Every month I post maps and links to the latest seasonal forecasts from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. Most of you read them, and some of you even believe them. Here in the Southeast we generally have a better chance of skill because our winter climate is tied to the ENSO phase (currently coming out of La Niña) which gives us some confidence in the patterns we are likely to see over the winter. NOAA has just published their post-analysis of their winter forecasts for this past winter, and as expected they did pretty well, especially in the Southeast, although some things got missed due to non-ENSO factors. You can read their analysis here.
Note that you will never see a similar analysis from either the Farmers’ Almanac or the Old Farmer’s Almanac, because they won’t publish their results. And scientific analyses have shown that both of these sources have no more skill than pure luck. So you can read them for entertainment, but don’t expect to get accurate scientific information from either one.
