Folklore says that the bands of reddish & black on the Wooly Worm can predict how severe the winter will be. In times past many of the older generation put a lot of stock in weather signs from nature, in fact, I know people who still do. After all, they did not have the weather channel or the national weather service, so it is no surprise that they would look to the only information they had available, things in nature.
I am of the generation that is suppose to “know better”, we have “real science” for weather prediction, just think of the millions of dollars a year of our tax money that goes into weather research. But here is the question; are the modern methods any more reliable than the Wooly Worm? Not from what I can tell, leastways for long-term predictions.
So you get a confession. I don’t believe in folklore weather signs, but it never fails that when I come across a Wooly Worm at this time of year I will stop and have a word with it. Just a few days ago while leaving the woods I saw one laying on the ground. I picked it up for a closer look and noticed that the band of black on its head was very short, while the black at the tail end was about 3 times as long. Now if the Wooly Worm is right, this is suppose to mean that we will have a mild beginning of winter (the short band on the head), but a long spell of nasty weather lasting until late in the spring. (the much wider band of black on the tail) I would have liked to ask this fellow a question or two about the big band of black, and would have, but even if he gave me a straight answer, no one would believe me anyway! The part that leaves me “thinking” is that, we have had extremely mild weather for MN at this time of year. Just a dusting of snow so far and none in the 10 day forecast of the National Weather Service. If I judge the Wooly Worm on what I know now, I would have to say he is right about the beginning of the season.
Another confession. I have looked at the Wooly Worm every fall for as long as I can remember, but, for the life of me, I can never remember what the fellow predicts! By the time spring comes to MN, our minds are so numbed from the cold that we have forgotten that there is any such thing as a living insect; except the mosquito, we can never forget what has been called the “Minnesota Air Force”.
Folklore makes an interesting study. Much more interesting than having some ‘weather man’ tell me what the weather will be like, I do remember what he says simply because he is wrong so often and he talks everyday.
Sometimes I think we humans are strange creatures. We look with skepticism at the “wisdom of yesteryear”, just because we don’t see any “science” behind the it, but then we are prone to believe our own weather man when we know for fact that he is wrong about 50% of the time. (Don’t hold me to the 50%, I pulled it out of thin air, but they are wrong a lot.) So who is the wiser, our ancestors who got their Wooly Worm prediction for “free”, or us who “pay” a high price for our weather information?
Then we have the whole global warming debate. The only thing I have to say about that is this; Have the scientists who blame the warming trend that we are obviously in ever read history? Remember George Washington and the Continental Army crossing the Delaware to take Trenton on Christmas night in 1776? There was ice on the Delaware. I tried to find out when the last time that spot had ice, but was unsuccessful, I think it is safe to say it is not very often in the last 100 years. My information for the ice does not come only from the famous picture. Recently I read a journal kept by one of the doctors in the army at that time and he mentions that detail and also the snowstorm that was raging as Washington and the troops marched to take Trenton.
What does that have to do with global warming? One might ask. Only this; it would appear we have been in a gradual warming period a lot longer than what some would have us believe. The reason, they claim, is from our “carbon footprint” (sounds like something out of caveman fiction, carbon footprint). But the warming trend began long before the U.S. had much of a carbon footprint. Come to think of it, I have seen a lot of footprints on the ground, but never one left by an animal called “carbon”. Maybe I will study up on the folklore methods of weather prediction, this science thing sounds a bit like “science fiction”.
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