Last week I was button-holed by a reader who good naturedly complained that last year we hadn’t done the traditional look at the Old Farmer’s Almanac forecast for the coming 12 months.
I explained that when I finally returned to work I couldn’t find a copy of the almanac laying around, but promised to do some digging on-line.
The reason she wanted to know what it said was to find out, as she put, if there was any hope for this summer or whether she should just give up.
Well, I have managed to track down the forecast for this month and next.
And I regret to report there is no hope.
While the rest of this week is supposed to be sunny, it is also forecast to be cool.
For the rest of the month the sun will fight a mostly losing battle with showery weather though there is a chance we could see some decent weather toward the end of July.
August as a whole is expected to be slightly cooler than average with 40mm more rain than usual.
It will start with a week of predominately showery weather but turn sunny in the second week.
Then it’s back to showers and thunderstorms before the sun returns accompanied by cool temperatures before turning warm for the last four days.
Note that is the only time the almanac uses the word ‘warm’ to describe the weather - and the word ‘hot’ never appears.
But, in the desperately-clinging-to-straws department, I should point out that the Old Farmer had forecast that July 1-3 would be sunny and warm - and we know how far off the mark that was.
So all we can do is keep our fingers (and toes) crossed that he is just as inaccurate when it comes to the rest of the summer.
After all, faint hope is better than none at all.
Malcolm Baxter