HOW ACCURATE WAS OUR FORECAST LAST WINTER?

Our overall accuracy rates in forecasting the direction of the change in temperature compared with the actual previous winter season across the 18 regions of the United States was 72.2%, while our accuracy rate in forecasting the change in precipitation was 88.9%. So, our overall accuracy rate was 80.5%, which is slightly above our traditional average rate of 80%. The only regions in which our temperature forecasts were incorrect were the Atlantic Corridor, Florida, Intermountain, Pacific Southwest, and Hawaii. In precipitation, we were correct in all regions with the exception of the Ohio Valley and Upper Midwest.

Most of the places in our "A Pa rade of Snowstorms" area (the northern tier of states) had above-normal snowfall. We also forecast "Snowy" in Alaska, and many parts of the state did have above-normal snowfall. Nearly every place else that normally has winter snowfall was below normal. We did forecast below-normal snowfall in most of these areas, but we forecast too much snow in most spots from the Appalachians westward to the Intermountain region.

The table below shows how the actual average temperature differed from our forecast for November through March for one city in each region. On average, these actual winter temperatures differed from our forecasts by 1.08 degrees F.

Get your local forecast at Almanac.com/Weather.