Maybe you’ve noticed it, too. The Old Farmer’s Almanac seems especially pleased with itself this year. A cheerful cover blurb calls the 2018 edition “USEFUL, WITH A PLEASANT DEGREE OF HUMOR.”
I, for one, am not laughing.
Not after the onslaught of damaging and demoralizing hurricanes this fall.
Not after noticing that the 226-year-old annual takes a page off from its litany of moon-phase tables to brag about its weather forecast last winter: “[Our] 80.6% overall accuracy rate,” says the Almanac, “was slightly above our historical average rate of 80%.”
And especially not after finding out that this unsympathetic little booklet, which begins its calendar year each November, is predicting plenty more stormy weather for the winter and spring ahead.
I, for one, am glad that scientists are hard at work nailing down evidence that global warming is real, that it is man-made, and that it affects even our short term weather. But I can’t help wondering whether something even darker may be at work.
To try and get to the bottom of this question, I’ve been conducting a study of my own—one that, if I may say so, will end up rivaling or exceeding the importance of anything compiled by expert climatologists. After months of research, I’ve identified the cause of our historically stormy season—and much of the extreme weather that has become the new norm.
It’s the Almanac, itself.
Many readers are aware of its top-secret formula for predictions that takes sunspots, tidal patterns, and planetary movements into account. It’s the one that links upcoming weather to what might be observed in a pig spleen or persimmon seeds, and which, according to the Almanac’s website, is “locked in a black box.”
In fact, after analyzing my own secret data, I now realize that the Almanac’s closely-guarded formula isn’t for forecasting at all. It’s a recipe. A prescription, if you will, that when activated by the editors and “meteorologists” at the Almanac’s offices, actually enhances stormy conditions.
I don’t want to frighten people but, from its quiet mountain headquarters in Dublin, N.H., and from the very hour of its founding in 1792, The Old Farmer’s Almanac has been making our weather worse. Much worse.
A more than 80.6% accuracy in long-term predictions? That doesn’t sound possible, does it? That is, unless some behind-the-scenes weather tampering has been going on. Consider this simple equation: the more accuracy, the more responsibility. In other words, the more of our branch clearing and ice-chopping the staff has to answer for.
How can I be sure of all this? I regret that there just isn’t space here to elaborate on the details of my data or methodology. Some of it is, to be frank, extremely technical: the kind of thing only leading weather psychologists will understand. And, as I said before—like the Almanac‘s prize formula—it’s a secret.
But think about it. Along with its Maine-based competitor, The Farmers' Almanac, this popular guide to planting and rural homesteading positively rockets to the top of those all-important supermarket-rack bestseller lists when potential buyers are running scared. The Old Farmer’s Almanac’s editor told CNN.com a while back that about 3 million copies of the publication are now in print, and that it just passed one million fans on Facebook.
Bingo. Pay dirt.
Historically bad weather equals handsome profits, which, over time, has turned The Old Farmer’s Almanac into the fabulously remunerative Fortune 5,000 enterprise that it is today. Put two and two together and the darkly ambitious planning of Almanac founder Robert B. Thomas and his successors there becomes all too clear.
Still, I’m willing to take the high road on this disturbing matter. I’m offering the Almanac a one-time deal. If it retracts its dire predictions for yet more storminess next year, I will file and forget about my ground-breaking inquiry into its thoughtless, even destructive behavior over the past two centuries.
I’m giving the Almanac a deadline of the first drift of snow that piles up on my front porch. The very first drift. No longer.
I’ll let you know what I hear.
Peter Mandel is the author of the read-aloud bestseller Jackhammer Sam (Macmillan/Roaring Brook) and other books for kids, including Zoo Ah-Choooo (Holiday House) and Bun, Onion, Burger (Simon & Schuster).