…and do you use the Wooly caterpillar to predict Winter weather? Legend has it that people in cold weather states use the Woolly Caterpillar in the Fall to do just that. My wife does. She says the Woolly Bear caterpillar will predict how harsh the upcoming Winter is going to be. I’ve seen a few already. They are big brown and black caterpillars. Now if you see one and its mostly brown in the Fall, than people believe it will be a mild Winter. If the caterpillar is mostly black, than a harsh Winter is expected. All the caterpillars I’ve seen so far have been mostly brown. So, according to the Wooly Bear caterpillar we’re going to have a mild Winter. Biologists say there is no actual study to confirm how accurate the caterpillars are. They believe their predictions are based on folklore. Well yeah but how accurate are they? Few would prefer not to acknowledge it but a Dr. C.H.Curran, a former curator of insects at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, surveyed the bugs back in the 1950’s and his studies showed that the woolly bear caterpillar has an 80-85% accuracy rate. So, given the woolly bear caterpillar has had held its accuracy for more than 20 years and while they are not 100% accurate, I like our chances of having a mild Winter.