SNOW IS COMING: Caterpillars Predicted This Week’s Snow Back in November

The caterpillars were right! My "dumb" snow app is right! And Dwyer is going to eat a big bowl of crap!

Back in November I originally posted this blog. Our buddy Steve Gottschalk gave us his winter forecast as foretold by caterpillars. The forecast is below, in its entirety and unedited.

All morning (March 1) I've been warning that the snow is coming. To the surprise of nobody, I was made fun of, relentlessly. Well guess what, I'm right! Here's a screenshot from my snow app:

If you read the blog below you'll see that Steve included "Storms around the 2nd and 9th of March" in his forecast.

Original Post form November 2015

Steve Gottschalk AKA The Caterpillar Man gave us his 2015-2016 Winter Forecast. This year he got away from using moon phases and is instead using caterpillars, a cat, and crickets to predict winter weather.

Steve collected 50 caterpillars this year, down from the 100+ last year. The caterpillars were somewhat undecided, half said this winter would be cold, half said warm. You can tell by looking at the number of brown bands in the middle of the insect. Steve says this year the average number of bands was 4.85, which is higher than the average of 4.33, meaning a warmer winter. Fewer brown bands would mean a colder winter.

Next Steve takes into consideration how many crickets have been coming into his home. He's been using this method since the early 90's without fail. So far he's less crickets around his house than last years, that predicts less snowfall this winter.

Finally, Steve has a newcomer at his weather station. Riley the cat is 96% accurate at predicting daily rain. If Riley starts eating grass, that means within 12 hours there will be rainfall. Riley also can predict the winter temperatures, his shorter mane means that this winter will be warmer.

Steve's prediction for the First big snowstorm in the Quad Cities will happen within 24 hours of December 4th. He says we will get 5 inches or more.

There you have it, using Steve Gottschalk's data, it looks like we will have a warmer winter with less snow this year.

Steve sent us this followup to his forecast:

This is based on the moon's phases. Storms around the 12th and 18th of December. Storms around the 2nd and 31st of January. A storm around the 2nd of February. Storms around the 2nd and 9th of March.

Another piece of data that I found was there is a 77% chance of having a white Xmas, that is at least 1" or more of snow on the ground on Dec. 25th, when Xmas occurs during the week of the Full Moon. This year the full moon is on the 25th.

I forgot to tell the Guys that when Riley is frisky, it is going to be a windy day. This morning at 6:30 when the skies were almost clear, he was out eating a little grass and we had some more rain 3 hours later. He was also frisky, running around and that would explain the increasing winds that we are having.

If you don't want to place your faith in caterpillars, you can use the app that I use. I catch a lot of flak for having 7 different weather apps on my phone, what can I say? I like to know when it will snow.

The most accurate app I have is call "NOAA Snow Forecast". It's available for $1.99 on both the App Store and Google Play Store.