Snow Shovels or Rain Boots? Two Almanacs Offer Different Winter Predictions for Alexandria

ALEXANDRIA, VA — Before we begin the annual debate over how much bread, milk and toilet paper one household actually needs for a possible snowflake, a question: What kind of winter are we getting?

We checked two almanacs. Naturally, we now have two answers.

One suggests keeping the rain boots handy. The other offers a little encouragement to those who would happily admire winter through a window without ever having to shovel it. And somewhere in Alexandria, a child with a sled would like a third opinion.

Here is what the winter 2026–27 predictions actually say about our area, before anyone starts refreshing the school-closure page.

Before there was an app for that, there was an almanac

If your weather forecast has always lived on your phone, an introduction is in order. An almanac is an annual reference book built around the calendar. Farmers’ almanacs combine such information as sunrise and sunset times, moon phases, planting guidance and weather predictions with practical advice and a little entertainment. Think of a calendar, a gardening guide and a weather column sharing one small book. No charger required.

Long before the internet—or radio and television forecasts—these inexpensive publications helped farm families organize life around the seasons. Readers consulted them for planting dates, daylight and other information useful to their work. The weather predictions were part of the appeal, but the books offered much more than a guess about whether February would be miserable.

How much did people rely on them? The Library of Congress describes almanacs as an essential part of late-18th-century American and French life. For many people, an almanac was one of the few publications they owned; only the Bible surpassed it in popularity. This was a book people returned to, not something they scrolled past.

The two familiar titles in our winter forecast come from that tradition. The Old Farmer’s Almanac began in 1792, when Robert B. Thomas published its first edition, for 1793. George Washington was still in his first presidential term. According to the publication’s history, circulation tripled from 3,000 to 9,000 by its second year. Thomas wanted it to be “useful, with a pleasant degree of humor.” We can appreciate that.

The separate Farmers’ Almanac followed in 1818, founded in Morristown, New Jersey, by astronomer, teacher and poet David Young and publisher Jacob Mann.

Both, then, have roots stretching back more than two centuries. That explains the affection and tradition surrounding them; it does not make every weather prediction a sure thing.

And for our purposes, one more distinction matters: their regional forecasts do not draw the same lines around our little corner of Virginia.

The Farmers’ Almanac: Winter may need a mop

The Farmers’ Almanac’s winter 2026–27 outlook groups Virginia with the Southeast, where it anticipates a cool season with frequent storms and more precipitation than usual.

That does not automatically translate into piles of snow. Its forecast emphasizes wet weather, with the possibility of sleet, freezing rain or heavy, wet snow when incoming cold air meets a storm’s moisture.

Just across the Potomac, Washington and Maryland sit in the publication’s Northeast region. There, it describes a potential coastal storm track and temperatures near freezing that could make precipitation type difficult to pin down.

For Alexandria readers, those adjoining regional descriptions suggest a potentially messy mix worth watching. They do not amount to a city-specific snowfall prediction, and the regional boundary is not a wall that weather obeys.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac: The shovel might get a lighter workload

The Old Farmer’s Almanac’s Alexandria forecast places the area in its Atlantic Corridor region. Its outlook calls for temperatures above normal, precipitation below normal and snowfall slightly below normal.

It still identifies colder stretches in early to mid-December, early to mid-January, and early and late February.

Its regional snowiest windows fall in late November, early and mid-January, early and late February, and late March. Those windows cover a broad region; they are not promises of snow on King Street.

There is another reason to read past a dramatic winter headline: the publication’s separate Appalachian outlook favors colder and snowier conditions. That is a different forecast region from Alexandria’s.

And how are their report cards?

Two centuries of tradition is impressive. But we still want to know: Did they get last winter right?

The almanacs publish their own assessments. Here are several recent results they report—not independently verified scores from The Zebra, and not accuracy ratings specifically for Alexandria:

There is some fine print behind those tidy numbers. The Old Farmer’s Almanac says its scores measure whether it correctly predicted the direction of seasonal temperature and precipitation departures from normal for a representative city in each region. In plain English: Was the season warmer or colder, wetter or drier than usual? Its reported overall score for 2025–26 was 88.9%.

That is different from getting the date, location and snowfall total of an individual storm right. The publication also acknowledges underestimating snowfall in the northern Atlantic Corridor, from Boston through New Jersey.

The Farmers’ Almanac labels its figures as self-tracked. These summaries do not establish a common scoring method for both publications, so the percentages should not be treated as a head-to-head contest—or a local guarantee. We did not find a recent, independently verified, multi-year accuracy record for Alexandria in the sources reviewed.

Enjoy the report cards. Just don’t use them to book a snow day.

Can we pencil in a snow day?

Put the pencil down. And finish your homework.

The National Weather Service’s explanation of long-range outlooks distinguishes broad seasonal tendencies from detailed daily forecasts. A seasonal outlook can describe the likelihood of a warmer, colder, wetter or drier period; it cannot reliably tell us months ahead which morning will bring a particular storm.

In other words, a seasonal outlook is an impression of the whole winter, not an appointment for a snowstorm. January has not booked a Tuesday at 6 a.m. to ruin your commute.

That distinction matters whether you are planning a winter getaway, hoping for a snow day or negotiating with a dog who has suddenly decided that going outside is entirely optional.

Enjoy the almanac predictions as an early look at the possibilities. When a storm actually approaches, turn to current forecasts and local alerts for decisions about travel and daily plans.

Until then, snow lovers can keep dreaming of a postcard-pretty Old Town, and everyone else can keep dreaming of dry socks.

Our contribution to the winter preparations? Find the shovel, locate the matching glove and remember where you put the ice scraper in April.

The almanacs have made their predictions. The missing glove remains a mystery.