The wood can soak up more water and dry out more quickly, which makes them bend a lot more than if they were protected by a layer of bark. In fact, that’s one reason why weather sticks have the bark removed. and skies are bright But when their flight ends near their home, stormy weather is sure to come. Then, when rains come along and the fir trees start drawing more water, those same fibers expand and the tree’s branches unfurl.ĭried balsam fir sticks retain these properties, but since they’re no longer attached to a root system, they rely on the amount of humidity in the air to curl and uncurl. See weather folklore from The Old Farmers Almanac. Live balsam fir trees develop reaction wood on the undersides of their branches so that in dry weather, the reaction wood fibers shrink to conserve water, thus bending them towards the ground.
In other words, if a tree is always exposed to winds coming out of the west, that tree will develop stronger wood fibers on its eastern side to help brace it against high winds.īalsam fir, however, develops its reaction wood a bit differently. Most trees have what is known as reaction wood. The interesting thing is that there aren’t many kinds of wood that can be used this way – you can’t simply cut a twig from any old tree and expect it to predict the weather. When they dry out, they straighten out or curve upwards. Higher humidity – which is often a signifier of bad weather – makes them curl downward. Cumulus clouds that do not get very tall are indicators of. These sticks bend based on the relative humidity. Cumulus clouds are the puffy clouds that look like puffs of cotton. They might seem like a bit of woodsy folklore that doesn’t stand up to modern meteorological methods, but there is actually quite a lot of science behind them. Hang one outside your kitchen window or on your porch and it’ll keep forecasting the weather for years to come. They’re very accurate, and they last a long time. The stick curls upwards sharply when good weather is headed your way and downwards when the weather is about to take a turn for the worse.
The weather prediction is all in the way weather stick moves. Looking at them, you’ll see they’re incredibly simple – just a stick with the bark removed and a little piece of the tree’s trunk remaining so that you can easily nail it to a wall, fencepost, or a pillar on your porch. Weather sticks are made from the dried twigs of balsam fir trees and they’re usually between 15 and 16 inches long. So what exactly is a weather stick? More importantly, how do they work and how accurate are they? The World’s Simplest Weather Prediction Device In fact, it’s said that the Abenaki American Indians that lived along the northeastern coast of the US and Canada were the first to use them. People have used them for centuries to predict the weather. The weather stick has always been popular in the New England States, and it’s growing in popularity elsewhere, too.
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