'Old Farmer's Almanac' predicts major hurricane for Florida in 2010

The Old Farmer's Almanac — that 218-year-old annual predictor of the next year's weather and collection of household and farming tips — is forecasting a major hurricane for Florida in September 2010.

In this age of 24-hour cable weather stations and instant forecasts, the Old Farmer's Almanac, based in Dublin, N.H., is an anachronism but still draws droves of fans.

The Old Farmer's Almanac and its longtime New England competitor, the Maine-based Farmer's Almanac, predict weather based on sunspots, planetary positions and meteorology. Each has a circulation of 3.5 million, and their Web sites are stacked with videos, blogs and podcasts.

While the Old Farmer's Almanac envisions a major storm hitting the state next year, the forecast on its Web site for the current hurricane season warns: "Specifically, watch out for an active Florida season as well as a hurricane to hit the Gulf Coast and a late-August hurricane along the Atlantic Corridor."

The almanac's editor Janice Stillman said her publication, the latest edition of which was released this week, is even looking into creating an iPhone application. "We've always been state of the art since 1792,'' Stillman said.

Based on their own calculations, both almanacs are predicting a colder-than-usual winter.

That conflicts with the long-range forecast by the National Weather Service, which is calling for warmer-than-normal temperatures across much of the country because of an El Niño system in the tropical Pacific Ocean, said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the NOAA Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md.

The Old Farmer's Almanac also predicts a cooler summer and says a major hurricane will hit Florida next September. Stillman said upcoming solar activity, such as sunspots, are one of the factors in the almanac's predictions.

John Nielsen-Gammon, an atmospheric science professor at Texas A&M University, said predicting long-range weather is a challenge for scientists and laymen alike. But El Niño and La Niña systems have proven to be good indicators of what to expect, he said.

"There is no known evidence that sunspots have but a small effect on the earth's climate,'' said Nielsen-Gammon. "And we're talking about a couple of tenths of a degree Celsius difference.''

Still, Judson Hale, the semiretired chairman and longtime pitchman for the Old Farmer's Almanac, said there have always been almanac doubters. Hale, 76, said the almanac uses a combination of science and a "secret formula'' created by founder Robert B. Thomas. That combination, Hale said, has produced what he calls an "80 percent accuracy rate'' in predicting long-range weather.

The secret formula, according to the almanac's Web site, is kept in a black box that is locked away in the New Hampshire offices and can only be accessed by a handful of employees.