Subscribe Today
Pocahontas Times
  • News Sections
    • Local
    • Sports
    • A&E
  • Obituaries
  • Community
  • Magistrate News
    • Circuit Court News
  • Compass
  • Spiritual
    • Parabola
    • Transcendental Meditation
    • Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston
    • Southern Baptist
  • etimes
  • Classifieds
  • National News
  • State News
  • Pocahontas County Veterans
  • Contact Us
  • Login
Subscribe For $2.50/Month
No Result
View All Result
Pocahontas Times
  • News Sections
    • Local
    • Sports
    • A&E
  • Obituaries
  • Community
  • Magistrate News
    • Circuit Court News
  • Compass
  • Spiritual
    • Parabola
    • Transcendental Meditation
    • Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston
    • Southern Baptist
  • etimes
  • Classifieds
No Result
View All Result
Pocahontas Times
No Result
View All Result
  • National News
  • WV State News
  • VA State News
  • Contact Us
Home News Headline News

Predicting the first frost

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Belladonna “lilies,” also referred to as “naked ladies.”

Laura Dean Bennett
Staff Writer

As the temperature hovered around the 90-degree mark last week, I hope you’ll forgive me for looking forward to cooler weather.

Around these parts, where weather forecasting by the “old wives’ tale” method is, even now, not unusual, Belladonna “lilies”- or “naked ladies,” as many know them, are thought by some to predict the date of the first hard frost of fall.

Belladonnas get their nickname because at this time of year, when they’re blooming, these amaryllis lilies boast blossoms on thin, “naked,” stalks – their leaves having dropped away in the spring.

The story goes that the first hard frost will come six weeks after belladonnas drop their blooms.

Odd that a flower native to South Africa should have come to be a predictor of the first fall frost in Appalachia.

Goldenrod is another flower of late summer which is known for prognosticating about frost.

The old people used to say that when you see the first goldenrod blooms, you can expect a frost in six weeks. 

I’ve generally found the predictions of the “naked ladies” and the goldenrod to be fairly accurate.

But this year, I have a meteorological dilemma.

Some belladonna blossoms have started to die, but my goldenrod hasn’t yet started to bloom.

Yikes.

Shall we just say that the first killing frost will probably arrive sometime between mid-September and mid-October?

And, by the way, you’ll want to mark the date of the last thunderstorm in September, because our first snowfall will be due exactly six weeks after that.

Or sometime around then.

Previous Post

Wayne Kinnison

Next Post

Letter to the Editor

Join Our Newsletter

  • News Sections
  • Obituaries
  • Community
  • Magistrate News
  • Compass
  • Spiritual
  • etimes
  • Classifieds

© 2021 Mountain Media, LLC

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Fifty Years Ago in The Pocahontas Times
  • 75 Years Ago
  • 100 Years Ago
  • 125-Years-Ago
  • Pocahontas County Bicentennial ~ 1821 – 2021
  • A&E
  • Community
  • Compass
  • Education
  • etimes
  • Legal Notices
  • Obituaries
  • Columns
  • Preserving Pocahontas
  • Sports
  • Contact Us
  • My account
  • Subscribe to The Pocahontas Times

© 2021 Mountain Media, LLC

Forgot your password?

Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive mail with link to set new password.

Back to login