When 5 inches of snow fell on Licking County in the early hours of Dec. 2, who predicted it first?
The staffs of the Farmers’ Almanac and The Old Farmer’s Almanac, of course — and they did it more than three months ago.
The Farmers’ Almanac’s website offers this prediction, generated this past summer, for Ohio snowfall: “The Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, and North Central states are set for a classic winter wonderland.”
That’s a good bet most years, and it happened this week. Children who had the day off from school rejoiced as they built snowmen and went sledding in that wonderland.
The Farmers’ Almanac, published annually since 1818, announced recently that it is ending publication after 2026 due to financial challenges, but it’s rival, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which has been published annually since 1792, says it will continue publishing its collection of weather and advice. It released its predictions for this winter in August, as well.
It showed central Ohio labeled with “Cold, Snowy,” not far off from The Farmers’ Almanac prediction — and exactly what central Ohio received this week. With both long-range forecasts predicting cold temperatures and snow months ago, they gave readers plenty of time to get excited for snow or fill with dread for the colder temperatures.
Predicting the future that far in advance is difficult at best, and even short-range forecasts are wrong sometimes, so how realistic is a weather forecast that looks three or more months into the future?
Andrew Buck Michael, a meteorologist for ABC 6’s Good Day Columbus news program, responded to the question this way: “It’s always cold, and every winter has snow.”
It is a very general prediction for a very big area, so “to an extent, it is correct,” Michael said. Making such an early prediction means being short on specifics and focusing on the general ideas, mostly ideas that could be considered correct with many different actual outcomes.
That Farmers’ Almanac breaks down the United States into seven regions for its predictions. The Old Farmer’s Almanac divides the country into 17 regions and offers slightly more specific predictions for them, saying, for example, that temperatures will be “below normal” and snow “near to above normal in the east, below west; snowiest periods in late December, early January, early and late February.”
It’s still a very broad prediction, but it says it is going for long-range predictions, not specifics. “Our predictions reach further into the future than any app or weather service, and we take pride in sharing these insights months before anyone else,” the Farmers’ Almanac website says.
The scientific forecasts provided by meteorologists tend to cover a much shorter time frame, mainly a week out. But they are a lot more specific, predicting temperatures and weather for each day. Michael said in a phone interview that the public wants specifics in the daily forecasts, and the expectations can be challenging.
“There are very few professions that their entire job is to forecast the future,” Michael said.
The farther they look into the future, and the bigger the area included in the forecast, the harder it is to promise accuracy. But meteorologists do their best in preparing forecasts to be as specific as possible. To do this, Michael looks at a dozen or more different forecast models every day. Some are from the National Weather Service; others are from Europe, Canada or even Japan.
“Every morning, I spend about an hour or more just looking at all these different forecast models,” Michael said, “deciphering which ones look accurate and trying to get the best forecast from them.”
These include different types of models. Some, like the “high-resolution, rapid-refresh” models, give new predictions every hour but go out only about 18 hours. Other forecast models might come every six hours but forecast out 14-16 days. Furthermore, each model has its own trends and quirks.
For example, Michael said, the “GFS” model from the U.S. tends to over-predict precipitation, showing more rain and snow than is likely, based on his experience.
“You kind of just learn after years and years and years of looking at them, each little different tendency that some of them have,” Michael said. By sorting through all of this data, the weekly weather forecasts seen on local TV and weather apps are specific.
The Farmers’ Almanac, on the other hand, uses a “secret formula” developed when it began publishing in 1818, which it says “accounts for fluctuations in the environment on Earth, as well as solar activity (sunspots), the motion of the Moon, and other proprietary factors.”
The Old Farmer’s Almanac has a similar story with a secret formula from its founder, Robert B. Thomas, beginning in 1792, but it notes that it has “enhanced Thomas’s formula with state-of-the-art technology and modern science.”
The science includes solar studies, climatology, and meteorology. Overall, the Old Farmer’s Almanac is more open and specific with its formula, which is apparent in its more specific predictions. But on its website, it points out that these long-term forecasts are still “general trends for each region.”
One reason meteorologists can’t predict far into the winter, even from as close as November, is because a lot of the winter weather is based on how the jet stream sets up in the early days of December.
If the jet stream picks up moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean, as well as cold air, it makes snow. The path of the jet stream starts to fluctuate in early December but becomes more stable going into January and February, when the coldest temperatures generally arrive.
Because of the importance of the jet stream in predicting winter weather, meteorologists won’t get a good glimpse at what winter truly has in store for us until it begins to set up. “The forecast models don’t even go out to December yet,” Michael said on Nov. 11.
He said central Ohio has seen less than normal amounts of snow the past three winters, with an average of 12-14 inches each year. Historically, central Ohio gets 28-29 inches each year.
“It’s very uncommon to have this long of a stretch with very little to no snow,” Michael said. “We’ve only ever had one other time where there were four straight winters with very little snow. So, the odds of that happening again are very slim.”
For that reason, Michael said in November he believed that this winter will bring more snow than the previous few. And on Dec. 2, 5 inches of snow arrived in Licking County.
Michael in emails on Dec. 4 that the jet stream is “diving farther south and it is looking like we will be wetter, (snowier) this winter” while also bringing “near/colder than normal” temperatures.
“We have already picked up half the amount of snow that we picked up the last 4 winters” Michael said about the 5-6 inches that fell across central Ohio on Dec. 2. With more snow in the forecast, and the way the jet stream has set up, “this will likely be our snowiest winter since at least the 2020-2021 season,” he said.
In Granville, Ohio, people have noticed winter weather trends.
“We have less snow now than when I first got here,” said Sara Lee, a Granville resident who has lived here for 37 years. She also mentioned that there are now more stretches of warm weather in winter, getting into the 50-60 degree range, in January and February.
Similarly, Bruce Kubena, who has lived in Granville eight years, said that “it seems like it’s been cold and less snowy” recently compared to the earlier years he had lived here.
As to whether people believe in the Farmers’ Almanac predictions is a much more person-specific question.
Kubena didn’t seem to put much stock in the almanac predictions. Lee said she takes their predictions into consideration.
“If they say it’s going to be really cold, then I’m like, ‘Oh, I hope they’re wrong.’ And if they say it’s going to be warm, I’m like, ‘Oh, I hope they’re right,” Lee said. “I guess it’s not that I don’t believe in them or that I do believe in them; I just look at it because I’m interested and I’m assuming that these people are professionals in that field.”
Even Michael enjoys reading the almanac predictions.
“I always kind of look at the Farmers’ Almanac just out of curiosity,” Michael said. “If I’m ever checking out at the grocery store and I see it, I would always flip to see what it would say for our weather just to see how accurate it was.”
And by next fall, there will be only The Old Farmer’s Almanac to entertain almanac fans.
The Farmers’ Almanac announcement on Nov. 6 that the 2025-2026 edition would be its last publication came with a fond farewell to its loyal readers:
“Though the Almanac will no longer be available in print or online, it lives on within you,” its staff wrote. “So go ahead — plant your peas when the daffodils bloom. Watch for a red sky at night. Tell the kids how granddad always swore by the Almanac. That’s how our story stays alive.”
Emma Carr writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.