Farmer’s almanac predicts lots of cold, snow for New Jersey … when?

Just a month ago, New Jersey was undergoing another brutal heat wave — with feels-like temperatures around 100 and enough heat to be dangerous to the elderly, children or anyone with a weak system.

But when's it going to start getting cold?

The Old Farmer's Almanac predicts summer temperatures around 70 degrees throughout September, and then an average of 62 in October. That's actually fairly pleasant.

But it warns we've got the coldest periods coming in "late December, early to mid- and mid-to-late- January, and early and mid-February." And it says we should expect more snow than usual (after January's storm dumped a whole season's worth in one shot, we hope it's nothing like that!), with the most snow in mid-to=late January and early-to-mid-February.

It predicts the first fall frost on Oct. 15 (and says that's got about a 50 percent chance to be right).

But take that with a huge grain of salt.

New Jersey 101.5's own meteorologist, Dan Zarrow says the Farmer's Almanac is by "the only 'weather forecasters' in the world who can get away with saying 'it might be cold and it might snow this winter' and call themselves 80 to 90 percent accurate."

"I am generally not a fan of seasonal or long-range forecasting," Zarrow said. "Yes, sometimes we can catch overall trends and use past seasons' weather patterns (called analogues) to make some broad generalizations.  But to provide any specifics or have any real confidence in such a forecast?  It's just stretching the science. We have a hard enough time forecasting the weather five days out — you think a prediction five months out is going to be accurate at all?"

And, as he noted: "It only takes one big snowstorm to make for a memorable winter season.  (Case in point: last winter and the January blizzard)."

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