Saw my first wooly worm in several years today.

According to wooly worm lore, woolies predict the winter's weather. Every wooly worm I've ever seen, before today, has a black front end and back end, with a band of rust in the middle.The size of the bands differ from year to year. The black is cold weather, the rust -- warmer weather. This is the only picture I was able to find of a wooly worm resembling the one I saw today. It was taken in Kentucky on October 24, 2004. Which would predict an extra warm winter. . . .

Thanks to the miracles of google, I found this:

WINTER SEASON (December 2004 – February 2005)

Synopsis: The winter of 2004-2005 experienced warmer than normal temperatures across the entire quad state. This in turn led to very few frozen precipitation events. However, on December 22, 2004 the largest snow storm on record for many parts of the quad state dumped one to two feet of snow. Southeast Illinois and southwest Indiana saw the brunt of the storm, with 18 inch and greater totals widespread across that area. Behind this system, the snow-covered ground acted as a freezer, and morning low temperatures dropped well into the subzero category. A rapid warm-up then occurred which persisted into the new year.

Record warm temperatures occurred on the first few days of 2005. This would just be the start to the mild conditions. During the months of January and February, Paducah saw twenty-two days with double digit warm departures from normal. These above normal temperatures eventually sparked a minor round of severe weather on January 13th, which included an F1 tornado in Pulaski County, IL. Unlike the major snowstorm which started winter, snow would be scarce during the remainder of the season. In fact, some communities did not log a trace through the last two winter months.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/pah/?n=reviewof2005

Ya. I know it's not scientific. . . . But a girl can dream, can't she?