Weather watchers wonder and wait, when will we see our first snow?

English novelist and playwright J.B. Priestley thoroughly enjoyed its coming: “The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?”

It was not a white Christmas and the unseasonable weather has made snowfall virtually impossible. They say a green Christmas equals a white Easter, so a snowy Easter egg hunt may be in our future.

What can we expect this winter? Look to the wilds and listen to lore.

Wildlife might have some answers and animal behavior can give you a clue. If chipmunks store a lot of nuts early in autumn it means it will be a snowy winter; squirrels “gathering nuts in a flurry will cause snow to gather in a hurry.” The ants have their own technique for forecasting. If their hills are high in July, winter will have lots of snow. Similar is the muskrat method: The higher their holes are on the riverbank, the higher the snowfall will be.

How much snow will we get? Ask an insect. “See how high the hornet’s nest, ’twill tell how high the snow will rest.”

Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes cartoonist, preferred more snow to less. He cynically observed that “Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery.”

The weather also provides its own clues. It is said that if the first week in August is unusually warm, then the coming winter will be snowy and long. Checking back, we had average temperatures that week.

Fog tells tales, too. For every fog in August, there will be a snowfall. Last August, we had about six days of fog. It is also believed that thunder hails snow. If you hear thunder during the winter, wisdom has it that it will snow seven days later.

Check the moon to see if precipitation is coming. “A halo ’round the moon means ’twill rain or snow soon.” And when it finally does snow, if the ground is not yet frozen, indicators are that winter will be mild. The first snowfall provides another prediction: As many days old as is the moon on that first occasion, there will be that many snowfalls by crop planting time.”

Plants, too, provide a prophecy: “As high as the weeds grow, so will the banks of snow.” The good news is that a “season of snow means fruit will grow.”

If English poet and author Sara Coleridge is correct, we will see snow soon. She enjoyed the white stuff, noting that “January brings the snow, makes our feet and fingers glow.”

While some folks hope that snow will never come, I agree with artist Andy Goldsworthy. He reminisced that “Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.” And if nothing else, a good snowstorm creates a strong sense of solidarity and community. German writer Simon Dash took note of it: “Come the wild weather, come sleet or come snow, we will stand by each other, however it blow.”

Suzan Bellincampi is director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown.