The seasons are shifting from biting bugs to the sound of your money going up the chimney. Yes, it’s autumn. The spooky time for pumpkins, falling leaves and desserts with lots of cinnamon and apples. But there’s a monster squatting in the corn maze: the annual winter forecast published by The Old Farmer’s Almanac since 1792. Don’t kid yourself, the National Weather Service reads this thing like the Bible.

A few years ago the nice folks in New Hampshire who write the magazine confessed something so preposterous no one believed them: the entire weather department was a crazy eight ball in a box under somebody’s desk. Take it out and shake it and voila! there’s the seasonal forecast.

The ball has been kept under lock and key, closely guarded by the current occupier of the desk, who is sworn to secrecy for a lifetime. Does it exist? Is it another example of weird Yankee humor? We might never know. No one’s talking. A few years ago they hired a meteorologist with a degree or two to gussie up the place but how do we know this college graduate isn’t just opening the box and doing what the ball says?

Whether it’s science or crystal ball gazing or following woolly worms around the yard to measure their brown stripe, this year’s winter forecast is a jaw dropper. The ball speaks. The National Weather Service has taken note. To be honest, the people who do long-range forecasting at the weather service have always checked The Old Farmer’s Almanac first and then created their swirly charts and bar grafts to match what the ball has foretold.

The National Weather Service will tell you their competition with The Old Farmer’s Almanac is bunk and drag out some statistics they’ve spent way too much time and effort compiling to prove it. I think they’re jealous.

If you look at this logically, how can a weather ball in a box under a desk do the work of hundreds of highly trained long-range forecasters? Beats me. But every fall, when the weather threatens to tip from hot to warm to cool, the arrival of the fall edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac is looked forward to with the excitement of a Powerball drawing.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for science. But up in New Hampshire there’s a box sitting under a desk…