out warmer than average, one was quite a bit colder than average and one was right around normal.

So that's a pretty good track record.

For what it's worth, the Old Farmer's Almanac says New England will have a generally cold and dry winter this year. They're track record in recent winters has been mixed at best. 

Last winter was relatively warm and dry up here in Vermont. The Old Farmer's Almanac had predicted a wet and somewhat cold winter, so nah, not quite. 

They weren't 100% right in 2020 either, though they were correct that the coldest temperatures of the winter that year would be in mid January to early February.  But that is normally the coldest part of winter so the Old Farmer's Almanac's prediction wasn't exactly a revelation.

The Old Farmer's Almanac was pretty close to being right in 2019 and 2018, so I'll give them credit there. They were way off in 2017 and 2016 and half right in 2015. In 2015, they got the prediction of a cold New England right, but were wrong about a lack of snow. Boston had its snowiest winter in history. 

I don't mean totally diss the Old Farmer's Almanac. Every year the whole Almanac is an entertaining, folksy read, so I recommend buying it. Just don't necessarily believe their weather forecasts. 

The Weather Channel also has a mixed record in recent years of predicting winters. Again, for what it's worth, they're saying here in Vermont the variable winter weather should average out to something close to normal. We'll see. 

Of course, this is the same outfit that said the Southern Plains would have a warm February, when they ended up having arguably their worst cold snap on record.

The Weather Channel, at least for our neck of the woods, was way off in the winter of 2020 by predicting a cold winter. It was warm. They were pretty close to accurate for the winter of 2019, mostly wrong in 2018 and 2017, pretty accurate in 2016 and not too bad in 2015.

Just like all the other organizations, I'm not meaning to disrespect The Weather Channel, which is full of fine meteorologists and journalists. It's just that it's foolhardy to make winter weather forecasts.

Plenty of other meteorologists and publications have also made their annual winter weather predictions. I won't go into them, because you already got the idea here. 

Weather is always surprising. Especially so in Vermont during the winter. 

If I really MUST make a winter prediction for Vermont, I'll give you this. It will definitely snow. There will be cold days. The winter will be cold unless it's not, and it will be snowy unless it's not.

That's the best I can do, folks!