Monday at lunch time
Good Morning Augusta.
This morning it is partly cloudy. Fog early. High of 81F. Winds less than 5
mph.
Tonight it will be partly cloudy. Low of 61F. Winds less than 5 mph.
The readings outside at this moment taken from my own instruments are:
a relative humidity of 65% with a Dew Point of 68.0º F.
The temperature is 80.8ºF.
Presently we have West Southwest winds between 3.8 MPH and 6.3 MPH.
Our Barometric pressure is 29.99/HPA 1015.5 and rising with a weather
graphic indicating sun.
UV is 10 out of 16, sunset will be at 8:05 PM with Moon Rise at 6:05 p.m.
Eastern Daylight Time, and the moon phase is Waxing Gibbous.
For the pilots out there: Raw METAR –
METAR KAUG 301253Z AUTO 22003KT 10SM CLR 21/17 A3010 RMK AO2 SLP191
T02060172
We had precipitation overnight in this area of 0.08 inches again.
Visibility is 10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers with a fantastic ceiling.
Predicting Winter Weather using Woolly Bear Caterpillars.
The woolly bear caterpillar—with its 13 distinct segments of black and
reddish-brown—has the reputation of being able to forecast the coming winter
weather.
Here is the history, facts, and lore about this legendary caterpillar. How
the Woolly Bear Became "Famous"
In the fall of 1948, Dr. C. H. Curran, curator of insects at the American
Museum of Natural History in New York City, took his wife 40 miles north of
the city to Bear Mountain State Park to look at woolly bear caterpillars.
Dr. Curran collected as many caterpillars as he could in a day, determined
the average number of reddish-brown segments, and forecast the coming winter
weather through a reporter friend at The New York Herald Tribune. Dr.
Curran's experiment, which he continued over the next eight years, attempted
to prove scientifically a weather rule of thumb that was as old as the hills
around Bear Mountain. The resulting publicity made the woolly bear the most
recognizable caterpillar in North America.
What is the Woolly Bear? The caterpillar Curran studied, the true woolly
bear, is the larval form of Pyrrharctia isabella, the Isabella tiger moth.
Here is more background.
This medium-size moth, with yellowish-orange and cream-colored wings spotted
with black, is common from northern Mexico throughout the United States and
across the southern third of Canada.
As moths go, the Isabella isn't much to look at compared with other species,
but its immature larva, called the black-ended bear or the woolly bear (and,
throughout the South, woolly worm) is one of the few caterpillars most
people can identify.
Woolly bears do not actually feel much like wool—they are covered with
short, stiff bristles of hair.
In field guides, they're found among the "bristled" species, which include
the all-yellow salt marsh caterpillar and several species in the tiger moth
family. Not all are 'woolly bears!'
Woolly bears, like other caterpillars, hatch during warm weather from eggs
laid by a female moth.
Mature woolly bears search for overwintering sites under bark or inside
cavities of rocks or logs. (That's why you see so many of them crossing
roads and sidewalks in the fall.)
When spring arrives, woolly bears spin fuzzy cocoons and transform inside
them into full-grown moths.
Typically, the bands at the ends of the caterpillar are black, and the one
in the middle is brown or orange, giving the woolly bear its distinctive
striped appearance.
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."
So, if the posts on this blog about pig spleens, birds, insects and reptiles
for weather prediction aren't your preferred method, why not just keep an
eye on your garden and watch for a woolly bear, and then count his or her
rings. By the way, just how do you tell the difference between a boy and
girl Woolly...
This morning it is partly cloudy. Fog early. High of 81F. Winds less than 5
mph.
Tonight it will be partly cloudy. Low of 61F. Winds less than 5 mph.
The readings outside at this moment taken from my own instruments are:
a relative humidity of 65% with a Dew Point of 68.0º F.
The temperature is 80.8ºF.
Presently we have West Southwest winds between 3.8 MPH and 6.3 MPH.
Our Barometric pressure is 29.99/HPA 1015.5 and rising with a weather
graphic indicating sun.
UV is 10 out of 16, sunset will be at 8:05 PM with Moon Rise at 6:05 p.m.
Eastern Daylight Time, and the moon phase is Waxing Gibbous.
For the pilots out there: Raw METAR –
METAR KAUG 301253Z AUTO 22003KT 10SM CLR 21/17 A3010 RMK AO2 SLP191
T02060172
We had precipitation overnight in this area of 0.08 inches again.
Visibility is 10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers with a fantastic ceiling.
Predicting Winter Weather using Woolly Bear Caterpillars.
The woolly bear caterpillar—with its 13 distinct segments of black and
reddish-brown—has the reputation of being able to forecast the coming winter
weather.
Here is the history, facts, and lore about this legendary caterpillar. How
the Woolly Bear Became "Famous"
In the fall of 1948, Dr. C. H. Curran, curator of insects at the American
Museum of Natural History in New York City, took his wife 40 miles north of
the city to Bear Mountain State Park to look at woolly bear caterpillars.
Dr. Curran collected as many caterpillars as he could in a day, determined
the average number of reddish-brown segments, and forecast the coming winter
weather through a reporter friend at The New York Herald Tribune. Dr.
Curran's experiment, which he continued over the next eight years, attempted
to prove scientifically a weather rule of thumb that was as old as the hills
around Bear Mountain. The resulting publicity made the woolly bear the most
recognizable caterpillar in North America.
What is the Woolly Bear? The caterpillar Curran studied, the true woolly
bear, is the larval form of Pyrrharctia isabella, the Isabella tiger moth.
Here is more background.
This medium-size moth, with yellowish-orange and cream-colored wings spotted
with black, is common from northern Mexico throughout the United States and
across the southern third of Canada.
As moths go, the Isabella isn't much to look at compared with other species,
but its immature larva, called the black-ended bear or the woolly bear (and,
throughout the South, woolly worm) is one of the few caterpillars most
people can identify.
Woolly bears do not actually feel much like wool—they are covered with
short, stiff bristles of hair.
In field guides, they're found among the "bristled" species, which include
the all-yellow salt marsh caterpillar and several species in the tiger moth
family. Not all are 'woolly bears!'
Woolly bears, like other caterpillars, hatch during warm weather from eggs
laid by a female moth.
Mature woolly bears search for overwintering sites under bark or inside
cavities of rocks or logs. (That's why you see so many of them crossing
roads and sidewalks in the fall.)
When spring arrives, woolly bears spin fuzzy cocoons and transform inside
them into full-grown moths.
Typically, the bands at the ends of the caterpillar are black, and the one
in the middle is brown or orange, giving the woolly bear its distinctive
striped appearance.
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."
So, if the posts on this blog about pig spleens, birds, insects and reptiles
for weather prediction aren't your preferred method, why not just keep an
eye on your garden and watch for a woolly bear, and then count his or her
rings. By the way, just how do you tell the difference between a boy and
girl Woolly...
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