Persimmon seeds tell us what to expect this winter

Persimmons hold the winter weather forecast inside.

A couple of days ago, we predicted that this was going to be a cold, snowy winter, not a mild season.

Why are we so sure of this?

Why, persimmon seeds of course.

We Ozarkers love to talk about the weather, gripe about the weather, predict the weather ourselves and gripe about the weatherman when he is occasionally wrong. And we rely on our folklore to tell us what to expect.

One way to predict the weather is to cut open persimmon seeds. The Ozarks Boy has done that before here at The Ozarks Almanac. Now, the local newspaper has a columnist called The Insider who also took a turn at it.

The Insider’s conclusion is about the same as The Ozarks Boy’s, i.e., it is going to be a cold, wet winter. And when we say cold and wet, we mean snow and, unfortunately, ice. There were some cold wet days in November and December, but in this part of the country, the cold really hits us hard in January and, especially, February.

Now, for you city slickers and people from other states who don’t have our rich hillbilly folklore, it goes like this: You pick a bunch of persimmons, take the seeds out of the pulpy fruit, cut them open and see what you find. You’re going to find a little depiction of a knife, a fork or a spoon. Or, perhaps you’ll just find a blank.

A knife means biting, cutting cold. A fork means moderate weather is coming through. A spoon means snow.

The Ozarks Boy and The Insider have found that the seeds this year contained knives and spoons. Nope, there was nary a fork. So, it appears that we need to make ready for cold, wet (snowy, icy) winter here in south central Missouri. If you’re interested in what The Insider’s column had to say, here is the link to click on: Out and About With The Insider.

For those of you more interested in science and data, rather than folklore, from S.A. Fraley, the weather observer at the Rolla (Missouri S&T) NOAA Co-Op Weather Station, here is the local weather data for the 24-hour period ending at 7:30 a.m. this morning, Sunday, Jan. 3, 2021:

The seed halves in the middle appear to be spoons (snow)
while those on the right appear to be knives (bitter, cut-
ting cold. We don't know what the blank ones mean, and
we prefer not to think about the possibilities.

 Maximum temperature: 31 degrees F

Minimum temperature: 27 degrees F

Temperature at 7:30 a.m.: 29 degrees F

Precipitation: 0.05 inch

Precipitation for the month: 0.81 inch

Precipitation for the year: 0.81 inch

Snowfall/frozen precipitation: 0.5 inch

Snowfall/frozen precipitation for the month: 1.3 inch

Snowfall/Frozen precipitation for the year: 1.3 inch

Snowfall/frozen precipitation for the 2020-2021 season: 1.4 inch

Relative humidity: 99 percent.