Weather folklore is not an absolute way to forecast the weather. "Red skies in the morning, sailors warning; Red skies at night, sailors delight" works well in our part of the United States because most of the storms here move from west to east.
When meteorologists researched Indian Summer folklore they found that a high pressure system is usually active along the Atlantic coast controlling the influx of warm weather. Indian Summer is a phenomenon of the northeastern part of the United States because the early settlers gathered in that region. So if it snows in another part of the U.S. followed by warm weather, that region is experiencing a local Indian Summer, while in northeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania we are enjoying just another beautiful autumn day.
Now if you want to argue other weather folklore, talk to your neighborhood wooly bear and groundhog. They will spin a yarn about how cones that are high in an evergreen tree mean deep snow for the coming winter.
