---
title: "Almanacs call for Thanksgiving snow in the Upper Midwest; NOAA’s November outlook leans warm there"
url: https://badiyaa.com/thanksgiving-2026-almanac-forecast-vs-noaa-outlook/
published: 2026-10-20T22:20:00+01:00
modified: 2026-10-20T18:45:46+01:00
section: Science
publisher: Badiyaa
---

# Almanacs call for Thanksgiving snow in the Upper Midwest; NOAA’s November outlook leans warm there

In a five-winter test by the Colorado Climate Center, NOAA's seasonal outlooks scored +24 and the Farmers' Almanac +1, where random guessing averages zero.

Both of the best-known US almanacs predict snow showers in the Upper Midwest during Thanksgiving week, Monday, November 23, to Thursday, November 26, 2026. NOAA’s [Climate Prediction Center November outlook](https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/fxus07.html), issued October 15, points the other way: it gives the Great Lakes, the Upper Mississippi Valley and the Northern Plains some of the highest odds anywhere in the Lower 48 of a warmer-than-normal month. The holiday is 37 days away, well beyond the range at which anyone can promise a snowy day.

## What the two almanacs predict for November 23 to 26

The Farmers’ Almanac splits the country into seven zones for its Thanksgiving outlook. Across Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and Wisconsin it favors “colder, more winterlike conditions” with snow showers or flurries. It adds light snow in the northern Plains and Rockies, periods of rain in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, and mild, mostly dry and sunny weather in a Southeast zone that runs from Virginia to Florida. Its summary for the nation is an ordinary late-November week, not a coast-to-coast storm.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac, which says its holiday outlook comes from the predictions printed in its 2027 edition, uses 18 regions. For Thanksgiving Day it shows snow and chilly air in the Upper Midwest, a rain-and-snow mix in a Lower Lakes region stretching from Syracuse to Milwaukee, and rain along the East Coast from Maine to Florida. It also calls for sunshine and “very warm temperatures” across the High Plains, from Bismarck to Denver.

Laid side by side, the two disagree about as often as they agree. For the northern Plains, one sees warm sunshine and the other cold with possible light snow. For the Southeast, one expects holiday showers and the other a good shot at dry skies. They line up in three places: a snow risk around the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest, rain in the Pacific Northwest, and a chance of flakes in the northern Northeast.

## How NOAA forecasts November instead

NOAA issues no Thanksgiving forecast this early. Its monthly outlook gives the probability that temperature and precipitation will land above, near or below the 1991–2020 normal, using dynamical computer models, multi-model ensembles, sea surface temperatures and decadal trends. For November 2026, forecaster Johnna Infanti wrote that El Niño is expected to be the dominant climate driver. That tilts the odds toward a warm northern tier and a wet South, with 60 to 70% chances of above-normal precipitation in parts of the Southeast and a lean toward drier-than-normal weather in parts of the Great Lakes.

The Southeast matters here because it is where the almanacs split and where NOAA’s models agree most strongly, with some ensembles above 70%. The agency’s [winter outlook for December to February](https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/el-nino-looms-large-over-us-winter-outlook) continues the pattern. Ken Graham, director of the National Weather Service, said a very strong El Niño “tilts the odds toward stormier weather across the South.” NOAA is also blunt about snow: its seasonal outlooks do not project snowfall totals, because snow forecasts “are generally not predictable more than a week in advance.”

## What 2 outside checks found about almanac accuracy

The Old Farmer’s Almanac claims “80% accuracy,” Nick Bond noted in a 2010 analysis on the [University of Washington climate site](https://climate.uw.edu/2010/11/12/on-the-weather-forecasts-made-by-the-old-farmers-almanac/). He compared its monthly winter forecasts for the Pacific Northwest from 1990 to 2002 with NOAA climate-division observations. The correlation was essentially zero for temperature and about -0.2 for precipitation, slightly worse than chance. He also cited a 1981 University of Illinois evaluation of 60 monthly forecasts at 32 US stations: the almanac got the direction of the temperature departure right 50.7% of the time and precipitation 51.9%, against 50% for a coin flip.

In 2024 Peter Goble, assistant state climatologist at the [Colorado Climate Center](https://climate.colostate.edu/blog/index.php/2024/08/23/should-you-use-the-farmers-almanac-winter-forecast/), scored the Farmers’ Almanac’s winter outlooks against the Climate Prediction Center’s over five winters, 2019–20 to 2023–24, using gridded PRISM climate data. A correct above- or below-normal call earned 3 points and a correct near-normal call 2, with penalties for misses, so random guessing averages zero. NOAA’s center finished at +24, beating more than 99% of 10,000 random simulations; the almanac scored +1, beating only about 55%. Goble added that the almanac’s stated methods, which include sunspot cycles, tidal forces and the Moon, have no peer-reviewed backing.

## Limits: 7 regions, 5 winters, no holiday weeks

Neither check is a peer-reviewed study, and both are small. Goble’s scorecard treated NOAA’s probabilities as yes-or-no calls, and he said a five-year sample is thin for any single region; in the Pacific Northwest the almanac beat NOAA, +3 to 0. In 2020–21 NOAA’s warm call for the South-Central region was badly wrong when the February 2021 cold snap hit Texas. Bond’s numbers end in 2002. Neither tested a single holiday week, and phrases such as “a cool nip in the air” cannot be scored at all.

## When a usable Thanksgiving forecast arrives

NOAA’s 8–14 day outlook is issued daily between 3 and 4 p.m. Eastern and covers days 8 through 14 after issue; the October 19 edition covered October 27 to November 2. Counting back 14 days from November 26 makes November 12 the first edition to reach Thanksgiving Day, and the editions from November 12 through November 15 each span the full Monday-to-Thursday travel window. Before then, the next official markers are the updated November outlook on October 31 and NOAA’s refreshed three-month outlook on November 19.

## Further reading

- [Colorado Climate Center: Should You Use the Farmer’s Almanac Winter Forecast?](https://climate.colostate.edu/blog/index.php/2024/08/23/should-you-use-the-farmers-almanac-winter-forecast/)

- [NOAA: El Nino looms large over U.S. Winter Outlook](https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/el-nino-looms-large-over-us-winter-outlook)

- [NOAA Climate Prediction Center: 8 to 14 Day Outlooks](https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/)

*Image: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons*

*This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*