Claws up! Laissez les bon temps rouler!
Dignitaries from Mardi Gras krewes, Bossier City Mayor Lo Walker, Bossier-Shreveport Mudbug mascots Clawed and Lil' Bugger, and others leaned over a mound of Red River sand Wednesday at the Louisiana Boardwalk to watch as Claude, the three-inch crustacean prognosticator, lifted his pincers skyward. Krewe members waved poster signs -- Claws up or Boil! Good News or Good Gumbo! -- as their eyes shifted from the hot gumbo nearby to the small crawfish, eyes bulging, with his claws waving above the top of the mound. "We'll have great temperatures and weather leading up to Mardi Gras," said master of ceremonies Sandy Franks, after getting the official interpretation from Clawed. "Let the party begin!" Claude the crawfish is Louisiana 's spin on Groundhog Day, when "Punxsutawney Phil" emerges from hibernation. If it sees its shadow, six more weeks of winter are predicted. Claude's prediction of Mardi Gras season is instead a life or death matter. If bad weather is predicted, into the pot he'd go. This year Claude's prediction was one day earlier than Phil's. "We wanted to pre-empt the groundhog," said Brandi Evans, spokeswoman for the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau. "Radio and television stations from all over the country have shown interest in Claude and so from now on Claude will have his own day." The official proclamation for "Claude the Cajun Crawfish Day," came from Walker, who stated he was representing both Bossier City and Shreveport . Claude will be the official predictor of weather leading up to Fat Tuesday on Feb. 26, or the steamy gumbo nearby will have a little lagniappe, stated the proclamation. Official weather forecasters, however stray from Claude's predictions. After a month that tied 1911 as the eighth-warmest January on record, Gary Chatelain, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Shreveport, said NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has predicted a 33 percent chance February will be cooler than normal, which is about 51.2 degrees Fahrenheit. But this difference of opinion won't likely stop Claude, who was plucked from a bag of crawfish from Crawdaddy's Kitchen that was headed for a boiling pot of water, before his 10 a.m. reprieve on the Boardwalk. "Sometimes he's asked to make appearances on local weather stations," Evans said. Betty Brice from the Krewe of Artemis out of Springhill dressed in krewe regalia and a crown, couldn't exactly explain her excitement. "Just because," said Brice, with a big smile and a spoonful of gumbo in her mouth after the prediction. "It's kind of a family thing. The king and queen are my first cousins and I have two sisters here too." Franks, a transported Floridian to Louisiana in 1993, says Mardi Gras endeared her to the state right away. "I love that in Louisiana you don't need an excuse for a party," said Franks, who founded the all-woman's Krewe of Les Femmes Mystique in 1999. "This is great for the community."