The US Winter Weather Forecast Is Out & The West Coast Is In For 'The Best Of Winters'

Sometimes you just need a break from the snow, and it sounds like Mother Nature will be taking it easy on the West Coast of the U.S. this 2022-2023 winter season.

The Old Farmer's Almanac just dropped its detailed winter weather forecast for the United States, and while it's looking bleak for one half of the country, the West Coast is in for a pretty great time.

The almanac's experts predict that the western half of the U.S. will have a "mild" winter with lots of rain in some areas and temperatures trending upward "by as much as several degrees above normal."

That sounds much better than the "shivery and snowy" prediction for the other half of the country, according to almanac editor Janice Stillman.

"Depending on where you live, this will be the best of winters or memorable for all the wrong reasons," she said in a news release from the Old Farmer's Almanac.

The West Coast falls into that "best of winters" category, with temperatures expected to be higher than the winter norm from the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean.

Weather in California is predicted to be mild, wet and even snowy in the regions at higher elevations. Meanwhile, Washington and Oregon weather is expected to be pretty ideal, with mild and dry conditions in the forecast. The desert Southwest is also shaping up to be warmer than normal.

Stillman says that if you're lucky enough to live in one of these areas, you might "feel like winter never really arrives."

Wouldn't that be great?

Of course, that also means you might be dealing with a lot of fake snow this holiday season — but at least you wont have to shovel!

The almanac's authors use a combination of historical data, weather trends and modern forecasting tech to come up with these predictions each year, and they tend to do a pretty good job with the predictions. They say they're right about their forecasts 80% of the time.

Federal officials have not yet released their predictions for this year's winter forecast, but we like what we're seeing so far from the Old Farmer's Almanac!

The 2022-2023 Old Farmer's Almanac is now available in stores and online.

This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.