# Accuracy of Farmer's Almanac?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accuracy-of-farmers-almanac/132714>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 17, 2002, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accuracy-of-farmers-almanac/132714 "2002-10-17T19:03:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Engywook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bc8723/32.png) [@Engywook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engywook)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2002, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accuracy-of-farmers-almanac/132714/1 "2002-10-17T19:03:44Z")

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_Surely_ a study has been done, comparing the farmer’s almanac’s long range weather forecasts with historical data for the same period of time.

Does it really do better than chance? Or am I just as well off saying that the fourth of July next year might be… uh… a standard dev chillier than normal?

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**Author:** ![evilhanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba8739/32.png) [@evilhanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilhanz)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2002, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accuracy-of-farmers-almanac/132714/2 "2002-10-17T19:10:50Z")

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The publication claims 80 percent but what does that really mean? One study that I know of compared day-today weather reports with the Almanac over a fifty-year period. The accuracy on a day-to-day basis was about 50 percent. Read about it [here](http://www.unhmagazine.unh.edu/w01/weatherw01almanac.html). If the almanac predicts a 3-day sunny period and it ends up raining on one of those days, was the prediciton accurate? It’s a judgement call.