Here are the possibilities I can come up with. Starting at the head= start of winter is bad Long brown section in the middle = not so bad Small black at the end= a reminder that winter is here before its done Overall color More brown than black= not such a bad winter More black than brown= worse winter I have no idea how you're supposed to read them but I always heard my elders say one way or the other once they saw a few of these caterpillar. Never got a chance to have them explain. That's IF winter is predictable by their color/stripe pattern.
Gramps said head was length of fall Middle was length of winter End was length of spring BUT height of wasp nests told ya how deep snow would be
In my youth I was told the pattern on the predicted an open winter. Translated; not much snow but bold.
I can remember being a kid and my mother would always speak of them and being weather predictors. Something to do with the width of the middle band. I see a woolly bear caterpillar from time to time and think of mom. (She would've turned 100 on Nov. 3)
Vermillion Ohio has a Wooly Bear festival every year, and it seems to me that in recent years the wooly bear forecast has been full of it! Kinda like Native American tribes have different languages?
