HOUSTON — Do you own a heavy coat and maybe some wool gloves and a scarf? If the Farmer's Almanac has its way, it's going to be 'stinging cold' in Texas this coming winter if this half baked prognostication is correct.
For the folks who moved to Texas to escape the frozen grip of Jack Frost the good news here is that the Almanac, despite "it's top secret use of mathematical and astronomical formulas, that relies on sunspot activity, tidal action and planetary position and many other factors" is not based in reality. It's a fun, ''where's waldo'' publication that does little more than stir the excitement of winter lovers with far flung expectations.
You don't have to look very far back to find that the Almanac was spectacularly wrong. Last year's forecast if you remember called for a cold and snowy winter in north Texas, including Dallas, while south and southeast Texas was to be "cold and wet."
It turns out that south and southeast Texas had an incredibly snowy winter with not one, not two but three different winter events in Houston -- one of which brought Houston to a crawl. Even Brownsville recorded accumulating snowfall with areas near Corpus Christi reporting a mind-boggling 7 inches of snow!
Our friends to the north in Dallas? Zero. Not a single flurry. The only flake seen in Dallas was the almanac itself on the store shelves.
Maybe Not So Crazy After all?
Granted I'm a sucker for the almanac. It's fun to look at and gets the kid in me excited. However a far more established and credible meteorologist Joe Bastardi with Weatherbell Analytics, says that the idea of a back-to-back accumulating snow in the deep south may not be so far flung after all. In fact, he says it ''will'' happen.
The current forecast out of Weatherbell.com shows snowfall averaging 167% of normal in southeast Texas. That sounds like a lot until you realize our annual average snowfall is a trace -- basically meaning a few flakes manage to "make it into the bucket" at the airport once a year.
In a back and forth tweet with Bastardi, he told me: "no offense but the significance is not that it could snow, it says large areas of the south will see snow for the second year in a row. When was the last time that happened?"
Well the answer to that was back in 2008 and 2009 when it snowed on December 10th and December 4th respectively -- each setting a record for the earliest snowfall on record.
So while the idea of snow here seems loony, there is precedence for snowfall here and a precedence for it to happen in back to back years. Could this be the second time on record that it happens back to back? That remains to be seen!
