LEWISTON — Some things in the 2024 Farmers’ Almanac are a sure bet, like the scientific reality that a swath of Maine will see a total eclipse of the sun on April 8.

But other stuff is, well, iffier.

For instance, the 2024 almanac released this week is predicting a “cold, snowy” winter in New England, including a major storm in the second week of February, with frigid temperatures to follow.

Managing Editor Sandi Duncan said the almanac envisions “a return to more traditional types of winter.”

“The BRRR is back,” the 184-page volume warns.

The almanac doesn’t offer a lot of hope for next summer either, predicting it will be both sultry and soggy in the Northeast, with unseasonably chilly temperatures moving in before Labor Day.

But weather predictions, an almanac staple since it began publishing in 1818, are only a small part of a package that includes life hacks, astronomical data, trivia, gardening help and a whole lot more.

What it amounts to is a great big dose of Americana, as rooted in the national psyche as baseball, apple pie and fireworks on Independence Day, perhaps one of the few that can bind us all together without any rancor.

“It’s never been political,” Peter Geiger, the almanac’s editor, said.

But if you want to know tidbits of folklore, including the notion that a full moon offers “a great time to go on a first date,” the almanac fits the bill.

Geiger said other useful items within its pages range from the origins of phrases to how best to ripen green tomatoes.

The idea, he said, is to tell people how to do a job “a little bit easier and cheaper.”

Those sort of life hacks and factoids are an almanac staple.

Total eclipse of the sun

Carly Simon once sang about a former beau who “took a Learjet up to Nova Scotia” to see a total eclipse of the sun.

But on April 8, 2024, Mainers will find it a lot easier to eyeball one for themselves since the Pine Tree State is smack dab in its 125-mile-wide path.

“We’re going to be right in the direct line,” Duncan said, with Island Falls in Aroostook County slated to see a total eclipse for a tad less than three minutes and 20 seconds. The small town of less than 1,000 people is 27 miles southwest of Houlton.

The almanac suggests planning a vacation around the chance to see it. It points out that the Southwest offers the best hope for viewing because the skies are generally less cloudy.

For those in the path, which cuts across western Maine, the moon will cross in front of the sun and eventually block it out entirely, assuming, of course, that clouds don’t get in the way.

“As the final bead of light winks out,” the almanac says, “the light of the sun will seem to rush out in a deathly silence — as if being suddenly immersed in a vacuum.”

The almanac goes into detail about how it looks and why it’s so cool.

Then it adds a final hope that seeing it “brings you a newfound appreciation of the wonder and mystery of the cosmos!”

Geiger said readers are ever more interested in astronomical events of all sorts, from moon cycles to comets.

“People really like that kind of information and it’s more and more and more,” he said. “We’ve seen that. So we’ve tried to expand.”

Farming roots remain strong

The Farmers’ Almanac has been published annually since 1818, when it sold for 6 cents and contained 36 pages of text, mostly focused on hard data helpful to farms.

Though the $8.99 almanac’s market today goes well beyond farmers, Duncan and Geiger said it remains a useful guide for rural folks.

“We have a gardening by the moon calendar,” Geiger said, which “basically suggests best times to garden based on the phase of the moon and where the moon is in the sky” as well as what he described as a proprietary formula.

Is it science? Not quite.

But, as Geiger put it, “Many people feel like the moon has a pull on the Earth just like it does on the tides” with water in the soil perhaps moving slightly along with the phases of the moon.

In any case, “people love to try to follow our gardening by the moon information,” Geiger said.

The skies can also help people figure out the best days to cut their hair, mow their grass and much more, the almanac says.

“We just try to be true to the brand,” Geiger said. “We try to make sure our brand is clean and clear and people can appreciate it.”

He said whenever he talks with somebody about the almanac that’s been published in Lewiston since 1959, they “get pretty excited about it because it conjures a pleasant thought or a valuable thought to people. Maybe it’s a childhood thought, too. I don’t know.”

“But our purpose is to help educate people and help them live better lives for themselves,” Geiger said.

The Farmers’ Almanac may steer clear of politics, but maybe the result is that it deals with issues that are more important to the real lives Americans lead.

After all, who wouldn’t rather dig into a great new recipe than, say, the Congressional Register?

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