Weather Eye: Wooly bear caterpillar foretells chilly winter season

For sure, we like to talk weather here in this column and yet remain on the lighter side of things with a sunny-side-up outlook and a bit of humor and prose intertwined. Here is a bit of the latter.

The withering blackberries on the vine, dry leaves rustling along the tattered blades of grass were the backdrop of my annual trek in search of one of nature’s lowly weather prognosticators, the woolly bear caterpillar. First off, I can tell you the specimens I discovered seemed to be rejoicing given the lazy, hazy days of autumn we are enjoying. The chilly mornings, not so much.

Their brilliant orange-and-black coats shimmered in the fragile sun rays, catching my eye in the layered shadows of the forest. The consensus from my sampling indicates a rather chilly winter heading our way.

The black bands on the front and rear of the little critter indicate the coldest part of winter with possible snow and sub-freezing temperatures will occur smack dab in the middle of winter, which would be January or so.

Many scientists say that since these caterpillars actually live through two winters before spinning their cocoon, the colors only indicate how the conditions were the previous winter. Well, I thought last winter was on the mild side, however we did have a brush with snow here and there in February. Not exactly the middle of winter.

Folklore has it that the wider the middle band of orange, the milder the winter weather will be. And a narrower band, say two or three orange segments, the colder the weather. Many were traveling southward maybe along with Canadian geese in mind. As a side note, several of the woolly bears were a bit on the lazy side and when disturbed, just curled up in a ball and remained like that for the longest while. Usually they take right off on their wandering. Maybe they think curling up in front of a warm cozy fireplace might just be the thing for this winter.

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