The Farmers & Old Farmers Almanac's 2016/17 Prediction

Okay. So what's it going to be?!!!

 

I think we can get a decent winter!
I want snow, lots of it early and hope it stays, it only stays so long anyway, I'd rather have white than mud and brown.

 

It is going to be "winter" one of many, unpredictable, but there for sure.

 

I'll post you in April and tell you how the winter went. Wait for it!

 

Weve had two mild winters in the Canadian Rockies so Im looking forward to anything close to "normal". Even mild winters will give us snow where you dont see the grass for months on end but Id like to see something a bit more traditional. I do a fair amount of ice fishing and find that ice thickness is a good indicator of our mean temperature through the season. Last year I stopped ice fishing end of February whereas normally its early April. This kind of sucks since I look forward to the late season kokanee salmon (a smaller version of sockeye) fishing through the ice. If you havent tried them in the smoker youre missing out! The flip side is I was able to access the back roads for early season firewood harvesting so it wasnt all bad!

 

Long Cold Winter


It was October and the Indians on a remote reservation asked their new Chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild.

Since he was a Chief in a modern society he had never been taught he old secrets.

When he looked at the sky he couldn't tell what the winter was going to be like.

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared.

But being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?"

"It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold," the meteorologist at the weather service responded.

So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared.

A week later he called the National Weather Service again. "Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?"

"Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "it's going to be a very cold winter."

The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.

Two weeks later the Chief called the National Weather Service again. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"

"Absolutely," the man replied. "It's looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever."

"How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.

The weatherman replied, "We're sure it's going to be cold because the Indians are collecting firewood like crazy!"

 

We had two very hard winters in a row, then last year was mild (except that night it got down to -21*). I would like something toward the mild side, but with more snow than last year - but don't want as much snow as the previous two years. Yes, I'm like Goldilocks and want it "just right".