What does your weather forecaster say....

We cut open a persimmon seed other day.. knife showed up....

Folklore and forecasting

By Kevin Myatt
The Roanoke Times

Gary Blackcloud Foutz says that he can tell how many days to the next rain by how many stars are inside a ring around the moon.

Most of us have heard of this saying or a version of it before. Many roll their eyes and dismiss it. But is there truth in it?

High-level cirrus clouds often precede large-scale rain-producing weather systems by several days. These cirrus clouds disperse the moon's reflected light, producing a large halo. Mid-level clouds that would occur a day or two before such a system can produce what appears to be a tighter halo around the moon.

So more stars would be inside the halo the farther out the rain system is. Admittedly, the exact number of stars would depend on what part of the sky the moon was in, and this method would have less applicability to the daily summertime showers than it would to large-scale weather patterns.

Still, long before there was Doppler radar and geosynchronous satellites, many cultures developed sayings and lore about the weather. Many of these are based on observation and have at least some basis in scientific fact.

Foutz is a weather enthusiast who sometimes chases local storms and utilizes both modern and traditional techniques in forecasting weather. He is a descendant of Delaware Cherokee Indians, and he helps organize the annual Gathering of Veterans Pow Wow each June in Salem.

We've all heard old sayings about weather. Most of them relate to what kind of winter is ahead, such as the thickness of coats on woolly worms.

Foutz offers three of these from the Indian folklore he was taught.

It will be a snowy winter if:

>Squirrels accumulate huge stores of nuts.

>Beavers build heavier lodges than usual.

>Hair on bears and horses is thick early in season

In my own childhood in Arkansas, I frequently heard a saying of Ozarks origin that persimmon seeds could foretell the winter. Cut open a seed longways, and there is a white formation inside, actually the plant embryo. If the formation is shaped like a knife, a bitterly cold winter is ahead. If it is shaped like a spoon, there would be lots of snow. If it's shaped like a fork, then a mild winter was forthcoming.

While we're on the subject, I would say that as far as western Virginia is concerned, the "fogs in August equals snows in the winter" theory is out the window. Fog develops much more commonly in valleys during August; snow falls much more commonly on mountaintops.

This raises an important point about weather folklore -- often, sayings are location-specific. What my have validity in one area may not in another. An evening rainbow in the east means the storm has probably passed here, since our weather generally moves west to east. A sailor in the north Atlantic just above the equator could well be headed into a storm, though, with the same sight: weather generally moves east to west in that area.

With that, I offer some of Foutz's nuggets of wisdom today, for your own consideration:

>If the bull leads the cows to pasture, expect rain; if the cows precede the bull, the weather will be uncertain.

>Dandelion blossoms close before a storm.

>When the leaves of trees turn over, it foretells possible severe weather.

>The sky turns green in a storm when there is hail.

>The first frost in autumn will be exactly six months after the first thunderstorm of the spring.

>If the raven crows, expect rain.

>Fish bite best before a rain.

>A reddish sun has water in his eye.

>Tobacco gets moist before a rain.

>When ropes are tight it's going to rain.

>Campfires are more smoky before a rain.

>When stones sweat, rain will soon come.

Feel free to let me know about the weather sayings you have found to be reliable, or perhaps, not so reliable.