Farmer's Almanac Predicts a Snowy, Cold, Wild Winter

The Farmer's Almanac has published its 2007-2008 Winter Outlook for the United States and Canada. The publication came out yesterday and is calling for a cold, wild winter east of the Mississippi River.

More bluntly, expect more snow and cold than normal here in New England, much of the Northeast and Great Lakes. Expect cold conditions in the Mid Atlantic with above normal snowfall and cold conditions relative to normal in the southeastern United States. The West will be more mild overall, but even in the northern and central Plains where they are calling for moderate to mild, there will certainly still be outbreaks of Arctic cold and heavy duty snows no doubt. Overall, they think that it will be milder than normal for much of the country west of the mighty Mississippi.

The normal snowfall in any given winter for the city of Boston is around 42" with annual snowfall rapidly increasing as you head out of the city by 5-10 miles, getting up to around 50-60" rather quickly especially west and northwest of the city. Average snowfall, as you can see from the map to the right, (courtesty of Eastern Weather Forums member) average annual snowfall quickly increases to 60-70" out past Bedford, through western Middlesex, Worcester County, and northeastern CT and NW RI.

This map is a very good representation of what kind of snowfall you can expect in any given winter here in SNE. Last winter was not a good winter for snow as Boston came in with generally under 20" and where I live, we only picked up 30-32" of snowfall the entire year, not bad considering that we stood at 2-3" for half of the winter season before the Valentine's Day mess, which I will always remember leaving Logan Airport at 10PM with a temperature of 27 degrees, freezing rain, and winds up to 40 mph out of the NE. It was a great vacation though. We made it off that night.

Farmer's Almanac is calling for above average snowfall, so those are your averages. Above average snowfall could be 43" or 87"as in 2004-2005. We just can't be sure on this and bet all our money that FA will be totally right. Last winter they called for above average snowfall and we ended up with less than half of what we normally receive. Its up to the weather gods. I just wanted to post this and let you decide for yourself.