Date: Fri 03-Oct-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

Winter-weather-Farmers-Almanac

Full Text:

Old Farmer Says Winter Will Be Warm And Wet

BY DOROTHY EVANS

"The north wind shall blow,

And we shall have snow. "

That's what the children's nursery rhyme says, but what will the winter of

1997/98 really be like?

We appreciate any advance warning we can get from those in a position to know,

so we listen to the weathermen and we consult the "Old Farmer." After all,

he's been toting his almanac around for 206 years now. Surely, experience

counts for something.

Consulting the newspapers, we've been reading about the reappearance of El

Nino , that warm-water ocean current that shows up in the southern Pacific

Ocean every few years around Christmas time (hence the name, El Nino , meaning

"little boy," connoting the Christ child in Spanish).

It seems that during an El Nino year, we have abnormally warm, wet winters in

the Northeast.

But El Nino also brings atmospheric disturbances that cause storms. At 32

degrees Fahrenheit, the fine line between "wet" and "snow" can make all the

difference. Which will it be?

Almanac Says 14 Storms

The latest edition of that familiar yellow booklet with the hole in the upper

left hand corner, The 1998 Old Farmer's Almanac , is now on sale in area

bookstores.

Here, we can learn about the Great Eclipse of 1998, study how to hypnotize a

frog and be reminded, in case we haven't lived that long, of the historical

significance of the Indian Head nickel.

Since The 1998 Old Farmer's Almanac contains within its 240 pages more weather

data than one person could possibly know what to do with, it's best to go

right to the important part.

Page 122 summarizes the forecast for the New England region.

Exactly 14 separate storms, called "weather events," can be counted between

the beginning of November 1997 and the end of April 1998.

It must be said that each one contains the "S" word, and each one was

separated from the one before it by a period of clearing and sunshine.

The month of November will be colder than normal. There will be heavy snowfall

in mid-December and again in mid-March. January and February will see above

normal temperatures, and there may also be more snow than usual.

A white Christmas is predicted, but there will not be enough snow in April to

cover the daffodils.

Not bad news, overall.

Weatherman Won't Commit

Another source for winter predictions would be the Western Connecticut State

University weather office.

On Monday, September 28, Gary Lessor, director of the WestConn Weather Center,

consented to make a few guarded predictions. Actually, he tended to support

what the "Old Farmer" had written.

"For the past six months, it's been apparent that the upcoming winter would be

milder than normal. We already know an El Nino is happening," Mr Lessor said.

"It will be warmer and wetter than normal with possibly less snow. But if you

have a lot of moisture in the atmosphere, and if you happen to have a period

of cold at the same time, that could mean big snowstorms," he said.

Going by the overall pattern, he said a bad snow year such as 1995/96 is

usually followed by a less severe winter, such as we had in 1996/97.

Does that mean we're in for it again in 1997/98?

"There's no way to say," Mr Lessor concluded.

He'd know more, he added, when the October/November weather patterns had set

up.

Weather Wisdom

Looking to the natural world for weather clues is a favorite pastime.

Much better to turn off the Weather Channel and go look outside seeking signs

of a bad winter coming, say the old timers and the common folk who cling to

their tried-and-true methods of making forecasts.

Are the outside cats getting fat? Were the corn husks thicker than usual?

Does this year's crop of woolly bear caterpillars have more black hairs than

orange hairs?

Are the squirrels especially active? Are the oak trees bearing a lot of

acorns? Are dogs burying their bones deeper? Are spiders growing fur? Do we

notice an excessive number of mice coming into the house?

How high are the paper wasps building their nests?

One clue about the severity of the coming winter can be found in measuring the

heights of hornets nests off the ground. Folklore says that wasps build only

high enough to avoid being covered by snow, so any nest spotted more than 20

feet up is definite cause for alarm.

Luckily, we've got a local source on this one.

Just last week, Newtown nurseryman and co-owner of Burr Farm Gardens, Garry

Ober, found a huge paper wasp nest in the front yard of the Apple Valley Road

home owned by his wife's parents, Howard and Barbara Gorham.

Since Mr Ober was helping the Gorhams with a landscaping project nearby, he

decided the nest had to come down.

"They were white-faced hornets all right. Just look at white-faced hornets the

wrong way, and they'll come after you," Mr Ober said.

First, he sprayed the nest, then he cut it out of the azalea bush where he had

found it so his children could bring it to school.

"I only got stung once during the pruning process," he said.

Mr Ober reported that the hornets' nest was exactly 18 inches off the ground,

which is pretty good news winter weatherwise.

In terms of a single snowstorm, 18 inches seems like a lot.

But if that is the total snow accumulation for the entire season, we can deal

with it. In 1995/96, a year of record-breaking snowfall, we had 86 inches.