If you know folks who like to use the Farmers’ Almanac for their climate forecasts, you might be interested in this graphic put together by Jan Null, a weather analyst from California, which compares the Almanac’s forecast to what was actually observed across the US last winter. The graphic shows that for precipitation the results were mostly mixed across the US, although the forecast for the Southeast was mostly bad, and the temperature forecasts across the US were mostly bad, with the only area of agreement in southern Florida.
By comparison, I put up the forecasts from the Climate Prediction Center, which showed much better agreement for temperature, and mixed results for precipitation, since the wettest conditions actually happened west of us in the Southeast last winter. Keep in mind that the CPC forecasts show the probability of normal, above or below normal conditions, not what the actual values will be, so you can have a low-probability forecast be the one that occurs.
