Farming rules, weather forecasters or the models? Who predicted winter best?

How will winter be? We asked ourselves this question almost half a year ago. Full of anticipation of the cold and skiing in the fresh snow, we took a close look at various weather forecasts in the autumn: the farmer’s rules, the weather forecasters from Muotathal and the more serious weather institutes. We probably let ourselves be dazzled by the first two – against our better judgement. They predicted a cold and snowy winter. And we didn’t give up hope until the end.

Spoilers (or not really): It all turned out differently. A reality check of the winter forecasts.

In 2022, the farmer’s rules spoke a clear language: if only there was a grain of truth in it, the winter should have been wonderfully white and, above all, cold.

Before the onset of winter, we picked a few of the seemingly countless “rules” and put them to the test. It hardly mattered which one you watched, the tenor was clear: very hot summer and autumn periods are followed by a “sharp winter”.

Last year, the farmer’s rules weren’t just a little off, they were way off the mark. After a 2022 that was already far too hot and rainless (through October), the extremes continued seamlessly – more on that below.

Kari Hediger, Martin Holdener, Alois Holdener, Martin Horat, Roman «Jöri» Ulrich and Kari Laimbacher are the current weather forecasters of the Muotathal. Her weather forecasts are legendary – but mostly because of the humorous way they are presented.

At the autumn meeting, at least five of the six men agreed on two things: firstly, the second half of December will be too hot and interspersed with foehn, so that a white Christmas can quickly be forgotten. And second, February should be cold with lots of bise.

In short, the men prophesied a rather cold and snowy winter. They were quite wrong about that. As I said, more on that below. Nevertheless, we would like to highlight one of the six gentlemen: Roman «Jöri» Ulrich. The youngest of the weather forecasters says in the summary of his weather forecast:

Unlike the other men, “Jöri” correctly predicted a winter with little snow. But was winter also “beautiful”, as it was also expected of it? We check:

A majority of MeteoSwiss stations measure a positive deviation in hours of sunshine in the winter months from December to February. Only in sunny Tessin and in Basel there was less sun than average. However, in its climate bulletin, MeteoSwiss writes: "The duration of sunshine was normal throughout Switzerland."

The winter was actually quite "nice" in that sense, but there was not much snow. Will "Jöri" get the challenge cup and the wooden figure for the best prediction at the upcoming spring meeting?

Institutes such as the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) in the US make medium to long-term forecasts for precipitation, pressure distribution and temperatures. In addition to the NCEP, there are other mostly state weather institutes that make such forecasts: for example, the German Weather Service or the European Center for Medium-Term Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

In October, the forecasts of these models were as follows: Switzerland falls within the zone of Europe in which relatively significantly higher temperatures than the norm would be measured. In concrete terms, the average of the climate models assumed a temperature of 0.5 to 1 degree Celsius above normal.

There would also be a lack of precipitation, predicted the German Weather Service, ECMWF and Co.

That prognosis doesn't sound so bad. As most people remember, there was hardly any snow in the lowlands between December and February - either because it was too hot or because there was no precipitation at all. Let's take a closer look at the winter of 2022/23.

The months of December to February were clearly too hot and too little precipitation in Europe. This means that countries such as Spain have enormous problems with their (future) harvest.

It has been raining more often in Switzerland lately. But even here in Germany, these quantities are still not enough to make up for last year's shortage and the winter. A look at the statistics shows: In all selected stations, the amount in the winter months was lower than the average of recent years.

In southern Switzerland in particular, it rained far too little: "The total winter precipitation on the southern side of the Alps, in the Engadine and in northern and central Graubünden was between 40 and 65 percent of the norm between 1991 and 2020," writes the Federal Bureau of Meteorology and Climatology Meteoschweiz.

The temperatures were also way too high. The strongest deviation was measured in Geneva (+1.7 degrees) and in Samedan in the Engadine. On average across the country, the winter of 2022/23 was 1.4 degrees Celsius above the norm in seventh place since measurements began in 1864, as MeteoSwiss announced at the end of February. Many should not forget the temperatures around the turn of the year in particular: on New Year's Eve it was locally 17 to almost 21 degrees on the north side of the Alps. "It wasn't until the second half of January that there was a significant cooling," says Meteoschweiz.

The high temperatures and low precipitation also had an impact on the mountains: "Especially between mid-February and mid-March, the snow depth in the Swiss Alps was lower than ever since measurements began," writes the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF . .

So one thing seems clear: the more "concrete" the prediction, the closer we get to reality - which is of course not surprising. The pawn rules, which generally seem to assume that one (in this case hot) extreme follows the next (cold) extreme, were completely wrong.

Most Muotathal weather forecasters also galloped: The winter was neither "snowy and cold" (Karl Hediger), nor was it "full throttle" (Martin Holdener) - and the "glaciers certainly weren't able to grow again" (Martin Horat).

The major weather agencies, on the other hand, were right, at least in terms of forecasting. But they also underestimate the size: according to the model, which calculates with the average of several institutions, the temperatures in Switzerland would deviate by 0.5 to one degree. In reality it was 1.4 degrees - an extremely high figure considering the average temperature in, say, Bern (0.7 degrees), Zurich (1.4 degrees) or Geneva (2.6 degrees) during the winter months.

The predictions for the amount of precipitation were even more correct: the weather institutes had reckoned with a deficit of 10 to 50 millimeters in northern Switzerland and normal precipitation in southern Switzerland. That was not the case at all in Ticino: Lugano had a shortage of more than 100 millimeters over the winter.

In its extreme form, even the most serious of long-term forecasters couldn't predict this winter.