BRRRing on the cold: Canada's winter forecast calls for frigid weather | Canada

Do people still take the Farmer's Almanac seriously? These weather predictions are based on things like sunspots and observations on the bushiness of squirrel tails. In a word, it's pseudoscience, and it is accurate in the same way as astrology.

Farmers almanac, the astrology of meterology.

Just a friendly FYI that the Almanacs have essentially no skill in seasonal forecasting and rely on vagaries and generalities to try and convince readers that the wide net the cast to try and capture chance is actually skill.

Even physical sciences based forecasts can struggle to hit 50-60% skill on seasonal forecasts. Even in the highlights posted here:

• Of course the Canadian Prairies and NW Ontario will be cold; they're some of the coldest places in North America in winter, often even colder than many parts of the Arctic as the northwest flow along the western flank of the Polar Vortex helps to funnel some of the coldest air on the planet in Siberia across the pole and through the Canadian Arctic southwards through the Prairies.
• Newfoundland and Labrador routinely get blasts of bitterly cold Arctic air from northern Quebec and Baffin Island as passing lows lift northwards into Baffin Island and occlude into the Polar Vortex, but it's softened by the relatively warm waters of the adjacent Atlantic waters. Of course they won't be as cold as the land-locked continental regions to the west.
• B.C., especially the western half of it, is among the warmest places in Canada in winter with the cold air routinely kept at bay by a relatively mild onshore flow from the Pacific. The exception is when a particularly strong Arctic outbreak develops over western Canada and a potent high develops over the Rockies which provides a strong surface outflow that drives the Arctic air over the Rockies and out through the coast.

This "forecast" literally just describes essentially every winter in Canada. The fact this pseudoscience that is demonstrably unskilled gets so much visibility each year.

I'm fine with that. Cold winters are supposed to be normal out here anyway.

It'll help slow the encroachment of invasive plant and animal species from other parts of the continent.

I've started listening to Ryan Hall on youtube, and unlike these guys, his prediction is that the prairies are going to be pretty warm due to the El Nino this year, and instead the cold burst is going to be further east in Ontario and Quebec.

Though he's American centric, so you can only inference results from his predictive maps, but he does say that there's a high chance (something like 25%) of a massive snow storm either around Chicago or Boston, which also means that the entire area around them including southern Ontario is going to be pretty cold.

Other early winter predictions I've seen suggest that western Canada and the prairies are going to be pretty warm this winter, while Ontario and Quebec is going to be hit by a rebounding polar jet stream. The coasts are going to be pretty wet on both sides, but the prairies are going to be very dry and warm, all the way to including most of northern Ontario.

Every source I've seen contradicts what these guys say aside from the obvious no brainers like BC's forecast.

This is very strange, since meteorologists are currently observing a developing El Niño phenomena which should result in a warmer winter. I guess we'll see which one is right in a few months. I know which one I'd put my money on.