Is the Farmer's Almanac weather forecast trustworthy?

Another summer goes by and another serving of predictions for next winter season. 

The Farmer’s Almanac, that traditional institution that began publishing in 1818 just released its weather forecast for the winter of 2022-2023. Its predictions calls for a winter season with plenty of snow, rain, and mush—as well as some record-breaking cold temperatures!

Well, that’s for the entire nation, and Utah, where all my attention is focused, is straddling a “Mild, dryer than normal” zone with one that is qualified as “Hibernation, glacial snow-filled...” It also claims that the first bite of winter should come earlier than last year’s. 

December 2022 looks stormy and cold nationwide, with an active storm pattern developing and hanging around for most of the season, over the eastern (uninteresting for me), half of the country. 

While the Almanac says it can predict weather with around 80 percent accuracy, a University of Illinois study disagreed, saying the Almanac was only 52 percent accurate—which is essentially random chance. Its mostly science-oriented detractors say the forecast is not full of white snow but “full of crap”, and there's a good chance it's right anyway as it might as good as flipping a coin. 

We’ll see how accurate or lucky it was when the snow melts next spring. In the meantime it should probably be relegated as another form of “fake news”...