THE WOOLLY CAN'T BE WRONG
Before I get to some breaking news on this year's woolly bear population, just a word on our latest spell of late season warmth. The low Tuesday night in Des Moines, Iowa was a remarkable 70 degrees. The average low is 38. To put this in perspective, the latest date of a 70 degree low previous to this was October 9th, 1973. In other words, this year crushed that record by 20 days! Just as amazing was 1950 when the last date of a 70 degree low came on June 24th. That's 127 days earlier than this year, more than 4 months. What the heck!
Another intriguing development was the rain that fell in Dubuque Wednesday night. The previous 60 days (2 months), only .25 inches was reported. Measurable amounts fell on just 3 of the 60-day period.
Lo and behold, Wednesday Between 4:09 and 4:39 p.m., (less than 30 minutes time) .43 inches were measured in a thunderstorm. For more perspective on that, it took 30 minutes to get more rain than the previous 87,500 minutes combined. By the way, a bunch more has fallen since then, with the total more than 2.35 inches in Dubuque with rain still falling. Glad that' stretch is over.
LET'S TALK CATERPILLARS
My man Steve Gottschalk, weather historian, COOP observer, and weather folklore expert out of Lowden, Iowa, is an authority on woolly bears, (the cuddly little striped caterpillar you've probably seen crawling around). Steve's been collecting data on them for the last 47 years. This year, he says they are crawling out of the woodwork. At last count, he had observed 408 of the fuzzy creatures, compared to just 12 last year. That's an all-time record for his yearly sightings.
Steve has a method where he counts the number of brown bands each woolly has. He takes the number of brown bands, adds them together and divides by the number of caterpillars. That gives him an index. Anything above 4.3 indicates a warm winter. Last I heard, his index was 5.2, a strong signal for a milder than average winter.
Steve reports the woollys have been right 37 of 47 years, a success ratio of 79 percent. Not bad, if I do say so myself. The fun little bombshell is that when he finds 45 or more in a year, there's a 70 percent chance snowfall is normal to above average, (especially during a La Nina, which is expected).
Knowing that he has 408 sightings and his previous 47-year record was 110, what does that mean? Do we get dumped on? Steve says that only 3 other years had more than 100 woolly bears, and all of those winters had above normal snowfall. Here's the snowy numbers registered at his place in Lowden.
1996/97....60.0 inches
2013/14...52.7 inches
2022-23...56.8 inches
Anyway you slice it, the good old caterpillar says a relatively mild but potentially snowy winter may be in the works. I'm down with that. Thanks to Steve for all the insights.
A RESPITE FOR TRICK OR TREATERS
The showers and storms that have been playing around overnight are rapidly ending from west to east Thursday morning. However, they were formidable in the NW half of my area, where Doppler estimates are pushing 2–3 inches plus from SW of Cedar Rapids to Dubuque through 1:00am Thursday.
The last of the rain should be crossing the Mississippi around 7 to 8 am, exiting the far east by mid-morning. Much colder air surges SE behind the cold front, with steady or falling temperatures into the 40s in the afternoon. Models have shown a deepening trend with the surface low and the trick or treating conditions are even chillier than were indicated yesterday. Bundle the spooks accordingly for their outing, with temperatures in the upper 30s to mid 40s. Wind chills are shown in the low to mid 30s across the north. That's a little ghoulish.
Friday we kick off November with a dry, but cold day as highs hold in the upper 40s to low 50s.
MORE RAIN ON THE WAY
Another storm is on the way for the second half of the weekend as a new chunk of energy ejects from the reloading west coast trough. There's still some disagreement on the timing and amount of rain, something that may take a couple of days to rectify. However, rain is likely to push back in Saturday night and could fall from time to time into Monday night. Water vapor of at least 1.50 inches is on the table, so again some appreciable rains are expected. Both the EURO and GFS are very aggressive, showing these amounts Saturday night through Monday night.
The EURO
The GFS
Welcome to a new brand of weather that includes rain. What a concept. Happy Halloween and roll weather...TS
PEOPLE LOVE IT. OUR AIRBNB IS A MOST LOVED GUEST FAVORITE!
ANOTHER 5-STAR REVIEW....thanks Myriam
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7 GREAT REASONS TO VISIT GALENA
1. It’s Steeped In History
2. It’s Home To One Of The Best Main Streets In America
3. The Restaurants Are Amazing
4. There’s A Lot To Do Outdoors
5. You Don’t Have To Travel To The Mountains To Go Skiing
6. It’s A Great Place To Spend The Fourth Of July
7. Did I Mention The Shopping?
