Portales prognosticator sees wet, "active" spring.

Who needs computer models and satellite imagery to tell which way the wind's blowing?

Certainly not Joseph Weldon Crim of Portales. Using what he calls a Plains Indian ritual passed down to him through his father, the 70-year-old Portales resident got a glimpse of a slightly wetter-than-normal spring, with some severe hailstorms in the picture, according to the Portales News-Tribune.

Even before the first snowflakes fell on eastern New Mexico Wednesday morning, Crim lit a bonfire at dawn and watched the direction and quality of the smoke, the News-Tribune reported on its Web site today.

"The billows in the smoke portrayed there will be some hail. Some people will get it pretty severe, and it could cause some damage to wheat and cotton crops," said Crim, who once grew wheat and cotton himself in Lazbuddie, Texas, the paper reported.

According to a Plains Indian tradition he said he learned as a toddler from his father, the fire must be lighted at sunrise on the day after the first day of spring.

The direction in which the smoke rises and floats away tells you whether the spring will be wet or dry, and the way it billows will indicate whether you can expect hail, Crim told the paper.

Crim claims his family has an 85 percent accuracy rate over the generations for predicting springtime weather.

The tradition began with his grandfather, Crim told the paper, who ran away from his Dallas home in the early 1900s, eventually settling around El Paso where he worked for the railroad.

Crim said his grandfather married a Plains Indian woman and learned the forecasting ritual from her tribe.

He told the News-Tribune he hopes his 44-year-old son will carry on the tradition when he's gone.

Your Name:

Your Email Address:

Rate this article:
Poor Great

Comment:

BOLD

"QUOTE"

UNDERLINE