Dave's Corner - October 2025

This month’s edition is going to deal with one of the oldest prognosticators in the books, the Woolly Bear Caterpillar.

Can the woolly bear really predict the weather? Fact or folklore?

One of the most unique traits that it has is its ability to survive the winter in even the harshest of climates. It actually produces antifreeze throughout its body which prevents it from freezing. As it warms in the spring it emerges from its winter home as a beautiful moth.

Its ability to predict weather started in 1948 when Dr. Curran of the American Museum of Natural History in New York went to Bear Mountain State Park. There he collected a large number of woolly bear caterpillars. From that sample he came up with an average length of the reddish-brown or orange band in the middle of the insect. 

From 1948 to 1956 his experiment continued. Even though the woolly bear can be found in spring and early summer all over the United States, the caterpillars that he focused on emerged in late summer and early fall. He came to the conclusion that when the center band was more than a third of the caterpillars total length, the winters that followed were milder than average. He realized his experiment was less than scientific, but it might be something worth watching this fall!!