How Cold is it Going to Be?

Have you been watching for the signs that will give you a clue to the upcoming winter?

Folklore is full of surefire indicators, you know, such as, it will be a hard winter if there is an unusually large crop of acorns. Well, you can ask some friends of mine out on Germantown road who have made a wide border, easily two feet wide, of acorns raked from their yard all the way down their driveway. Never mind the leaves that haven’t even fallen from the oak trees yet; these folks are clearing their yard of what would, according to the old folks, be the sign of a hard winter to come.

Another sign would be that heavy moss appears on the north side of trees. If this is an indication of a hard winter on the way, then every winter would be hard. Moss plants like to grow in moist and shady places and the north side of a tree provides this location because it’s not exposed to direct sun. This does not mean, however, that this is the only place moss will grow. Any place there is almost constant moisture and shade will support moss growth.

This is one I am not familiar with:  grape leaves will turn color early in the season.

Okay, so all leaves change color with the coming of autumn. During the growing season, chlorophyll makes the leaves look green, then when the days begin to become shorter and temperatures cool, food production stops and the chlorophyll disappears. The other colors present in the leaves start to appear, giving the leaves their different colors. A few cool nights will easily cue this change in leaf color, but that doesn’t mean that the coming winter is going to be hard, does it?

Other “sure” signs are corn has thick husks, hornets have triple-insulated nests (I’m not checking that one, are you?), cattle get rough coats, rabbits and squirrels have heavier fur than usual, and wooly bear caterpillars are black all over.  If the caterpillars are dark only in the middle, only midwinter will be hard; if the ends are darker, the beginning and end of the winter will be hard. Don’t know about you, but I have better things to do than follow wooly caterpillars around, taking a sort of census to determine how many have which stripes and colors to try to figure out that winter is going to be cold once it gets here.

More signs from Mother Nature: woodpeckers will share a tree, Snowy Owls will arrive early but the geese and ducks will leave early, as will the Monarch butterfly. Crickets will appear early on your hearth, raccoons will have bright bands on their tails, and your pigs will begin gathering sticks to live on during the coming blizzards. (Where do folks get this stuff?) Frequent halos around the moon indicate heavy snows to come. Mice will invade and eat ravenously in homes.

I can’t disprove any of these as most of them are just common sense reactions by common critters. Are they real prognosticators? Or are they just making preparations for the winter season that is coming anyway? Does it mean the winter is going to be harsher, or just cold like it’s supposed to be?

Here’s the last one to check.  If you cook a goose at Christmas, check the thickness of the breastbone.  If it’s thin and rather transparent, it will be a mild winter; if it’s thick, it will be a hard winter; if it’s really white, there will be lots of snow, and if it’s reddish, there won’t be much snow.

The final caution: all bets are off if the weather has been unusually dry.