Wolf Moon

RE-POST
Much the same for JAN-23.

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January/s full moon was supposedly named the 'wolf' moon by native Americans living in the NE b/c there were hungry wolves roaming outside their camps.

Color me skeptical but that/s the story.

Even so ... the name does conjure up some dark imagery -- dead of winter ... cold ... lifeless ... short days ... cemeteries.

So ... if the wolves are hungry for food ... then it follows snow crows can be hungry for snow.

Wolf Moon seems like a good description this year even if its origins may not be genuine. The first full moon of '07 comes early this month. Not likely to see any halos portending a snowstorm in the E tonight; although ... it may be a different story later in the month.

If winter/s first Contest storm slips into early February ... it would be just in time for the Snow Moon.

Winter '18 / '19 - The Woolly Bear Caterpillar Guide to Winter Weather Forecasting

It/s that time of year again when long-range wx forecasters scour the bowels looking for ... well ... wadda you say we don/t go there.

More better ... consult the Woolly Bear Caterpillar Guide to Winter Weather Forecasting.

(Lightly edited re-post from USENET news group ne.weather 11-OCT-03)

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In recent weeks ... a spate of news articles have appeared about the woolly bear caterpillar and its legendary ability to foretell the upcoming winter based on the color and width of its black and orange stripes.

With so much good information scattered across so many sources ... there appeared to be a need to compile the forecasting rules.

This handy forecasting guide can be printed and kept inside your coat pocket for easy reference.

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The Woolly Bear Caterpillars Among Us

There is more than one kind of woolly bear caterpillar.  The one you use when forecasting is the banded woolly caterpillar ... which becomes the Isabella moth (Pyrrharctia Isabella) in the spring.  Pictures of the caterpillar and moth can be seen here: Caterpillar Moth

Science is Skeptical

It should come as no surprise ... entomologists pooh-pooh the very idea banded woolly bear caterpillars can predict future events.  These naysayers claim variations in band color and width are evidence of a worm/s age and the fall weather conditions when the worm reached maturity.

Worms exhibiting more black than orange are older and grew in wet conditions.  Worms exhibiting less black than orange are younger and grew in dry conditions.  And therein we find the caterpillar's predictive value. 

Read more »

Winter '22 / '23 - The Strangest Superstitions About Snow In History

Wilson Bently

Snow has "... been used as a basis for everything from miraculous church-building to questionable medical cures, from holy substance to cause of disease and potential breeding-ground for hairy grubs"

"A barefoot run in the first snow of the year is recommended for everything from preventing chilblains in children to frostbite and sore throat. Eating or drinking it, meanwhile, was a cure for many ills, including warts and toothache (and freckles, which needed a "treatment" at the time), and if you had a nosebleed it was a good idea to hold snow at the back of your neck, presumably to give you something else upsetting to think about."

 More ...

Winter '12 / '13 - White Christmas

White Christmas in the US is defined as 1" on-the-ground on 25-DEC.  The criteria are different in other countries.

The probability of an event is determined by dividing the number of times something happened in the past by the number of times it could have happened.

If there was a white Christmas five times over 20 years...the probability is 25% in any given year.

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Folklore predictions...
- A green Christmas; a white Easter.

- If there's thunder during Christmas week...
The Winter will be anything but meek.

- The nearer the New Moon to Christmas Day...the harder the Winter.
[ed:  New moon 13-DEC-12]

- If Christmas day be bright and clear
There’ll be two winters in the year.

- Thunder in December presages fine weather.

- Like in December like all the year long.

Winter '11 / '12 - White Christmas Probabilities

Updated below

White Christmas in the US is defined as 1" on-the-ground on 25-DEC.  The criteria are different in other countries.

The probability of an event is determined by dividing the number of times something happened by the number of time it could have happened.  If there was a white Christmas five times over 20 years...the probability is 25% in any given year.

This NCDC map is a little dated b/c it's based on the old 1961 - 1990 period of climate normals.  Good enough for our purposes.

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Folklore predictions...
- A green Christmas; a white Easter.

- If there's thunder during Christmas week...
The Winter will be anything but meek.

- The nearer the New Moon to Christmas Day...the harder the Winter.   [ed.  - new moon is 24-DEC!]

- If Christmas day be bright and clear
There’ll be two winters in the year.

- Thunder in December presages fine weather.
[ed. - somewhat at odds with 'thunder during Christmas week]

- Like in December like all the year long.
[ed. - does this face forward or backward?]

UPDATE:
The NWS has updated their white Christmas probabilities map based on the current 30-year climo period between 1981 and 2010...

Note there is one fewer classes in the new map.  The '< 5%' class has been combined with the '5-10%' class into one '< 10%' class...which is not an improvement for snow crows living along the map's southern boundary. 

Also note the classes are not represented by equal sizes.  Some are 15%-points...some are 10%-points...some are less than 10%-points.

Winter '09 / '10 - Pig Spleens as Predictors

Norbert Schulz - North Dakota pig farmer:

“It is a bad winter... It’s going to turn real nasty.
“In March it looks even worse than it does (in January)...”

"Mr. Schulz uses the width and height of pig spleens to determine if the up-coming winter will be mild and dry or cold and snowy.

"His outlook this year: buy a new shovel."

More ...

The Fog Days of August

"For every fog in August...
There will be a snowfall in Winter."

As folklore would have it...the number of foggy days in August correlates to the number of snow storms during the upcoming winter.

Now...there/s fog and then there/s fog. Only days where visibility was reduced to 0.25 SM or less were included in the table.

By the looks of it...SBY gets the best of it this go 'round...while there/s a whole lot of bupkis for much of the remaining Mid-Atlantic region.

The meteorology behind the lore suggests an August with a fair number of cold frontal passages that generate wet and cool conditions in their wake. Length-of-day gets shorter this month...allowing more time for nocturnal radiational cooling and the development of dense fog.

Partly Cloudy...Partly Sunny...Mostly Stoopit

What part of the word 'partly' is so hard to understand?

The National Weather Circus sez 'partly cloudy' and 'partly sunny' are the same animal. Opaque clouds covering 3/10 - 6/10 of the sky. 'Sunny' is used during the day and 'cloudy' is used at night. Vanilla is as vanilla does.

Other meteorologists say "partly sunny means a mixture of sun and clouds is expected, but more sun than clouds. Partly cloudy also means a mixture of sun and clouds is expected, but more clouds than sun."

'Partly sunny' or 'partly cloudy' is "...a mixture of clouds and sun." OK. No problem with that part.

Now consider the following...
The forecast can call for a 'sunny'...'mostly sunny'...or 'partly sunny' sky. If 'partly sunny' means 'more sun than clouds'...does that mean ‘partly sunny’ is sunnier than ‘mostly sunny?

Or how about this...
The forecast can call for a 'cloudy'...'mostly cloudy'...or 'partly cloudy' sky. If 'partly cloudy' means 'more clouds than sun'...does that mean ‘partly cloudy’ is cloudier than ‘mostly cloudy?’

What stoopit comes up with this 'partly sunny is the same as partly cloudy' and 'partly is more than mostly' stuff...anyway?

Folklore - December

A green Christmas; a white Easter.

If there's thunder during Christmas week...
The Winter will be anything but meek.

The nearer the New Moon to Christmas Day...the harder the Winter.

If Christmas day be bright and clear
There’ll be two winters in the year.

Thunder in December presages fine weather.

Like in December like all the year long.

As November 21st...so the winter

If that/s the case...then this winter will hew closely to the CW for 'above normal' temperatures...especially in SNE and the M-A.

A few stations in the NE were below normal yesterday. BGR - PWM - BOS - BDL - CON had departures from -1 to -3°F...due in large part to low overcast and light rain.

Elsewhere...
+1 to +4°F: CAR - BTV - PVD - BDR - ISP - JFK - EWR
+7 to +10°F: ALB - ABE - MDT - PHL
+12 to +20°: ACY - SBY - RIC - RDU - IAD - DCA - BWI

IAD took top honors at +20°F.

HARD Winter Follows HOT August

Apparently...if it/s unusually warm the first week of August...a hard winter/s a/comin/.

"If the first week in August is unusually warm,
The coming Winter will be snowy and long."

Must have missed class the day that old chestnut was presented!

How can an 'unusually warm' first week of August be quantified? NWS field manuals of old described 'mild' temperatures as departures 5-10 °F above normal. 'Hot' was a departure of 10 or more.

'Hot' seems to lend itself more to 'unusually warm' than does 'mild.' If that/s the case...then a station would need a total anomaly of 70°F to qualify as 'unusually warm.'

So...what/s in store this winter according to folklore for NE and the M-A regions? The bar chart shows 7-day total temperature anomalies for NEWxSFC stations.


The 'rule' cannot be expressly applied b/c there were no stations where the 7-day anomaly total was 70°F or higher. IAD and BWI were most 'unusually warm' with 49 and 44°F anomalies... respectively.

The average station temperature anomaly was ~31 °F. The 90th percentile station temperature anomaly came in @ 41°F...which includes IAD...BWI...ACY...and RIC.

So...there it is. If indeed...a hot August ==> long, snowy winter...then this year/s action center will be found in a tightly constricted corridor along the M-A/s coastal plain.

Snow Moon

Native American folklore holds February/s full moon...which occurs tonight...was known as the Full Snow Moon...supposedly b/c the heaviest snowfalls occurred during the second month of the year.

Maybe the tribes of northern and eastern America called it that...maybe they didn/t. All too often...Anglo-saxons have come up with pleasing stories about native peoples with little or no basis in fact.

Nevertheless...it would make for better folklore...regardless the origin...if it were based on observations that February is the climatologically favored time of year for good snows in the NE.

Too bad it/s not so. For most stations in the NE CONUS...January has the highest period of record normal (PORN) snowfall. In some cases...the difference between one month and the other is small...and maybe a statistical test on the difference between the two means would fail to reject the null hypothesis...but the data suggest the Snow Moon probably belongs to January.