December 28, 1998 transcript # 266-1
Subject(s): forecasting, folklore
Title: Wooly Bear Caterpillar

( In this corner, wearing the biege rectangular case the forecaster of disaster, the computer. And in the other corner, wearing the fuzzy black and brown suit, the multipedic-oracle, wooly bear caterpillar. )

Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow for The Weather Notebook. In a battle of long range weather forecasting, we're pitting the wooly bear caterpillar against the computer. You all know what a computer is and you see it's forecasting apptitude everynight on the weather report. But what's a wooly bear?

Wooly bears are fuzzy caterpillars. They're a couple inches long, black, with a brown band around the middle. The folktale says that if the brown band is wide, then the winter will be mild and if the brown band is narrow, then get ready for deep snow and cold well into April. It's a charming way to forecast the weather but, unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be stacking up against the computer.

( The winner by technical knock-out, the computer. )

The American Museum of Natural History conducted a slightly less violent version of our study and discovered that not only the wooly bear but any animal ascribed with the powers of long-range prognostication actually shows no forecasting talent at all. So the computer is the winner in this forecasting fight but I'll bet computers can't spin a coccoon.

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