Were There Warning Signs About The Amarillo Cold Front?
January has been one brutal month when it comes to the weather here in Amarillo. We've dealt with many days and nights of subfreezing temperatures, wind chills that are enough to freeze you on the spot, and yes, some snow and ice.
Now, I'm not one to follow the Farmer's Almanac, but I decided out of sheer curiosity to see if there was any way we could've predicted this weather was coming.
Well I'm here to tell you, I may be a believer in the Farmer's Almanac all of a sudden. I know there are a lot of people who swear by it, and I've never understood it because how can you predict weather SO FAR OUT?
They did it, well, kind of, and I'm absolutely floored. If we all would've paid attention to what it said in that book when it came out, we all would've been a bit more prepared for what has come our way.
According to the almanac, they predicted "snow showers, frigid" weather for us here in the panhandle from Jan. 1-8. Going back and looking at what ACTUALLY happened in Amarillo during that time, I realized we had temps in the 30's on January 4th and 5th, and we did indeed get snow showers on the 5th. I don't know that we consider temps in the 30's "frigid", but it was definitely cold.
Ok, MAYBE, just maybe, there's something to this silly little almanac. Let's keep moving.
Jan 9-19 called for some "snowy periods, cold" in the forecast. Today is January 19, so we are in the last day of this prediction. What have we actually received in those 10 days? Well, cold we definitely got with recorded high temps of 16 and 20 respectively on January 14 and 15, but we didn't see those "snowy periods" unless you count the brief snow flurries we got back on January 13 in the morning.
Guess it's time to start at least paying attention to the almanac, because while it isn't dead on (nothing it when it comes to weather), it seems like it's got a pretty good handle on how things are going to turn out.
So according to the almanac, here's what the rest of the month is predicted to be like. Farmer's Almanac says, "Flurries, bitter cold north, turning mild south". Looking at the forecast right now, I don't know that it's going to be right this time around...but things can change. They tend to with weather.