Viewer reports from Christiansburg to Lynchburg have filtered in to our newsroom about the wooly bear worms this fall. Eric Day with the Department of Entomology at Virginia Tech says it’s normal to see them at this time of year.
“Right now, they're finished feeding and they're moving to a place where they can spend the winter," said Day.
Just seeing them, some believe is an omen that the winter is going to be bad.
Karen Garrett works at a produce stand in downtown Roanoke and says, “My grandma used to say that if you see them around in early fall and late summer it would predict a bad winter."
But, others think it's the width of the bands that tells the forecast.
So the saying goes, the more black on the caterpillar the harsher the winter. Some will even go as far as to believe that the black start to the caterpillar means a harsh start to winter, the brown center means a mild center to the season, and the black at the end means a severe end to the season.
Whether you believe this or not, some say they've been right in the past. Karen explains, “Last year I saw a lot of them and the year before I didn't see them, or the year before I didn't see them."
Truth be told, Day says the width of the brown band is due to how much the worm eats.
“If you can find one that had the perfect summer, had the right amount of food, it’s going to be almost all red and virtually no black," Day thinks.
Which some may link together with the weather. Day says, “You can look at it and say maybe if we had a cold summer, not much food for these things then maybe it indicates a cold winter. But my crystal ball is broken."
If the folklore holds true, the worms in our area are predicting an average winter. Average snowfall for Roanoke is a little more than 16 inches during the winter months.
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