How Bad Will Winter Be in Illinois? Look at the Acorns & Corn

We live in an era when computer models and now artificial intelligence can look into the future to try and give us accurate weather predictions, but the machines aren't perfect. If you'd really like to know how bad winter in Illinois will be, you need to look at nature and legend says the acorns and corn to gauge what's coming.

My wife noticed something out of the ordinary near our trees recently and that's the fact that acorns are everywhere. Considering we have a lot of trees near where we live, that in an of itself is not unusual, but the high number this year is. Did you know that many Illinois farmers used to look at the acorn numbers to determine how severe the winter will be?

CBS News tried to debunk this almost a decade ago saying there is no correlation to the number of acorns and severity of winter, but the Old Farmer's Almanac agrees it's something to watch for.

There's another sign that old school weather watchers say is a dead giveaway that the upcoming Illinois winter will be harsh and that's thicker than normal corn husks. Snow Brains gives this as one of their signs that you need to make sure you know where your snow shovel is. I drive by fields of corn every day, but those fields are not mine so I haven't stopped to examine the husks.

Can the upcoming Illinois winter really be predicted just by looking at the number of acorns and the thickness of corn husks? Many would choose to watch nature than to let computers peer into the future for them.