Have you spotted a wooly worm recently?  Did you know its colors can predict the type of winter we will have?

Get our free mobile app

Weather Lore

Before we had little computers in our pockets that could tell us the weather forecast humans used nature to predict the weather. AllThingsNature.Org has this to say about weather lore:

Weather deals with atmospheric conditions during a particular time and place; whereas lore is a set of traditional beliefs, like folklore, that is passed down from one generation to the other. Weather lore combines environmental changes with old tales or sayings. While it is true that many of these tales may not have scientific basis, a number of them can and do accurately predict weather.

Some common weather lore you've probably heard are things like red skies at night, a sailor's delight, a ring around the moon means rain is coming soon, and the persimmon seeds predicting winter (you can see the prediction for the upcoming 2022-2023 winter here). Have you heard of the wooly worm's weather predictions?

Wooly Worms and Predicting Weather

Another common weather lore is the lore surrounding wooly worms and their predictions for the upcoming winter months.   Wooly worms (some call them wooly bears) aren't actually worms at all, they're caterpillars.  You will recognize them when you see them as they're really fuzzy and usually have rusty brown and black stripes.  Did you know the color of the wooly worm's stripes is said to predict the upcoming winter?

Almanac shares the folklore surrounding the wooly worm's stripes:

The wider the rusty brown sections (or the more brown segments there are), the milder the coming winter will be. The more black there is, the more severe the winter. 

Almanac also shares that if you see an all-black wooly worm-like caterpillar, all-white, or yellow, those are different species of caterpillars and aren't part of the wooly worm lore.  So don't freak out if you see an all-black caterpillar, that's simply a different species!

So have you spotted a wooly worm in our area yet?  What did the colors say about this upcoming winter?