How Much Snow Will Indiana Get This Year? An Onion Could Tell Us Everything We Need to Know

Onions might be the secret to telling us how much snow we will get in Indiana this year.

If you're like me, you absolutely loathe winter weather. When you are a kid, it's cool because when it snows a lot (well, a lot for Indiana), you get the day off and enjoy playing in the snow. When you are an adult, you don't get that luxury. You are still expected to get out of that mess and drive to work. Throw in those frigid cold temperatures as another reason why I am not a fan of winter. Now, I realize that we haven't even gotten into fall, and the temperatures really haven't dropped too much yet. However, there are a lot of people who are already looking forward to winter weather here in Indiana.

We have all heard of winter weather folklore before. One thing that I remember in particular was how bad winters we will have based on Wolly Worms. If you spot a Wolly Worm that is all black, blonde, or even white, that means a harsh and severe winter is in store. Another one involves the inside shape of a persimmon seed. A spoon shape found inside of a persimmon seed means that you should get a shovel ready because you are in for a pretty snowy winter, if you find a fork shape in the persimmon seed, you can expect a mild winter with powdery, light snow, and a knife shape inside of the seed sounds like the worst of them all. It means that you can expect frigid winds that will “cut” like a blade. I recently learned of another one that involves corn here in Indiana. you can learn more about that by clicking here. Well, there's another winter weather folklore that I just found out about that involves onions.

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How Can Onions Predict the Winter Weather?

First off, I have to assume that is most accurate if the onions you are looking at were grown here in the Hooser State. But, the Old Farmer's Almanac claims the secret to understanding how severe a winter in Indiana will be is the skin of an onion. They shared this old-school rhyme to tell the tale of a potentially nasty wintertime:

"Onion’s skin very thin,
Mild winter coming in;
Onion’s skin thick and tough,
Coming winter cold and rough."

Now, this might sound like nonsense, but the skin of an onion winter prediction is somewhat linked back to science. According to the Old Farmer's Almanac:

Interestingly, weather folklore warning of a harsh winter is based on La Niña and El Nino, which are natural climate phenomena related to the temperatures of the oceans. So, it’s a little bit of art and science!

La Niña conditions tend to be dry in summer and cold in winter. If birds leave early, the leaves fall quickly, onions and apples are tough, and caterpillars are short, it may be due to the La Niña drought. A miserable La Niña winter will follow.

That's pretty interesting. I'm curious if Hoosier farmers have noticed thicker than normal onion skins this year or not. It will be interesting to see if it matches the Farmer's Almanac Winter Outlook Forecast. Here's what we can expect here in our area:

Above-average precipitation is expected over the eastern third of the country, especially the Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, and Midwest.

I think it's important to keep in mind that this is simply a prediction and no amount of fancy technology, atmospheric tracking, or whatever they use to create this forecast is 100% accurate. As we know all too well, weather is wildly unpredictable and can change in an instant. However, if this prediction is correct, it's going to be quite the winter in Indiana.