Winter Forecast

Morning fog

Most communities rely on the weather channel or the Farmer's Almanac for their weather forecasts.  Not us mountain folk.  We turn to Joe down at the hardware store.

Joe uses  time-honored traditions, which have been passed down by his mother, to predict the winter weather.   During the month of August he wakes up early each morning and heads to a special place to see if it is foggy or not.  If there is a dense fog, he puts a large bean in a jar.  If the fog is wispy, a small bean is put in the jar.  This year he had five large  beans, which means there will be five big snowstorms, and seven small beans, which indicates seven snow dustings.

He also looks at how the bees are building their nests.  This year he observed that they were creating large, thick nests, which suggests colder weather.  If blades of grass twist and intertwine with each other, that is a sign of a colder than usual winter as the woven locks create a natural shelter for smaller animals.

What get every ones attention is the mention of black squirrels.  Their appearance is synonymous with a cold, harsh winter.  Up until two years ago a black squirrel had not been seen in this area for over 80 years.  The winters of 2009 and 2010 were snowy, cold and harsh.  This year people have sent Joe 164 black squirrel pictures taken around the area.

For the past two years Joe predictions have been dead-on 90% of the time.  This year he predicts a very cold, icy winter with wide scale power outages.

Florida, here I come.