Persimmon Seed Weather Prediction
“For me, this tradition isn’t just about whether the seed gets the forecast right—it’s about connecting with nature in a simple, time-honored way. There’s something so satisfying about taking a seed from the land and using it to predict the future, even if it’s just for fun. It reminds me of the cycles of the seasons and the mysteries that nature holds.”
—source link below
So I thought I’d go back and look at persimmon seeds from previous years. All I could find was Autumn 2022 when I got a spoon (which according to Ozark and Appalachian folklore means snow):
According to my research winter 2022-2023 in our little town was: “a period of dangerously frigid temperatures in late December, followed by a milder January that saw a major snowstorm and a significant ice event in February.”
“A powerful Arctic air mass arrived in the area around December 22, 2022, bringing dangerously cold wind chills that dropped as low as minus-15 degrees Fahrenheit in the Arkansas River Valley.”
“The cold front brought the potential for winter precipitation, but accumulations were minimal in the River Valley, with forecasts calling for less than an inch of snow.”
December 22:
In January there was a major snow storm but it was to the north east of us in the higher Boston Mountain elevations.
“Less than a week after the January snowstorm, a significant ice storm struck parts of Arkansas from January 30 to February 3, 2023.”
We got that one, cuz here are my pics of St. Bride’s Day/Candlemas/Hromnice (Feb. 1, 2023) and my first hromnička (Thunder candle).
So for us the spoon seems a little? accurate. Some years we get barely any snow or ice at all—BUT I have to say if I had designed the persimmon seeds that year they would have been knives since it seemed to be more bitter cold with ice and not huge accumulations. BUT there were those accumulations of snow just to the north of us in January, AND is that what my persimmons were predicting and it just missed us?
I do wish I would have checked the persimmons last year (THOSE should have been spoons!) but I was in a bit of a depressive spell and didn’t do any foraging last autumn.
Now THAT is not normal for us and deserves a spoon!
Note: I went back after I wrote this, and only found one Arkansan prediction for last year’s winter and it was spoons!
Discover how the persimmon seed tradition predicts a snowy winter for Arkansas in 2024–2025, and learn what last year’s seed forecast was.
So anybody else out there do this? How do you crack your seeds? I find it impossible unless I cook them first. When I bake bread I’ll throw a couple seeds in the pan and that usually softens them up enough.
