Weather Tidbits: Woolly Bear Caterpillar Folklore

This edition of Weather Tidbits will be discussing the folklore behind woolly bear caterpillar forecasting. This folklore revolves around forecasting the severity of an upcoming winter season based on the appearance of the caterpillar’s fur. In the folklore, if there is more black than brown on the caterpillar, the winter will be longer and hasher with more snow and colder temperatures. If there is more brown than black on the fur, than the winter will be milder with less snow. Of course this is just folklore and not to be taken seriously, but these caterpillars do hold interesting features. Their coloring is based on how long it has been feeding, its age, and species. Their fur helps them to adapt the cold with temperatures as low as negative 90 degrees below zero! They are also known to survive an entire winter completely frozen in an ice cube.