These days, scientific observations and reason rule the day — at least when it comes to the weather. No self-respecting TV weather reporter is going to consult some talisman to provide the forecast, but rather, they're going to look at data. Data provided by scientists with precise instruments whose literal job is to make sense of the data.
So why do people still hold on to seemingly-nonsensical myths from hundreds or even thousands of years ago when it comes to predicting the weather? As Farmers' Almanac's Sandi Duncan notes, there was a time in history when science and the weather were miles apart, and people made do with what they observed. And if they observed a higher-than-normal number of acorns (or thicker-than-normal onion husks, or whatever) followed by a harsh winter, then in their minds, at least, a relationship was established. Hand it down over and over again, generation after generation, and these types of things can stick.
There's also the matter that oral history can change with the telling. Duncan compares it to a game of telephone, where a message gets diluted and even wholly changed when it's repeated from person to person over multiple retellings. In other words, the lore that some people believe when it comes to prophesying the severity of the winter may not even be the same lore that their ancestors believed.
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