Let's talk about one of the winter "predictors"... the persimmon seed. Persimmon seeds have been used to forecast how cold and snowy the upcoming winter will be for a long time. Many people would put the persimmon seeds and the woolly worms at the top of the winter weather forecasting folklore. In fact, the Farmer's Almanac even makes a statement about the forecasting power of the Persimmon seed...

"According to old-timers, persimmon seeds can be used to predict the severity of winter weather. When cut into two pieces, the persimmon seed will display one of three symbols. A knife shape will indicate a cold icy winter (where wind will cut through you like a knife). A fork shape indicates a mild winter. A spoon shape stands for a shovel to dig out the snow."

Persimmon Seeds From This Year...

Over the last couple weeks, we've started getting pictures of the persimmon seeds from this year, and you can clearly see a majority of them are indeed spoons. There's even a couple knives mixed in there...

So what does that say about our winter? The spoon shape indicates a snowy winter and the knife implies cold, icy conditions. As with all folklore, people will have different opinions. I think this is one of those situations where you can probably bend the folklore to meet the actual winter conditions, so I have to say I am not a big believer. Regardless, some love weather folklore so I thought it was worth a discussion.