The Corn in Indiana Could Tell Us How Bad Winter Will Be

Indiana is a state full of cornfields, and those fields could tell you everything you need to know about the upcoming winter.

Indiana is packed full of cornfields. You'd be hard-pressed not to drive along a road in the state and not see a cornfield nearby. In fact, Indiana farmers planted 5.10 million acres of corn for all purposes in 2024. That's a lot of corn! All of that corn found here in Indiana, could give you some clues as to how bad of a winter we will get in the Hoosier State.

If you're like me, you absolutely loathe winter weather. When you are a kid, it's cool because when it snows a lot (well, a lot for Indiana), you get the day off and enjoy playing in the snow. When you are an adult, you don't get that luxury. You are still expected to get out of that mess and drive to work. Throw in those frigid cold temperatures as another reason why I am not a fan of winter. Now, I realize that we haven't even gotten into fall, and the temperatures really haven't dropped too much yet. However, there are a lot of people who are already looking forward to winter weather here in Indiana.

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How Can Corn Predict the Winter Weather?

We have all heard of winter weather folklore before. One in particular that I remember was in regards to how bad of winters we will have based on Wolly Worms. If you spot a Wolly Worm that is all black, blonde, or even white, that means a harsh and severe winter is in store. Another one involves the shape of the inside of a persemmion seed. A spoon shape found inside of a persimmon seed means that you should get a shovel ready because you are in for a pretty snowy winter, if you find a fork shape in the persimmon seed, you can expect a mild winter with powdery, light snow, and a knife shape inside of the seed sounds like the worst of them all. It means that you can expect frigid winds that will “cut” like a blade. However, I recently learned of another one that involves corn here in Indiana.

If you grew corn, check the husks to see if they’re thicker or thinner. Thicker than normal corn husks indicate a harsher than normal winter ahead. That is according to the Farmer's Almanac.

That's pretty interesting. I'm curious if Hoosier farmers have noticed thicker than normal corn husks this year or not. It will be interesting to see if it matches up with the The Farmer's Almanac Winter Outlook Forecast. Here's what we can expect here in our area:

Above-average precipitation is expected over the eastern third of the country, especially the Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, and Midwest.

I think it's important to keep in mind that this is simply a prediction and no amount of fancy technology, atmospheric tracking, or whatever they use to create this forecast is 100% accurate. As we know all too well, weather is wildly unpredictable and can change in an instant. However, if this prediction is correct, it's going to be quite the winter in Indiana.