The Back of the Front: Keeping the Almanac Honest

摘要

Nick Bond is a researcher at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Washington. For years he has been reading and questioning the weather predictions in the venerated Old Farmer's Almanac. Since the almanac claims an 80 percent accuracy rate in its year-long forecasts, Bond decided to take a closer look at the almanac's actual predictions. Bond examined 13 years of data from the Pacific Northwest and compared the data to the almanac's predictions for the same time period. Bond's conclusion: the predictions are a load of hooey. For example, he found that the almanac's temperature forecasts had about the same odds as flipping a coin. And its predictions for precipitation were even worse.