Almanac accuracy

80 percent, or 29.5?

The almanacs claim about 80 percent. We scored five winters of their archived forecasts and got 29.5. Photo: Famartin, CC BY-SA.

The method

Scored against real gauges

139 station-seasons from NOAA daily records, at the 50 cities the almanac itself lists. We did not get to pick the sample.

25 Feb 2021

Snow stops at a line

False colour: red is snow, green is bare ground. The edge cuts straight through states. One forecast covers all of it. Image: NASA.

Colorado

One state, two calls

Denver sits in the region called below normal this winter, Grand Junction in the one called above normal. Same state. Image: NASA, 13 Nov 2024.

Last winter

It was partly right

For 2025-26 it called below normal and 66% of our stations finished below. A rule saying below normal every year scored 82%.

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