The crickets told me...

Codger_64

Codger_64

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Last night the crickets told me it was 65 degrees Fahrenheit. No kidding. And they were right.

How many of you use this method to determine the temperature when you camp or hike? Have you ever even heard of it before?

This comes from an old wives (farmers, hunters) tale and I have found that it is amazingly accurate. Well, with a few caveats. Crickets only chirp in temps above 50 degrees f. And there are not crickets everywhere. And you have to count the chirps of a single cricket. Scientific experiments recently confirmed that it does work. And Snopes agrees, so it is settled.

Here is how it works. Male crickets chirp by rubbing their appendages together to attract a female and establish territory. They aren't very active below about 50 degrees. Count the number of times a particular cricket chirps in a 13 second period and add 40. The number will be closer than you might imagine.

What about that 50f degree minimum? Meteorologists have long noted that below 50f degrees (or 10c degrees Celsius). insects usually stop flying and most other activities.

http://classic.globe.gov/fsl/scientistsblog/2007/10/

Not a big deal, but interesting none the less. Something else to poke into your woodslore knowledge and use to amaze friends around the campfire. :)
 
Pretty cool, thank ya!

Now my only problem is trying to key in on 1 of the billion crickets chirping at night. :p
 
tonym said:
Pretty cool, thank ya!

Now my only problem is trying to key in on 1 of the billion crickets chirping at night. :p
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You think YOU have a problem? I am almost deaf!:p But sometimes it makes it easier to hear the one, the closest to my ear. :p

Next up... can birds help you predict the weather? :confused:
 
Codger_64 said:
Next up... can birds help you predict the weather? :confused:
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Well everyone knows that.

When the bird is flying against a blue background, it most likely will not rain. If the back ground is grey or dark, you may want to grab your umbrella.:p
 
Esav Benyamin said:
If birds are perched, lined up on a power line, get inside, rain's on the way.
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...also if they fly lower than usual. Gulls head inland before storms. Swallows get really active. Bees and butterflys disappear from flowers. Some types of peepers and spring frogs get vocal before a rain. I had a dog once which would predict electrical storms. He lived in fear of lightning. If he was all up under your feet or fought to get in the house, an electrical storm was not far off. Some plants behave differently when rain is coming. The leaves will turn or close (like the mimosas we have here), and some flower blooms close. Pinecones on the ground open when the air is dry but moisture in the air will cause them to close.
 
tonym said:
Well everyone knows that.

When the bird is flying against a blue background, it most likely will not rain. If the back ground is grey or dark, you may want to grab your umbrella.:p
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Sounds like the weather block we use on construction sites. Block of scrap lumber gets tied to the saw bench. If the block's wet, it's raining; moving, it's windy; white, it's snowing.
 
Silver Maple turning leaves around, probable rain. Ants moving in carrying eggs, good rain on the way. Birds all puffed up outside the window. Very cold.
 
It's amazing how much traditional knowledge our more current generations have lost. We call these "old wive's tails", but in reality, it was from the days that people paid attention to their surroundings and made connections between plants/animals and weather conditions. There most often is a scientific link, but I'm still amazed at how accurate primative techniques really were; I really like the connections regarding medicinal plants. Thanks Codger, that was quite educational and something I'll pay attention to:thumbup:

ROCK6
 
ROCK6 said:
It's amazing how much traditional knowledge our more current generations have lost. We call these "old wive's tails", but in reality, it was from the days that people paid attention to their surroundings and made connections between plants/animals and weather conditions. There most often is a scientific link, but I'm still amazed at how accurate primative techniques really were; I really like the connections regarding medicinal plants. Thanks Codger, that was quite educational and something I'll pay attention to:thumbup:

ROCK6
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A lot of these "old wives tales" can be found in books like The Old Farmer's Almanac and the Foxfire series begun by Elliot Wiggington as a student project where kids interviewed old mountain folk in the Appalachian mountains. There was a lot of common sense in much of the old stuff handed down that, for one reason or another, worked for them and helped them survive, even in the absence of scientific proof. "Reading the signs" has always been an important part of rural, backwoods and wilderness survival. Recalling some of it and adding it to our own "kit" of woodslore knowledge makes sense to me.
 
Which reminds me. I haven't looked at the Foxfire books for years. I just checked and Amazon has the whole series, and they are not expensive at all.
 
I bought and read them all when they originally came out beginning c.1972. Over time, they were lost, falling into the abyss of moves and marriages. My children gave me a fresh copy of Foxfire 3 as a Christmas present last year. It is the original edition from c.1973 and bears a cover price of $4.95. There are twelve in the series now and I believe current retail is $18 +/- per issue or about $200 for the set.
 
Then it must have been ninety in my home last night. The cricket under the dryer was going nuts "all night long!"
 
Codger_64 said:
Count the number of times a particular cricket chirps in a 13 second period and add 40. The number will be closer than you might imagine.
Click to expand...

You can get even closer:

Chirps in 15 seconds + 40 = Fahrenheit

Chirps in 8 seconds + 5 = Celsius

Just about dead on the money. Your method is only two seconds off, so unless it's really hot outside, you'll get the same result as my method.

I like the Celsius method because it's technically faster and you only have to add five. I can do that.

Rock6 says there's often a scientific link: I believe there is always one.

Birds fly low (actually, they tend to swoop low) before a storm due to lower air pressure. They can't maintain higher altitude without a lot more work.

Cows lay down in the rain because, again, lower air pressure: their joints ache and swell up a bit in the lower pressures, just like mine (and probably yours) do.

No clouds in the sky at all? You're in a high pressure area.

Clouds undulate or have a ribbed or rippled appearance? Inversion layer.

This is called field meteorology, and you can go crazy trying to keep track of it all. It's generally easier, I've found, to learn the meteorology first (understanding pressure, convection, condensation, water cycle, etc.) and then identify how the many ways those things manifest themselves (clouds, wind, patterns, animal behaviors, etc.). Otherwise it seems endless and bottomless.
 
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