
Are you ready for bone chilling cold this winter?  The Old Farmer’s Almanac and  other weather forecasters that rely on solar activity as a factor in their  weather forecasts are projecting that this upcoming winter will be bitterly  cold. 
 Solar activity is at a 100 year low, and even though we  were supposed to be in the midst of a solar maximum this year, our sun has been  eerily quiet.  So precisely what in the world is going on? 
 There have been other periods throughout history when solar activity has been  extraordinarily quiet, and those times have corresponded with periods of extreme  cold. 
 For example, the “Maunder Minimum” which stretched from  1645 to 1715 corresponded with the most bitterly cold period that the earth  experienced in the last 1000 years.  So could we be heading toward another  “mini-ice age”?  That is a question that some scientists are now beginning to  ask.
 Clearly, something unusual is happening with our sun.  The  following is from a Universe Today article that was posted back in  July…
Our nearest star has exhibited some schizophrenic behavior thus far  for 2013.
 By all rights, we should be in the throes of a solar  maximum, an 11-year peak where the Sun is at its most active and dappled with  sunspots.
 Thus far though, Solar Cycle #24 has been off to a  sputtering start, and researchers that attended the meeting of the American  Astronomical Society’s Solar Physics Division earlier this month are divided as  to why.
“Not only is this the smallest cycle we’ve seen in the space age,  it’s the smallest cycle in 100 years,” NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center  research scientist David Hathaway said during a recent press teleconference  conducted by the Marshall Space Flight Center.
 In a previous  article, I noted that scientists are absolutely baffled by this.  So far, nobody  can explain why this solar cycle is so weak…
The Sun is acting weird. It  typically puts on a pageant of magnetic activity every 11 years for aurora  watchers and sungazers alike, but this time it overslept. When it finally woke  up (a year late), it gave the weakest performance in 100 years.
 The  good news is that this kind of thing has happened before.
 The bad  news is that when solar activity slows down dramatically it tends to correspond  with extremely cold weather as the Times of India recently  explained…
Predictions that 2013 would see an upsurge in solar activity  and geomagnetic storms disrupting power grids and communications systems have  proved to be a false alarm. Instead, the current peak in the solar cycle is the  weakest for a century.
 Subdued solar activity has prompted  controversial comparisons with the Maunder Minimum, which occurred between 1645  and 1715, when a prolonged absence of sunspots and other indicators of solar  activity coincided with the coldest period in the last millennium.
 Certainly solar activity is just one of the factors that influences our weather  and many other factors are involved as well.
 But it is undeniable  that during the last “Little Ice Age” in Europe there were very few  sunspots…
Times of depressed solar activity seem to correspond with times  of global cold. For example, during the 70-year period from 1645 to 1715, few,  if any, sunspots were seen, even during expected sunspot maximums. Western  Europe entered a climate period known as the “Maunder Minimum” or “Little Ice  Age.” Temperatures dropped by 1.8 to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
 Conversely, times of increased solar activity have corresponded with global  warning. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the Sun was active, and the  European climate was quite mild.
 And the lull in solar activity  that we are experiencing now is causing many, including the Old Farmer’s  Almanac, to project that we have a bitterly cold winter ahead of us…
The  Farmers’ Almanac is using words like “piercing cold,” “bitterly cold” and  “biting cold” to describe the upcoming winter. And if its predictions are right,  the first outdoor Super Bowl in years will be a messy “Storm Bowl.”
The  197-year-old publication that hits newsstands Monday predicts a winter storm  will hit the Northeast around the time the Super Bowl is played at MetLife  Stadium in the Meadowlands in New Jersey. It also predicts a colder-than-normal  winter for two-thirds of the country and heavy snowfall in the Midwest, Great  Lakes and New England.
“We’re using a very strong four-letter word to  describe this winter, which is C-O-L-D. It’s going to be very cold,” said Sandi  Duncan, managing editor.
 That doesn’t sound very fun.
 So has the Old Farmer’s Almanac been accurate in the past?
 According to their website, they claim an 80 percent accuracy rate…
The  Old Farmer’s Almanac, first published in 1792 during the first term of George  Washington, has always watched the weather. Our famous long-range weather  forecasts are traditionally 80 percent–accurate.
 We will see what  happens this year.
 For North America, the Almanac is predicting  that we will see “below-normal temperatures” and “above-normal  snowfall”…
According to the newest edition of North America’s oldest  continuously published periodical, a decline in solar activity combined with  ocean-atmosphere patterns in the Pacific and Atlantic will result in  below-normal temperatures and above-normal snowfall during most of the winter  across much of the United States.
“This winter is shaping up to be a  rough one,” says Janice Stillman, editor of The Old Farmer’s Almanac. “Sweaters  and snow shovels should be unpacked early and kept close by throughout the  season. The good news is that the extra precipitation—which will fall as rain or  snow depending where you are—will help with any drought issues left over from  the summer.”
So if you like winter weather, it looks like this will be a  good year for you.
 For the rest of us, we will just have to wear  lots of warm clothing and stay inside a lot.
 But of course the much  bigger story is what this could mean for the years ahead.
 Are we  now moving into a time similar to the “Maunder Minimum” when solar activity will  be very low and global temperatures will decrease?
 Could it be  possible that Matthew Penn of the National Solar Observatory and others are  correct and that we are heading into a new mini-ice age?
 Let’s  certainly hope not, but without a doubt something very strange is happening to  our sun.
 Only time will tell what that means for our future.