Wordless(ish) Wednesday: Woolly Bear Caterpillar

The trouble with weather forecasting
is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it
and wrong too often for us to rely on it.

-Patrick Young

QUICK FUN FACTS FOR THE DAY:

• The legend of the woolly bear is: if the brown stripe is longer than the black, we get a mild winter.
• I found this one a few days ago and he is ALL BLACK.
• But before you get all worked up about next winter:
• Turns out all woolly bears start out black and then develop a slowly-lengthening brown band as spring and summer and fall pass by. So how brown a woolly bear is in fall (when we would tend to note that sort of thing) is actually an indication of how severe last winter was; i.e. how early in the season it warmed enough to hatch out.
• Also turns out woolly bears like to play dead, so I’m hoping I didn’t kill this one like I thought I did, moving him into the sunlight for his close-up.
• I photographed this woolly bear below in October of 2008. In the post, I mention that I’d seen another that was much more brown.

That winter, Dec 08 through Feb 09, temps were near average across the contiguous United States, based on records dating back to 1895.

The United States experienced its fifth driest December-February period on record. NJ and DE had their driest February on record.

Do with that what you will 🙂 and let me know if you see any woolly bears!