# Caterpillars????  What do they mean for Winter?



## NordicSplitter (Jul 14, 2013)

Moving some wood around this weekend, splitting and stacking. Discovered a few caterpillars. left them un-disturbed. Just curious...Isn't it a bit early to see them? I'm' in WNY...What does this mean for winter if anything? Interested to hear for some of the older(more experienced ) guys......


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## Backwoods Savage (Jul 14, 2013)

Bad winter coming for sure. Build big wood pile.


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## NordicSplitter (Jul 14, 2013)

Early predictions from Accu-Weather are for *alot* of snow in my neak of the woods. I was quite surprised to see the little guys out already...


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## bogydave (Jul 14, 2013)

NordicSplitter said:


> What does this mean for winter if anything?.


 
1. Winter is coming. 
2. Wood for the coming winter should be ready  (ie: at least 1 yr. old & dry)
3. Wood for next winter should be CSS soon.
4. Western NY will get lots of snow.

older(more experienced )
Old  timer
Dave


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## Paulywalnut (Jul 14, 2013)

They are great weather predictors. Very cold winter this year. record lows and lots of snow.
Don't disturb them... its bad luck.


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## NordicSplitter (Jul 14, 2013)

Paulywalnut said:


> They are great weather predictors. Very cold winter this year. record lows and lots of snow.
> Don't disturb them... its bad luck.


 
One can only Hope!


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## MasterMech (Jul 15, 2013)

Paulywalnut said:


> Very cold winter this year. record lows and lots of snow.


 
Please Please Please Please!


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## thewoodlands (Jul 15, 2013)

NordicSplitter said:


> Moving some wood around this weekend, splitting and stacking. Discovered a few caterpillars. left them un-disturbed. Just curious...Isn't it a bit early to see them? I'm' in WNY...What does this mean for winter if anything? Interested to hear for some of the older(more experienced ) guys......


 How it started.

*Do Woolly Bear Caterpillars Forecast Winter Weather?*

According to legend, the wider that middle brown section is (i.e., the more brown segments there are), the milder the coming winter will be. Conversely, a narrow brown band is said to predict a harsh winter. But is it true?

Between 1948 and 1956, Dr. Curran's average brown-segment counts ranged from 5.3 to 5.6 out of the 13-segment total, meaning that the brown band took up more than a third of the woolly bear's body. As those relatively high numbers suggested, the corresponding winters were milder than average.
But Curran was under no scientific illusion: He knew that his data samples were small. Although the experiments popularized and, to some people, legitimized folklore, they were simply an excuse for having fun. Curran, his wife, and their group of friends escaped the city to see the foliage each fall, calling themselves The Original Society of the Friends of the Woolly Bear.
Thirty years after the last meeting of Curran's society, the woolly bear brown-segment counts and winter forecasts were resurrected by the nature museum at Bear Mountain State Park. The annual counts have continued, more or less tongue in cheek, since then.
For the past 10 years, Banner Elk, North Carolina, has held an annual "Woolly Worm Festival" each October, highlighted by a caterpillar race. Retired mayor Charles Von Canon inspects the champion woolly bear and announces his winter forecast.
Most scientists discount the folklore of woolly bear predictions as just that, folklore. Says Ferguson from his office in Washington, "I've never taken the notion very seriously. You'd have to look at an awful lot of caterpillars in one place over a great many years in order to say there's something to it."
Mike Peters, an entomologist at the University of Massachusetts, doesn't disagree, but he says there could, in fact, be a link between winter severity and the brown band of a woolly bear caterpillar. "There's evidence," he says, "that the number of brown hairs has to do with the age of the caterpillar—in other words, how late it got going in the spring. The [band] _does_ say something about a heavy winter or an early spring. The only thing is . . . it's telling you about the_ previous _year."
What do you think? Do woolly bears predict winter weather? What other signs of the seasons tell us about coming weather?
If you're interested in winter weather predictions, be sure to check out _The Old Farmer's Almanac_, too!


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## ScotO (Jul 15, 2013)

We're overdue here in the central PA mountains........I'll be sure to dig out both snowmobiles soon and get 'em ready to rock and roll...only 5 months til winter!!

I'm one of those guys who literally PRAYS for lots of snow.......I absolutely LOVE snow!!


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## rideau (Jul 15, 2013)

We have lots of Wooly bears, and I see them all summer and well into the autumn. I don't believe they predict anything about the coming winter. The year we didn't have any winter (Ha, Ha!), the brown bands were very large. To me, better prediction comes from the birds: cold winter coming and they fly south early. The loons gather earlier when a cold winter is coming, although they don't leave until there is no more open water. Squirrels seem to gather nuts more frantically.
And, a bit late to help, you do get eruptive flocks of birds coming further south than normal when the winter is bitter up north.


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## Ram 1500 with an axe... (Jul 15, 2013)

I had a caterpillar drop from a tree onto a round right in front of me last night....hmmm


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## Woody Stover (Jul 15, 2013)

Scotty Overkill said:


> I absolutely LOVE snow!!


 
Woody Stover does not like this.


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## red oak (Jul 15, 2013)

I'm pretty sure it's a sign of decreasing daylight.  Rumor has it daylight will slowly decrease until sometime in December.


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## red oak (Jul 15, 2013)

Scotty Overkill said:


> We're overdue here in the central PA mountains........I'll be sure to dig out both snowmobiles soon and get 'emthe ready to rock and roll...only 5 months til winter!!
> 
> I'm one of those guys who literally PRAYS for lots of snow.......I absolutely LOVE snow!!


 

I'm with you Scotty!  The more snow the better!  Especially now that my kids are old enough to enjoy it with me!


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## Backwoods Savage (Jul 15, 2013)

When I got my first real job (age 12) working for a neighbor farmer (even though I lived on a farm at the time but had 2 older brothers. Guess what the young kid got always....), my boss swore by the caterpillars and pointed them out to me every year. All the years I worked for him he would show me the caterpillars and say we would have an open winter. That meant not much snow but really cold. Well, during that time, he was right as we got very little snow but it surely got cold. I also not so fondly remember the coldest winter we ever experienced in this area. Not necessary the coldest as for low temperatures as the coldest we had that year was around 20 below zero, but extended cold. Funny part is that winter started with lots of snow but then really turned cold. We had a big January thaw that lasted a day and a half then the temperature fell like a rock. The next 3 days we did not get above zero. I was not working for him at that time but had asked him earlier. He predicted a lot of snow. So, he was half right... Sad that he has now passed away as I looked upon him as a father, since I left home at age 12....


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## Trilifter7 (Jul 15, 2013)

Scotty Overkill said:


> We're overdue here in the central PA mountains........I'll be sure to dig out both snowmobiles soon and get 'emthe ready to rock and roll...only 5 months til winter!!
> 
> I'm one of those guys who literally PRAYS for lots of snow.......I absolutely LOVE snow!!



Right there with ya Scotty!! I'll be doin the snow dances with ya this winter!


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## Paulywalnut (Jul 15, 2013)

I've seen wooley bear caterpillars in my stacks in the snow. I find a nice warm spot for them in the shed.
They turn into a moth sooner or later I imagine.


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