Published: July 08, 2009 11:32 am      

Woman says she can predict the weather

With all of the technology used to predict the weather today, meteorologists think they have it down to a science. But Sheridan’s Clara Hoover relies solely on woolly worms, persimmon seeds and shifts in the wind to make her forecasts, strategies she said are 80 percent accurate.

Weather reports and almanacs may be useful to some people, but Hoover doesn’t need them for her predictions. In fact, she thinks they’re flat wrong many times.

“They say I am 100 percent better than they are,” she said. “I’ve been in this for 40 years.”

Hoover, who is in her 90s and lives at the Sheridan Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center, became interested in predicting the weather following the Palm Sunday tornado that skipped right over her house on April 11, 1965. Hoover said she read about forecasting methods in the newspaper soon after and started doing her own research from there, gathering old folk traditions and sayings and putting them to the test.

One method Hoover uses is woolly worms, a black and brown caterpillar common throughout North America, whose markings are traditionally used by folk forecasters to determine the severity of the coming winter. Black markings indicate cold weather, while brown indicates mild.

Hoover said she has had forecast requests from Illinois, Michigan and even New York. A reporter called her from New York to get her winter forecast. Despite the distance, he insisted Hoover make a prediction.

“So I said okay, I will,” Hoover said. “I said you’re going to have a cold winter, you’re going to have a heavy snow...Do you know what they had? They had a blizzard.”

Debbie Lawson, activity director for the Healthcare Center, affirms that Hoover’s forecasts are usually pretty accurate.

“She does pretty good,” she said. “I kind of watch her. She’s usually pretty close.”

Hoover prints up her forecasts as flyers and distributes them throughout the nursing home, but that doesn’t cut down on the forecast requests she gets on a daily basis.

“She is asked all the time,” Lawson said. “Everybody asks her, everybody goes to her. They’re interested in what she has to say.”

Hoover is proud of her reputation, which she has worked on for 40 years.

“I’ll tell you this,” Hoover said. “You ask anybody out there, anybody: Here, Noblesville, Kirkland, Tipton, anybody. They say I am the best.”



ClaraCast

Here are the summer’s weekly forecasts according to Clara:



June 7: Wind and rain

June 15: Frequent showers

June 21: Frequent showers

June 28: Fair



July 7: Fair

July 15: Fair

July 21: Fair

July 28: Fair



August 5: Rain

August 13: Frequent showers

July 20: Fair

July 27: Fair



September 4: Rain

September 11: Wind and rain

September 18 Changeable

September 26: Very rainy