Dear Otus,
I always look forward to getting The Old Farmer's Almanac so we can prepare for the coming winter weather. Our daughter's second grade at Young Elementary (Go, Yellowjackets!) has a jar of woolly buggers for a class project and the critters are barely fuzzy. The Almanac doesn't explain what that means. Can you fill us in?
-- Isabella Pyrrharctia,
Springdale
Dear Isabella,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you and a further pleasure to explain the folklore behind the legendary woolly bugger (Equidem pilosus), the larval stage of the Hesychius nymph.
According to Abenaki tribal legend, the longer the tail and the thicker the fuzzy body, the more severe the coming winter will be.
We can blame this winter on El Nino, La Nina and their cousins -- El Chico and La Hijastra, plus assorted other weather phenomena such as El Joven, La Prima, La Suegra and La Ninera, but for real prognostication, you can trust the woolly bugger.
According to the tried-and-true forecasting critter, it's going to be one sweltering and stormy winter. While the nation's upper Midwest hunkers down under icy onslaughts, Arkansans will be cranking up the air conditioning and looking for the waders.
The recent slightly lower temperatures are just a brief respite from predicted record highs. There will be a need for SPF-30 lotion on Thanksgiving, and the dress code for Christmas may be Bermuda shorts and T-shirts.
However, what may seem like a blessing at first blush could turn out to be an entomological disaster come next spring when the ticks and chiggers swarm from their hidey holes in a plague of biblical proportions.
The disturbing forecast was first leaked Sept. 4 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's homeland weather czar, Russell Blessing. Blessing had intended to delay his report until after the Nov. 2 elections so as not to help those seeking to blame President Barack Hussein Obama for bad weather like they blame him for everything else.
However, some insider NOAA whistle-blower forced Blessing to spill the beans early and let the chips fall where they may.
According to the government prognostication, the winter of 2014-15 will be "the most significant El Nino event since the calamity of 1982-1983."
As many recall, that El Nino caused El Invierno de Nuestro Descontento, when the trade winds in the central and western Pacific led to a depression of the thermocline in the eastern Pacific and an elevation in the west.
The 17-degree isotherm dropped to about 150 meters' depth, reducing the efficiency of upwelling to cool the surface and cut off the supply of nutrient-rich thermocline water to the euphotic zone.
We all know what happens when that last occurred: flooding in Peru; drought in Australia, and a super-soaked Union County slid four miles into Louisiana. It was nasty.
And that was followed by the La Nina winter of 1984-1985, when the first frost occurred Sept. 6.
We can't blame Obama for this winter's expected woes, but we can take steps to prepare for the giant swing in the El Nino southern oscillation that is known as El Chico.
Not only is the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) at a 52-year low, but the woolly buggers are practically hairless this fall.
The low SOI, first noted by Ecuadorian alpaca ranchers last summer, means we won't have to wait until Christmas for the warmer weather to have an effect.
El Nino (which means "the little boy," referring to baby Jesus) normally doesn't kick in until late December. This year's unusually mild spring and summer (only 83 degrees on July 4!) was but a harbinger of an unusually mild, warm winter.
But today's forecasters not only rely on their tethered ocean buoys to predict winter weather. They also keep a close eye on The Old Farmer's Almanac suggestions from stations across the country. Go to noaa.gov for the daily update.
NOAA monitors molting chickens and notes how many nuts squirrels are burying. It measures the thickness of the nutshells and the height of hornets' nests above the ground.
NOAA checks for rough skins on onions and measures the fat on skunks (that one's tricky). It also notes the height and thickness of spider webs and measures how deep ants are burrowing.
But nothing is better for winter forecasting than the woolly bugger. At the 18-acre NOAA Elm Prong Mill Bayou Woolly Bugger Station at 2103 E 22nd St. in Stuttgart (visitors welcome), the critters have scarcely any "wool" at all.
"About 80 percent of our woolly buggers are darned near naked," warns bugger wrangler Willy Williams. "The other 20 percent only have hair on their southern exposures."
Until next time, Kalaka says the buggers have spoken; take precautions.
Disclaimer
Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
HomeStyle on 09/20/2014