Today’s technology has enabled us to predict hurricanes, floods, and tornados with fairly reliable accuracy. For hundreds of years though, we humans have had our own weather prediction beliefs. A red sunset can mean the next day will be calm and dry. The shape inside a persimmon seed can predict what kind of winter we’ll have, a fork for a mild winter, a spoon for an abundance of snow and a knife for a bitterly cold winter. While I wouldn’t take those predictions to Vegas, they’re just a few examples of the ways we look to nature itself to anticipate what it will bring next.
Animals however have an exemplary track record in this department. Elephants are known to take off into higher ground before a tsunami. Elephants in Thailand were seen doing this several minutes before the 2004 tsunami that claimed over 277,000 lives. Those that were chained before the disaster hit screamed and tried to escape. Their behavior is credited for saving the lives of those who reacted to their behavior and followed in their direction.
Ladybugs, and more specifically Asian Lady Beetles will cover the outside of your house on a warm day before a serious cold front arrives. Frogs are said to get extra loud before a storm and birds fly low with pressure changes that come before a storm. Snakes are even reported to be seen relocating before an earthquake.
A study in Italy used goat tracking data to not only show that animals' behavior changes before natural disasters, their observances were able to predict seven volcanic eruptions. They also noted local toads changing their behavior as much as five days before an eruption.
This begs the question, can we predict major weather changes or natural disasters similar to animals? We all know someone (or we are that someone) who gets an ache in the knee before it rains or a headache ahead of lightning. Ever wonder if that random spurt of dizziness or a sudden burst of energy could be more than a simple anomaly? It might be worth jotting such occurrences down. If a weather event follows shortly after, you just might be as instinctual as an elephant.
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