Old Farmer's Alamanac right on the money

A while back I did an article on what farmer's think of the Old Farmer's Almanac and it's long-range weather predictions.

Opinions were mixed, and there were some folks who seemed a bit reluctant to admit to taking stock in it at all. So on a bit of a lark, I went to the website and copied the long-range forecasts for our region for January and February. I taped it to a corner of my desk top, where I can check on it week by week.

"Jan 1-5: Snow, then flurries, mild." OK, sort of. It was certainly mild, and there was in fact at least one very light flurry.

"Jan 6-12: Snowy periods, turning very cold." Up to the day before yesterday I was chuckling over this one, until I looked out the window yesterday morning.

Soooooo, "Jan 13-16: Sunny, mild."

We'll see. You can check for yourself at their website here http://www.almanac.com/

They do have a 7-day forecast on the website, which you can find for our region here http://www.almanac.com/weather/forecast/zipcode/56258

So far the short-range forecast calls for sunny weather on Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday, with snow on Saturday and Monday, which kind of splits the difference in the long-range forecast. Temps are supposed to be below freezing but not below zero, which could count as mild for Minnesota in January.

There's no trick to getting the short-range forecast. Heck all you have to do is copy the National Weather Service site. But if the long-range forecast the Almanac committed to at the beginning of the year is on track even slightly more than half the time, I'll be impressed.