Here’s a summary of what Mother Nature might be telling us about our upcoming winter, from www.asheville.com:
We should have close to average temperatures and snowfall with a white Christmas. But to get the definitive prediction, we must wait until the third weekend in October (this coming weekend) for the running of the woolly worms.
The Wooly Bear caterpillar has 13 brown and black segments, which supposedly correspond to the 13 weeks of winter. The lighter brown a segment is, the milder that week of winter will be. The darker black a segment is, the colder and snowier the corresponding week will be.
The question is, however, which woolly worm do you believe? That is why in Banner Elk we test our woolly worms with a day of races and let the strongest woolly worm predict the weather for the coming winter.
“Most of these natural forecasting methods are for the short range,” said TV meteorologist Nick Walker. “Most long-range proverbs have no meteorological basis, including the legend of the ground hog.”
Perhaps then the legend of the woolly worm has no basis in meteorology, but according to woollyworm.com, the winners of the past 29 Banner Elk Woolly Worm races were close or completely right 57 percent of the time, and more than half right 82.6 percent of the time. We wonder if Nick Walker can boast of that level of accuracy?
For more information on how to race your woolly worm at the 30th annual Woolly Worm Festival October 20-21, visit the Chamber of Commerce web site at www.balconyoftheblueridge.com.
2 Comments
I would ask WLOS weather guessers…Mike Cuevas and Julie Wunder to see what the official WLOS "prediction woolly worm" says. By the way does Julie Wunder still work there?
Mmm. Driving home from work on Wednesday morning, I saw a Wooly "zipping" across South Tunnel Road… it was distinctly all black. If it had made sense to stop in the middle of the road, I’d’ve gotten a pic of the bugger. But traffic being what it was, I’m afraid it’s now an ex-wooly. But it was all black.