The 2008 edition of the Old Farmer’s Almanac is on book shelves and editor Peter Geiger is predicting "mild" weather for the midwest for the rest of ’07. Geiger says he expects more fair conditions and normal rainfall for the rest of September and October.
The Almanac is predicting a "milder than normal" winter, with snowfall in mid-November and a couple of snowstorms in December. "There’ll be some winter," Geiger says, "but we think that overall, pretty much west of the Mississippi (River) is going to be a little bit milder. East of the Mississippi, particularly the east coast, could get colder weather and maybe more significant snowfall." Editors of the Old Farmer’s Almanac have been issuing long-range weather forecasts since their first publication in 1818.
Geiger says, "We do it based upon a mathematical formula that was put together by our first editor, David Young. He was a mathmetician, a calculator, and an astronomer – so, the mathmatical formula gets applied to sunspot activity, planet positions, the affect the moon has on the earth…it allow us to do our weather some two years in advance." Geiger claims readers of the Old Farmers’ Almanac estimate that it’s annual weather forecast is accurate up to 85 percent of the time.