OT. another folk lore weather prediction ?. OT

[knighthawk]

heard the other day, you can tell the up comming winter by; the persimmon tree seed. Inside the the seed (fruit) are about three or four small hard seeds, when opened up will have a knife , fork, or spoon. The knife means a sharp cutting cold, the spoon means alot of snow, as a shovel, and the fork, is mild, as in so tender you could eat it with a fork. So, last nite I picked a couple persimmons from the neighbors tree, cut them open, took out the hard seeds inside, split them and sure enough, I could plainly see a ''spoon'' shaped line down the center.(of each seed ! ) so, this would mean, 'we' are going to get ALOT of snow ! It could be true, cause we haven't got any rain this summer, maybe this is how it will even out ???????

Edited October 24, 2011 by knighthawk
speling

[greg g]

Well our wooly bear catapillers are nearly all red, which meas mild winter for our area.

[randroid]

Greg,

Red woolly bears notwithstanding I would expect you folks in the northeast to have a mild winter this year because you used up all the bad weather last year.

-Randy

[Plymouthy Adams]

finally a use for a persimmon...never have I ever been able to eat one of them sour things..I have never heard that method of prediction before...funny how different things are used in differnt parts of the country.

[Dan Hiebert]

That'll be interesting - never heard the wooly bear prediction before - and the ones in western New York (@ Buffalo, anyway) are nearly all black.... Any other "interesting" prognostication methods out there?

[1940plymouth]

My Father-in-law is 94, one of his weather predictions is that for every day above 90 degrees for the summer, you'll have the same amount of days below zero in the winter. If that is the case this winter, it will be a darn cold one

[greg g]

http://www.almanac.com/content/predicting-winter-weather-woolly-bear-caterpillars

And contradicting the catapillers, is the level of squirrel activity. In my yard we have Oak tree (acorns) bitternut trees, (small pecan shaped nuts) black wallnut (look like green tennis balls till the husk dryies) and butternuts (smaller than walnuts), usually there are a great number if nut on the ground with the leaves as they fall. This year there are very few underfoot, as the little rodents have been busy building thier winter larders.

The sure indicator of a nasty winter season ahead is the prices of snow blowers at the True value is up about 75 to 100 buck per model...

as for the above 90, we only had 5 days here.

[Dan Hiebert]

Phooey! The wooly bears and persimmons may be right - just checked the weather forecast for western NY - we're supposed to have snow Thursday and Friday. Kind of a running joke with my Dad that its snowed in NM (where he lives) before here the last few years. Just figures - another of those "bad winter" predictors - my snow blower doesn't work....

[knighthawk]

I recall something like, the on the wooley caterpillers, the wider the black stripe, the colder it will be . and I hope, for every day above 90, its the same below ) ,,,,,, I hope that's wrong, cause we had about 3 months over 100 !!!!!!