Today's Forecast

Early showers, clearing up pretty quickly for a sunny day. High of 74.

Gothamist's mom is back in sweaty Louisiana now, but more house guests have arrived. (Hey, the futon was already unfolded. Why not?) These guys came down from Burlington last night and immediately began oohing and aahing about the NYC weather. "It's been in the 50s at home!" they said, in a way only incredulous Southerners can.

Gothamist did a little bit of Vermont weather exploring. Turns out Weather Underground also has an archived weather feature--and this one goes back all the way to 1920! (The Old Farmer's Almanac just revisits up to 1973.) Also: graphs...if you're in to that sort of thing.

Anyway, the Vermont weather right now doesn't seem like it's that different from New York weather. Though yesterday's mean temp of 56 was under the 62 degree average, what's six degrees between friends?

The big score was finding Vermont WeatherWorks, a local weather vane company. Weather Vanes are really fascinating--Gothamist has been meaning to write about their history. In the meantime, enjoy the above Corgi vane. He doesn't look exactly like Kevin, but close!

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June 3, 2004 7:46 AM

Comments [rss]

Leslita

Good question--like you, I tend to associate the Farmer's Alamanac with its knowledge of historical weather trends.

But it looks like they do have a meteorologist on staff, and that he uses a combination of solar cycles, climatology and meteorology to make long-range predictions at beginning of the season, without tweaking them if trends change. They say they're usually about 80% accurate in the end.

Read this for more info: http://www.almanac.com/weathercenter/howwepredict.php

Hope that helps! Sounds like you're planning an event for a few months down the road?

AQ

I have a question - is the Farmers Almanac any good at predicting weather or should it just be used as a source of info (well, it rained 15 days in June for the past 30 years so think about that when planning your event)? Any insight would be appreciated.

KP

Weather vanes are like antiques for weather geeks and can be very cool. But I don't think I wan't a big "Striking Trout" or sperm whale on mine.

Vermont kick ass. The Burlington area is load of fun and gets some great weather too (including rockin' storms in the summer). And they have a great forecast office there too.

I need to visit my Burlington mates this summer...