The Mountain Breeze: Woolly Worm prediction

The Mountain Breeze

Woolly worms anyone? It is that time of year. The predictions from scientific to fanciful come out about winter in October. The Woolly bear is the caterpillar of the Isabella Moth and used in folklore weather prediction.

The Woolly colors. Blonde is mild winter, black is bad winter, a mixture of both by color band and width how much winter to expect of both.

My late father, Jack Thomas of Fincastle was a great man of signs and old sayings. He made a woolly worm forecast every Oct. I have tried to carry on the tradition.

Daddy always said the furrier length of hair meant an ice storm coming. I have seen very few woolly bears this year. Most were banded but I have yet to see a solid black one. Kinda makes me worry because there are so few. This guy is blonde—a mild winter. The Farmer’s Almanac and the weather scientists are expecting a rough winter this year.

Certainly by March we will know who was right.

–Cathy Benson