Summer may be over, but do not expect a sharp change in the weather. At least, that is the word from The Old Farmer's Almanac.

Fall officially arrived at 2:50 Monday morning.

Jack Burnett is the Managing Editor of The Old Farmer's Almanac. He says they are calling for a warmer and drier fall than what is normal for southern Manitoba.

Burnett is using the word 'benign' to describe what is in store for this half of the province for the remainder of September. He notes October and November will probably see temperatures around four degrees warmer than normal. As for precipitation, he expects each of those months will have about eight to ten millimetres less rain than normal.

According to Burnett, we are still a long way off from any significant snowfall. He says their forecast calls for the first noticeable snow around mid-November. There will then be a break before the snowfall intensifies around mid-December and again in the early parts of January and February.

"It's going to be a long winter in terms of snow," warns Burnett. "Middle of November, right through until the beginning of April."

But he does not anticipate a 'super severe winter.' In fact, Burnett says our winter in southern Manitoba will probably be warmer than normal.

Burnett says over the years, red flags have shown up on their computers indicating major snowstorms. He notes these are often so big that they must pay attention. This is the case for the winter of 2019-20. Burnett says major snowstorms are expected in the Steinbach area on December 15th and March 29th.

When it comes to making forecasts, Burnett says they rely on a recipe that was first used by Robert B. Thomas in 1792. Burnett says when Thomas first started making weather forecasts he took three things into consideration. The first factor was meteorology, which is the localized weather phenomenon that is caused by factors such as mountains, lakes or localized winds.

The second factor was climatology, which is long-term weather patterns for a particular area. And the third factor was solar science. Burnett says through the use of computers, they can find a pattern in history where the weather trends then resemble patterns today. Then, by learning what happened next in history, they can determine what is most likely to happen in our future.

According to Burnett, The Old Farmer's Almanac is accurate about 80 percent of the time.