Cold Style: Almanac Warns Of 'Very Cold' Winter This Year
By Stephen Gossett in News on Aug 29, 2017 7:33PM
After last year's bizarrely balmy winter, this year Chicago will regress to the cold, snowy mean—at least according to those folksy sky watchers at the Farmer's Almanac.
The Midwestern/Great Lakes portion on which Chicago falls on the Almanac's newly released Winter 2017 map calls for cold temps and an average amount of snowfall, which would be quite a departure over the distressingly warm stretch we "endured" last winter. “We believe the Midwest is going to have some cold, very cold weather and average snowfall,” editor Peter Geiger told NBC Chicago. Multiple inches of snow could fall around Jan. 20 through 23 and Feb. 12 through15, he said.
But speaking of last year's warm winter, the Farmer's Almanac—who is famously less than up front with their prediction model—notably flubbed that one, having predicted "numbing cold" for the Midwest and "downright frigid temperatures" for February—which is precisely when we got record-breaking warmth.
So what do the meteorological pros say? According to the National Weather Service's longterm-outlook maps, there's an equal chance for either above- or below-normal levels of precipitation, and also an equal chance for either above- or below-normal temperatures from December all the way through April. So, yeah, the forecast does indeed jibe with the Almanac's average snowfall claim, although that "very cold" claim should maybe be taken with a grain of sidewalk salt.
Via Farmer's Almanac