Approximately the same techniques that is being used to predict AGW.

//had to go there

Throwupsand: You're right! When life gives you lemons, start mixing some farking drinks and enjoy the scenery.
It's getting hawt in here...

Sweet, chicks will be wearing less clothing!

mwsku83: Duh...global warming means every summer will be the warmest, ad infinitum.

No, it doesn't.

slickiedoo: IMO, this year was pretty effin hot....at least here in the East.


We must be living in a different East.

Here in DC for most of the summer it's been unusually mild. We've had a few weeks here late in the season that were hot, but most of the summer our temps have been in the '80s. I've been pleasantly suprised at just how many wonderfully mild days we've had, where you could sit outside and actually enjoy it. It's usually oppressively hot for most of the summer here in the DC area.

No one can know if their methods aren't super-scientific because they won't tell anyone what their method is.

No weather prediction service will go near predicting weather two years out, as Farmer's Almanac does; most likely because they can't get anywhere near the 85% accuracy. My trick knee can't do that, either. The Farmer's Almanac has yet to fail to meet my needs, so I buy it every year.

Well...I live in Central Texas and if continual Rain and mid 80's in June, July and August are the result of "global warming' then I am all for it. Much better than last years 100+ for 30+ days.

The wooly worm caterpillars are unprecedentedly bald.

Easy to do statistical analysis, eh?

Holy crap, even -I- could be a meteorologist, then.

impaler: No one can know if their methods aren't super-scientific because they won't tell anyone what their method is.

The weather is a nonlinear dynamical system sensitively dependent upon initial condition. It can't be predicted 4 days ahead much less 2 years.

Any system that goes beyonds tomorrow's forecast is non-scientific bullshat.

PS: stop saying the FA is accurate, it isn't. That isn't opinion, easy to do statistical analysis proves it. So stop being a damn moron.

Okay, show us that analysis. I think some proof as to the FA's accuracy one way or the other is in order here.

The Farmer's Almanac or the Old Farmers Almanac. Which one is the real thing? Sure the OFA is older, but FA is newer. The OFA says that it's going to be hot cause "there's always funny weather in years that end in 8." But the FA says that it's going to be a normal winter.

Hmmmmm. Which one is right? I'll give you a farkin hint!!!!!

Here's some analysis. When I go on holiday to Ontario next week, it's going to be rainy and miserable, because it always is whenever I go home, even in winter.

If I'm right I'm remustering to met tech.

Okay, this isn't about summer, but I thought it was interesting:
In Winterpeg, on Dec. 31st 2006, we had 30cm of snow.
Then on January 1st-4th, we had unusually warm weather of -1C to
+5 Celsius.
THAT was interesting driving. A whole dump of snow melting then turning to ice, then on top of that, a rain shower when it was +5C.

Farmer's Almanac is like a horoscope. It just vague enough so that at least part of it (or even sometimes all of it) will be right
(or at least some-what right).

stop badmouthing the almanac. what's next on your list? astrology, tarot, or numerology maybe?

i'm rubber and you're glue. whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.

TXEric: absoluteparanoia: Farmer's Almanac is fairly accurate.

My money is on Cecil the Weather Beetle.

/obscure?
//I'm Justin Addison...

S' OK, son, I'm just a Clampett.

I am sure it also says in there "get off my lawn!" or something similar.

Actually, I'm not entirely sure if it rained that week or not...
Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. But the rain is what instantly came to mind.

But I DO remember that it was freeze/melt/freeze/melt/freeze/melt
for five days straight.

7th Son of a 7th Son: I don't know about the rest of the country, but it's absolutely farking beautiful outside today. Low 80s no clouds.

Freezin' my arse of here in Boston. It's been a pretty chilly summer here overall, at least to my taste.

starlost: stop badmouthing the almanac. what's next on your list? astrology, tarot, or numerology maybe?

i'm rubber and you're glue. whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.

Reminds me of a recent episode of "Psyche" where the main wrote the horoscopes for the paper but made them specific to people he knew.

My personal opinion of how the weather has been this season (It's been so farking cold/hot/rainy/sunny, it can't be natural!) supersedes all climatology.

everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you...

/nada

Cool boss. brings on the rain.

Correct me if i am wrong from my simple google search, but isn't the Farmer Almanac based on an old database and they use a modeling formula to predict the weather? Its supportively ~85% accurate, which ain't bad.

superstevo: Correct me if i am wrong from my simple google search, but isn't the Farmer Almanac based on an old database and they use a modeling formula to predict the weather? Its supportively ~85% accurate, which ain't bad.

If a doctor told you that you had a ~85% chance to live for more than a week, would you seek a 2nd opinion or just ride it out?

Have any of you actually looked at the Farmers Almanac? Sure it's 100% accurate.. they'll say in the upper midwest it'll rain during the 2nd week in September. Dubuque, Iowa gets a half an inch of rain one day during that week and WOW the Farmer's Almanac sure was accurate! For the next week they'll say it'll be sunny.. even though a crapload of the area is rainy, it's sunny in St. Cloud, MN for two days... WOW! That Farmers Almanac sure is accurate.

mwsku83: Duh...global warming means every summer will be the warmest, ad infinitum.

Or the wettest, or the driest.

They find something new every year.

I preferred it when we were all worried aboutnooclear war.

That book is right more of the time than all the multi million dollar weather modeling superclusters and supercomputers in this country combined.

Seriously, the National Weather Service has some of the most extensive computing power known to man at its disposal and they get it right less than a method that's been around for over 100 years.

Its kind of scary actually.

tshetter: Benjamin Franklin, Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress (1745).

June 25, 1745

That was great!

This was my first summer in Las Vegas. I don't have air conditioning in my car. It wasn't as bad as last summer in Austin when my AC broke. I thought I was going to die.

I think it is very interesting that here, even if it's 110 degrees, go to a shady spot and it will feel at least 10-15 degrees cooler. I love it when it rains here but damn it, who would have thought my allergies would come back?!

/lizard lizard lizard

impaler: Any system that goes beyonds tomorrow's forecast is non-scientific bullshat.

Yes, and even that is barely ever right.
Guess which one costs more?
Want to know the weather? Look out a window. Go outside. DIAF

miltoncharles: Maybe if we quit cutting down acres of trees to print stuff like "The Old Farmer's Almanac" global warming would be just that much less of an issue.

/just sayin'

I see what you did there...
"...much less of an issue". = less issues

Hmmmm. Well, this might just be coincidence but over teh past five years I've been using the OFA to decide on my ski-trip dates (generally the first two weeks in February in Colorado). Every year it's hit the nail on the head, no kidding, with the conditions they've predicted being quite accurate. Keep in mind that the OFA is more general than specific but in my particular case it's been a great resource.

mwsku83: Duh...global warming means every summer will be the warmest, ad infinitum.

I feel that the evidence for global warming is overwhelmingly conclusive. That being said, global warming MEANS NO SUCH THING. Anthropogenic Climate Change does not supersede all natural variation. I suggest you look up the term "bell curve" and realize that even with global warming normal probabilities still apply but that the center of the bell curve moves minutely towards warmer as time goes by.

My wife and I actually planned our wedding day based the history in the FA for the day. It predicted a sunny day about 3 months before the actual day.

Yes, but what does it say about the winter of 2012?

All I know is that there is more hair growing on my shoulders as I enter my mid 30's, so that means it's going to be a harsh winter.

/For south Texas
//Fark you, 59 degrees is about all the cold I can stand

Told ya them there scientist priests ranting about global warming were fake! Farmers almanac has always been very accurate about the 20 and 50 year planetary cycles in NA. And, gee, guess what? The planet will cool down again, just like always.... really! wait and see!

farmers almanac has NOTHING over ask jeeves.