TWENTY THIRD ANNUAL WOOLLY BEAR CONTEST WINNERS ANNOUNCED

It’s official! The Twenty Third Annual Woolly Bear Contest ended October 31st and the winners have been announced.

During the month of October, only 20 woolly bears were turned into the Woolly Bear Headquarters in Hagerstown, Maryland. The purpose of the contest was to gather enough woolly bears to analyze their markings and determine what type of winter we will have in the upcoming months and also to compare the woolly bears’ predictions to those made by the Hagerstown Town & Country Almanack 18 months ago.

In the first category, the Biggest and Woolliest earning the title of “Hairy Hager”, the winner was Daniel Harsh. Daniel, an 10-year-old fourth grader at Fountain Rock Elementary School, found his woolly bear at his grandfather’s farm. Daniel received a $100 cash prize. Runner-up in that category was Jillian Ekenberg of Hagerstown, MD. Jillian received a $25 cash prize.

In the second category, the Cutest and Cuddliest and crowned “Alma”, the winners were sisters, Amy & Ashley Kessler of Hagerstown, MD. The sisters received a $100 cash prize. The runner up in this category was Travis Dehaven from Martinsburg, WV. Travis received a $25 cash prize.

From the small number of woolly bears, the consensus is that the winter will be very mild. The woolly bears predicted this by their three (3) bands of which the front band (representing the first half of winter and black in color) was shorter in length and normal. The back band (representing the second half of winter) was very small, thus indicating the mild winter prediction. As a result of those markings, which were similar in all woolly bears, the sponsors were able to make the predictions.

The woolly bears and the 2006 Almanack agree in that the Almanack has predicted a mild winter with a lack of intensity. The Almanack is predicting 81% of the winter days will be 45 degrees or lower, 19 storms, 45% of the days during the winter will have some form of precipitation. We predict a total of 35 inches of snow with January being the snowiest month.

It is predicted the last weeks of January and February will have a heavy snowstorm.

According to Professor Bill O’Toole, the Almanack’s weather prognosticator and a Mt. St. Mary’s College computer instructor, the first year’s snowstorm will be December 19th.

We would like to congratulate the winners of the Twenty Third Annual Woolly Bear Contest and thank all of the children as well as adults that made this a fun event.