Weather Predictions

When Edison was three or four he said, "I don't think that Weather Man is real. He is always wrong." Ever since the unmasking of this modern super hero, Edison has been convinced that he can do better. It started with noticing clouds.

"All we have to do to know the weather, is look outside," he says gravely. "And if you want to know what will happen soon, look up at the clouds in the sky." He is right, of course, and so, as far as the current "weather-where-you-live" and "weather-minute-by-minute" segments he has been much more useful than Weather Man. It is in the long term predictions that he suffers a bit from Lack of Knowledge.

Yesterday he discovered Woolly Bears. He took a bucket of these reddish-brown and black caterpillars over to my neighbor, to show her his collection. She told him that the bands on these bristly caterpillars could predict the severity of winter. The larger the black bands, the harder the winter would be. He came home to convince his brother and sister to help him find more in the interest of an accurate winter weather prediction.

After much discussion over the definition of "hard winter" (what exactly is a "hard" winter and is the opposite a "soft winter" or an "easy winter?") they agreed to help him. They found many woolly bears, but the bands on all of them were of differing widths. They tromped back to my neighbor. "Well, woolly bears can be tricky," she admitted. "If they were traveling north when you caught them, then it will be an easy winter. If they were going south it will be a hard winter."

They rushed back and determined the general direction of the caterpillars' path. They had all (but two) been going in the same direction! We got out our compass . . . they had all been traveling . . . east (except for the two going west-south-west).

This contradictory evidence merited some discussion among my budding meteorologists. The meeting lasted all afternoon. At dinnertime they announced their conclusions. Following is a summary:

In that woolly bears can be tricky, it falls to us to determine which one is telling the truth and which are lying. We like snow. Therefore, it will be a very hard winter. Much snow will fall and it will not melt quickly.

Amen.