But, believe it or don't, great numbers of people do in fact gather every autumn to celebrate the predictive abilities of Wooly Worms. The most notable such gathering is in the North Carolina mountain town of Banner Elk. The favored drink is hot spiced apple cider. Additionally, there are other such gatherings across the nation.
Although it is just a tad self serving to take on the mantle of Aristotle, I am frequent witness to the actual weather prediction abilities of one animal. The phenomenon happens numerous times every winter. The buzzards are inerringly correct.
I live in what can be described as a pretty ordinary East Tennessee suburban neighborhood. For reasons I cannot know, Black Vultures aka buzzards , have found the very large oak trees that grow along the very old property lines as a safe place to roost. They come in great numbers, at least a hundred or so. Late in the afternoon, 4 o'clock or so, the sky is literally filled with these very large birds headed in to roost in the neighborhood trees.
Casual observation reveals that when the birds show up, within 24 or 48 hours, there is going to be cold and bad weather. The buzzards know somehow the weather is coming and fly south to here to escape the brunt further north. When the weather clears, they leave. And for the record, signifying nothing, Groundhog day, is the birthday of my son and my sister.
The ability of migratory birds to know when to migrate is legendary, and largely real. Nobody knows how they do it.
My theory is rather outlandish. Almost all migratory birds can sense the Earth's magnetic field: that's how they navigate. So an event on the Sun creates changes in our magnetic field, and the slower particles in the solar wind create changes in the weather 24 to 48 hours later. No psychic power needed.
But of course, global warming will stop birds from migrating, so climate alarmists please hold your breath waiting.
And believe it or not, there was a time when cider was more widely brewed in the colonies than beer! (Hard cider slide!)
http://mentalfloss.com/article/59048/11-ways-hard-cider-shaped-american-history
“These early settlers also enjoyed tossing back a well-earned drink or two, and for colonists, cider had several advantages over beer. The colonists had a hard time cultivating hops and barley, so anyone who wanted a mug of beer had to either import these raw ingredients from back home or have barrels of beer shipped across the Atlantic, a costly proposition. Meanwhile, apples had no such drawbacks, which cleared the way for hard cider to become the original American tipple.”
Snip...
“The Battle of Concord, one of the first showdowns in the Revolutionary War, was surely a harrowing engagement for both British troops and American revolutionaries. But that didn’t mean that either side had to skip its daily mug of hard cider. As the fighting fell into a lull, the sides dropped back into a standoff, and local “crazy man” Elias Brown saw a business opportunity. Brown strode through both sides’ lines selling hard cider.”
Other interesting fact regarding American history and hard cider at the link!