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NewsNovember 5, 1996

If squirrels start gathering nuts in mid-September, better order up some extra firewood. If rabbits are particularly furry, it's time to line your own nest. If there are a lot of spiders in the fall, even the big yellow-and-black banana spiders, Miss Muffet watch out...

If squirrels start gathering nuts in mid-September, better order up some extra firewood.

If rabbits are particularly furry, it's time to line your own nest.

If there are a lot of spiders in the fall, even the big yellow-and-black banana spiders, Miss Muffet watch out.

If a knife, spoon or fork design can be observed inside a persimmon seed, we're in for a sharp one.

Some call them old wives' tales. Others swear by their accuracy. No matter how you look at it, winter is coming.

But, according to the granddaddy of all winter weather prognosticators, the woolly worm, the winter of 1996-97 should start with a cold snap and then should be thankfully average.

It looks like an early cold snap this winter followed by an average winter, say a small group of weathercasters who have studied two signs of nature during the past few days including woolly worms.

If those found ambling along the fence row near the North Elementary Center of the Jackson R-2 School District are any indication, area residents can expect a harsh start to winter.

"Most of the woolly worms we've found this year have black and brown coloring," said Martha Short, fifth-grade teacher at the North Center at Fruitland. "Earlier this week, one of the woolly worms was mostly brown, with black furry tips."

A search Friday morning by Short and her 24 fifth-grade students turned up three more woollies, found by Matt Jackson and Tyler McNeely, all with black bands on either end and brown in the middle.

The woolly worm is officially the woolly bear, a name applied to the caterpillar of any tiger moths of the family, Arctiidae.

Legend has it that if the woolly bears are all-black, the winters will be harsh and cold. If they have black bands around each end and brown in the middle, the winters are expected to be cold at first, mild in the middle and cold again toward the end.

"And we're going to have snow this winter," said Kyle Luttrull. "We found a spoon design this week in the persimmon seed."

Three more spoons were found during a classroom experiment Friday.

Persimmons should be those that have recently fallen from a tree, said Short. Seeds are split. According to legend, if the white, middle part of the seed is shaped like spoon, expect plenty of snow to shovel during the winter.

If a fork design is found, snow will be light, and if a knife design is present, it means a cutting-cold winter.

"The designs are easy to spot," said Short. And with the use of a Magiscope at the school, the design is magnified five times.

The use of animals, insects and plants in predicting weather is part of folklore, based on observations that have been handed down from generation to generation. And the woolly worm has been looked upon as a weather prophet since colonial times.

Students at Fruitland's North Elementary School have watched the woolly worms over the past few years.

"We look for woolly worms in a wooded area near the school," said Short. "We usually find them easily." But an all-out search Friday failed to produce a single worm, until Jackson and McNeely left the wooded area and started searching along a nearby fence row.

It rained Thursday night, and the woolly worms were seeking dry, warm places. They found them buried in leaves along the fence row.

Following the weather experiment, the worms are released.

Woolly bears are usually most visible during the months of September and October, as they scurry across highways, sidewalks or playgrounds. They sleep through the winter and emerge in the spring as moths to begin the cycle all over again.

Many may scoff at the woolly bear's ability to foretell what the winter will be, but there are just as many who put stock in what its colored bands have to say each fall.

For those who remain skeptical, consider this: Over the past five years woolly worms have correctly predicted weather patterns in Southeast Missouri.

One of those predictions was a mixed one, as the two-colored worms predicted a cool start and warm finish. That year, 1991, wound up as one of the warmest in nearly 50 years in Cape Girardeau.

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And during one five-year period, from 1948 through 1953, a former curator of the Department of Insects and Spiders, American Museum of Natural History, New York City, used from 40 to 70 caterpillars collected from Bear Mountain, N.Y., to conduct a five-year study. The woolly worms were right in predicting the four winters, but were wrong in predicting a colder winter the fifth year.

This year?

The woolly bear could be right. The National Weather Service is predicting normal temperatures and precipitation levels. The only difference in forecast is that the weather service is not calling for that initial cold spike.

Forecasting the weather

By animals and insects:

-- If the cat plays, rainy weather can't be far away.

-- Birds huddling on the ground, cold weather will abound.

-- Crickets in the chimney, cold weather is coming.

-- Katydids start hollering, killing frost three months later.

-- Ants build their hills high to keep above the coming snows.

-- Hoot owls heard late in the fall mean a bad winter is coming.

It will be a bad winter if:

-- Carrots grow deep.

-- Sweet potatoes have a tougher skin.

-- Onions have more layers

-- Hickory nuts have a heavy shell.

-- Tree bark is heaviest on the north side.

-- Corn shucks are tighter around the ears of corn.

-- If it frosts before Nov. 23.

-- And a long, hot summer means a long, cold winter.

And it will rain if:

-- Tree leaves show their backs.

-- The cows come home from the pasture early in the day.

-- Ants close the hole to their ant hill.

-- If earthworms come to the surface of the ground.

-- If the birds fly low.

-- If smoke curls downward.

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