Winter Forecast 2008 - Folklore vs Science

Our winter forecast is now official... The Wooly Worm, Persimmon Seeds, The Old Farmer's Almanac, The Climate Prediction Center and myself have all put forth our winter forecast. <br/><br/>The

Friday, November 2nd 2007, 11:02 pm

By: News On 6

Our winter forecast is now official... The Wooly Worm, Persimmon Seeds, The Old Farmer's Almanac, The Climate Prediction Center and myself have all put forth our winter forecast.

The conclusions are that a somewhat warmer and dryer winter is forecast by the Old Farmer's Almanac and The Climate Prediction Center. The Wooly Worm also was a little more brown in the middle indicating a likely milder winter. On the other side, persimmon seeds and yours truly forecast a wetter than normal winter. Even though I believe it will be milder than normal, anytime we have precipitation in January and February ice and snow are always a possibility so don't get to excited that we might miss some of the nastiness we went through last winter.

Also of note is the fact that we will have some cold winter weather no matter what. Therefore it is very advisable to make sure you go through a winter checklist for your home and automobiles. Even some doctors are predicting a large flu outbreak because of the bad "winter" conditions that Australia just went through. Thus, a flu shot might be a good idea as well!

In case you are wondering, a persimmon seed, when cut in half, will normally show a spoon, knife or fork. A spoon is equal to a heavy precipitation winter and a knife means that we are in for bitter cold. A fork represents a mild winter.

Wooly worms are black on the ends and if it is suppose to be a warm winter, folklore has it, that that the normally small brown middle is larger and sometimes even a little orange.

The Climate Prediction Center issues weekly, monthly and seasonal outlooks for temperature and precipitation as compared to normal climate trends.

Hopefully this winter will be mild as heating costs are averaging 20-35% higher than this time last year. If the winter turns colder than predicted the cost of heating our homes will go up even higher which is not a good way to start 2008!

The only negative to a warm winter would be a high chance of a bad fire season so we are hoping and praying that does not come back again.

Travis Meyer

Watch The Video: The Persimmon Forecast With Travis Meyer