Brrrrrrr…Are you ready for winter?

That’s a fairly good question to ask after record cold temperatures and substantial amounts of snow in some places so far this season.

Doesn’t it make you wonder how the prognosticators determine in advance what your weather is going to be for a futuristic period of time?

I can understand if the weather people attempt to forecast a few days out based on weather patterns currently in place but the whole winter, really?  Well, what are the secrets to weather prediction?

Okay, so over at accuweather.com, (cold and wet for North Carolina) they’ve put out their guesses, which of course differ slightly from the Old Farmer’s Almanac, (cold and dry for North Carolina).  I show NC because that is what concerns me, personally.

Over at The Courier Journal, in part, you’ll find the following.

WEATHER WISDOM OR RUBBISH – YOU DECIDE

• Hornets’ nests built in the tops of trees indicate a mild winter is ahead; nests built close to the ground indicate that a harsh winter is coming.
• The higher the clouds, the better the weather.
• If the cat washes her face over her ear, the weather is sure to be fine and clear.
• Clear moon, frost soon.
• When leaves fall early, autumn and winter will be mild; when leaves fall later, winter will be severe.
• When ants travel in a straight line expect rain; when they are scattered, expect fair weather.
• If the first snow falls on unfrozen ground, expect a mild winter.
• Flowers blooming in late autumn are a sign of a bad winter.
• A warm November is the sign of a bad winter.
• A ring around the sun or moon means rain or snow coming soon.

You’ll also hear people tell you about fur stripes on woolly worms and other such things about the spoon(heavy snow), fork(light snow) and knife(cutting wind) shapes of persimmon seeds.  And bug scientist will tell you that a woolly worm sheds its fur an average of six times in its lifespan of about 2 years and gets lighter in color the older it gets.  The darker a woolly worm, the younger a woolly worm.  My woolly worms are all black…so there.

Well, I’m not so sure about the signs of the times but I’ll stick with squirrels.  Yes, squirrels.  For as long as I can remember (but don’t ask me what I had for breakfast yesterday) I use the actions of my squirrels to predict the severity of winter.  Last year, my squirrels were fat as cats and there were no nuts left on the ground — we had a colder and more snowy winter in our area.  This year, I have a lot nuts on the ground and my squirrels look like squirrels, not cats.  They are nice and trim.

Sure it’s been cold the last week but I don’t think that’s too bad compared to folks in Buffalo, NY.  They got buffaloed for sure.

I really do hope the weather is less harsh for us, mainly because my snow blower is broken.  😉

How do you predict your winter weather, or do you?

 

Jay 🙂