Old Farmer's Almanac: 2008 will be the warmest year in a century
DUBLIN, N.H. --The Old Farmer's Almanac is relying on time-honored, complex calculations to predict that 2008 will be the warmest year in a century, but it also is banking on a factor anyone can understand: years that end in "8" have weird weather.
People still talk about the frigid winters of 1748 and 1888, tornadoes of 1908, Northwest floods and the Northeast hurricane of 1938. If the forecast and tradition hold true, they'll look back on the heat of 2008.
"At the very least, we expect it to be the warmest year in the last century overall, so people will talk about it for that reason alone," said publisher John Pierce.
This year's edition, on newsstands Wednesday, predicts a warmer than average winter in much of the country. Believers will look for below-average snowfall, except for a narrow swath extending from northeast Texas to Northern New England.
Using a secret formula based on sunspots, weather patterns and meteorology, the almanac points to a hot summer in most areas, but cool and dry in the upper Midwest. It's also looking for drought prompting water management and wildfire problems in Florida and the western states. Elsewhere, look for more rain than normal.
Established in 1792, the Old Farmer's Almanac is North America's oldest continuously published periodical. The little yellow magazine still comes with the hole in the corner so it can hang in outhouses.
Boasting 18.5 million readers, this year's edition contains traditionial tips on gardening, humorous stories on social trends and astronomical information and tide charts so accurate the government considered banning them during World War II, fearing they would help German spies.
The Old Farmer's Almanac is not to be confused with the Maine-based Farmers' Almanac, published only since 1818.
The Almanac is confident of its traditional "80 percent" accuracy, but forecasters are keeping their fingers crossed, coming off a tough year.
"We were correct in saying it was going to be an up-and-down winter," Pierce said. "We just missed which month was up and which month was down."
Missing a forecast is nothing compared to some of the colossally misguided predictions listed in a feature called the "Clouded Crystal Ball Department."
Would you rather miss a cold spell or have made this prediction: "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home"?
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., said that in 1977, about two decades before just about everyone had a computer in their home.
"The Wonders of Blunders" points out mistakes that made history, including the exploits of Christopher Columbus, who ran into the Western Hemisphere trying to find a way to the Orient. Microwave ovens were inspired when radar equipment melted a worker's chocolate bar.
This year's edition, the 216th, also predicts social trends, saying homes will become more environmentally friendly and bosses will be nicer -- "generally."
Editor-in-Chief Jud Hale's favorite feature this year is "How to Get Lucky the Old-Fashioned Way."
Men: Avoid saying good night three times at the end of a date.
Women: Do not sit on the corner of a table.
Both: Do not write love letters with red ink.
Keeping pace with the 21st Century, the Old Farmer's Almanac is online with current weather forecasts, tides tables and other information that can be personalized, based on a reader's ZIP code. This year, for the first time, the entire issue is available electronically.
Hale said incorporating technology should not be surprising.
"If (founder) Robert B. Thomas was alive today, he'd be in the forefront of high tech," Hale said. "He'd want to have the very latest abilities to communicate and do the weather and be involved with science."
Pierce said the almanac has survived for more than two centuries because it adapts, and has a touch of humor.
"If you can make people laugh, you have a sense of what people's likes or dislikes are," he said. As an example, he cited a short story this year on how to wash your hands. Hint: the water temperature really doesn't matter.
"People will smile," Pierce said.
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