Winter Forecast For Worcester 2019-20: NOAA Prediction

WORCESTER, MA — Season tickets recently went on sale at Wachusett Mountain, but a new long-range forecast released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week has bad news for ski season.

In Massachusetts and beyond, it's going to be a warmer-than-normal winter, according to NOAA.

Not a single section of the United States is expected to have colder than usual temperatures this winter, but some areas will experience more rain. The probability of a warmer-than-usual winter is between 50 and 60 percent for Massachusetts and much of New England.

“Wetter than average conditions are most likely in Alaska and Hawaii this winter, along with portions of the Northern Plains, Upper Mississippi Valley, the Great Lakes and parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast,” the agency said in it 2019-20 winter forecast, which it released Thursday.

The government organization stays away from projecting seasonal snowfall accumulations as snow forecasts are generally impossible to predict until the week prior.

Even during a warmer than usual winter in Massachusetts, though, periods of cold and snowfall are still possible.

What do The Farmers’ Almanac and Old Farmer’s Almanac predict for the winter?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration isn’t the only organization that’s released a 2019-20 prediction, but consensus can be hard to find when it comes to weather.

Followers of the Farmers’ Almanac for instance, are bracing for a snowy, bone-chilling season. Meanwhile, forecasters at the rival Old Farmer’s Almanac are predicting more rain than snow.

Both outfits use so-called “secret formulas” to predict the weather that they keep closely guarded, and only time — and winter — will tell which one has it right.