Reading the Weather Part 4
The barometer does not rise with wind from an easterly direction unless a shift is imminent. In winter the air is so much colder over the land than over the sea that the air brought in by an easterly wind is soon condensed. Consequently with winds from the south or southeast, even if the barometer is 30.20 or 30.10 and falling slowly rain usually arrives (and rain of course is meant to include snow whenever the mercury is below the freezing point) within 24 hours. If the fall is rapid there may be precipitation within 12 hours, and the wind will rapidly increase and the temperature rise.
If the wind is from the east or northeast and the barometer 30.10 or above and falling slowly it means rain within 24 hours in winter. In summer if the wind is light rain may not fall for a day or so. If the fall is rapid in winter rain with increasing winds will often set in when the barometer begins its fall and the wind gets to a point a little east of north.
If the barometer is 30.00 or below and falling slowly with northeast to southeast winds the storm will continue 24 to 48 hours. If the barometer falls rapidly the wind will be high with rain and the change to rising barometer with clearing and colder will probably come within 20 to 30 hours.
If the barometer is below 30.00 but rising slowly the clear weather will last several days.
If the barometer is 29.80 or below and falling rapidly with winds south of east a severe storm is at hand to be followed within 24 hours by clearing and colder. Under the same conditions but with northeast winds there will occur heavy snow followed by a cold wave.
If these promises do not always bear fruit it is because they will have been interrupted by an unseen shifting of the atmospheric weights. But the barometer will record them. A rapid rise may be checked in ascent and the instrument may fluctuate like a stock-ticker. Its tale is of very unsettled weather conditions and consequently no particular brand of weather will last for very long at a time.
A sudden rise of the barometer may bring its gale of wind as well as a sudden fall. But the tendency will be toward clearing and much colder.
A fall of the barometer on a west wind is not common. It means rain. A rise on a south wind means fair. A low barometer and a cold south wind mean a change to west with squalls for a while. On the other hand, a high barometer with warmer weather means a shift of the wind to southerly quarters and an imminent fall.
If the barometer rises fast and the temperature does, too, look for another storm. This is often noticed in summer.
There is a slight daily oscillation of the mercury, which, if other things are steady, registers highest at 10 A. M. and 10 P. M. and lowest at 4 A. M. and 4 P. M.
If this data confuses bear in mind the simple ordinary progress of the barometer in the usual storm: First, it will stand steady for a day or so at any point between 30.10 and 30.50. Then the gla.s.s will begin (for most storms) to fall gradually. As the center nears the fall hastens. After the lowest point has been reached a slight rise will be followed by another slight fall and then the final long rise will commence. The rain begins and ceases at different stages for different storms, depending upon the wind's velocity and direction.
For every 900 feet of alt.i.tude the height of the mercury is about one inch less. Do not complain that your barometer is inaccurate if you are living up in the mountains and your readings are not the same as the weather reports which are reduced to sea level. All the figures given in this chapter are for sea level and if your house is 1900 feet above you must move the copper hand of your aneroid 1.95 inches from the pressure hand. If the pressure hand would read 28.05 the adjustable copper hand would read 30.00 which is the sea level reading.
One good thing to remember is that a barometer falls lower for high winds than for heavy rain. A fall of two- or three-tenths of an inch in four hours brings a gale. In the ordinary gale the wind blows hardest when the barometer begins its rise from a very low point.
In summer a suddenly falling barometer foretells a thunderstorm, and if the corresponding rise does not at once take place the unsettled conditions will continue with probably another thunderstorm. If you see the thunderstorm first, that is, if the barometer is not affected by the approaching black cloud you may be sure that the storm will amount to nothing.
The man in the fields or along the sh.o.r.e has many natural barometers in animal life. But these natural barometers only corroborate; they do not foretell, at least very long before. Some are useful at times and among these the birds are foremost. The observant Zunis have incorporated this in one of their pretty proverbs, "When chimney swallows circle and call they speak of rain." As a matter of fact the swallows are circling most of the time after insects. If they are flying high it is because the bugs are flying high and that is because there is no danger of rain. As the rain nears the air gets moister, the bugs and the birds fly lower.
Whether they do this because their instinct is to avoid a wetting or because the lighter atmosphere of a cyclone makes flying more difficult, particularly at alt.i.tudes, I do not know. For weather purposes it is enough to watch their comparative levels. Wild geese are excellent signs, I am told, but it would be a dry country that waits for a sight of them for its rain.
Bees localize before a storm and will not swarm. Flies crowd upon the screens of houses when humidity is high, possibly because the appetizing odors from within are buoyed afar by the heavy air. Cuckoos seek the higher ground in fair weather and disappear into bottom lands before a rain. Although they are called rain-crows they are heard in all weathers.
Smoke is as good an evidence of barometric pressure as anything except the instrument itself. On clear, still days it will mount; on humid days without wind it will cling to the hill. There is that difference. But it takes skill and many comparisons to gauge its angles in the wind. It becomes a test in observation and finally rewards one by becoming an excellent sign not only of air texture but of the direction of its currents.
No reference to barometers would be complete without mentioning spiders. They show a most delicate apprehension of changing conditions. If the day is to be fine and without wind they will run out long threads and be rather active. If the rain is nearing they strengthen their webs, shorten the filaments and sit dully in the center. Fresh webs on the lawn insure a clear day. But for the commuter, whose time is money, there is little leisure to consider the spider.
As a natural result of the variation in alt.i.tude affecting the barometer the words which are printed on the face become entirely useless. In some places it would be impossible for the needle to point higher than "Very Stormy." Even at sea level a sudden fall to "Fair" would cause a rain, much to the indignation of the person who thought that he had purchased a self-registering weather prophet. Disregard the words but watch the needle and you will never be surprised at what the weather is doing next.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SEASONS.
Too great emphasis cannot be laid upon the futility, at present, of trying to forecast the weather for more than a very few days in advance. Long range efforts are not made by the Bureau because with its present limited knowledge of the factors that control seasons and with the present limited facilities for collecting data the process of looking into next month has not been perfected, and the attempt to investigate next winter's weather proves scientifically impossible.
As usual, fakers step in where science fears to tread. With goose-bones (not their own) and hickory nuts they prophesy with all their might. And if their prophecies come true, as sometimes they must, there is wide rejoicing in the newspapers and the cause of science is set back by just so much. But science cannot be thwarted in the end and every year new discoveries are made, new speculations proved true or forever false, and some time, doubtless, the weather will be predicted from year to year with the same 85% accuracy with which the 36 hour forecast is now made. Experimenting is worth the little that it costs, too, for to know when the summer is to be dry or wet, hot or cold will be a boon to everybody and to the farmer most of all.
One conclusion has already been reached by officials in the Weather Bureau and scientists generally. It has been decided by long search through creditable records, painstaking comparisons of averages coupled with the most accurate investigations for half a century, that, on the basis of ten years, our seasons do not change. That is, counting the decade as a unit, our weather keeps to the same level of efficiency through the centuries.
This statement comes always as a blow. It always provokes argument and citations of grandmother's blizzards. There is a great and universal hesitation in believing that our weather is as good to-day as it used to be. The good old times when there was a general debauch of snow and you could skate all winter on anything but the Atlantic Ocean certainly appear no more. As a matter of fact there has been a change, but it has been in our memories. In grandmother's youth the trains,--if they had trains then,--doubtless were stalled by a big snow for then they did not have rotary plows. In father's day they may have had an unbroken winter of sleighing. We couldn't now; sleighs are extinct. But in our time, in fact every year, some record is being broken and the records go back a respectable length of time.
For example in Philadelphia the most accurate records made by standard instruments have been kept for 43 years. During this time the highest wind velocity was recorded in 1878 (75 miles an hour). The greatest rainfall in 24 hours occurred in 1898 (5.89 inches). The lowest temperature was registered in 1899 (6 degrees below zero); the highest in 1901 (103 degrees). The greatest number of thunderstorms for any one year took place in 1905 when we had 51. As late as 1909 the heaviest snowfall ever recorded at this station, amounting to 21 inches, occurred. And just a few weeks ago (April 3rd, 1915) it snowed 19 inches in half as many hours. All these items do not indicate a climate decreasing in virility very swiftly.
But there is more evidence yet that Philadelphia is experiencing the same varieties of weather in about the same proportions. Diaries of observant men running back to 1700 show that almost any kind of memory could be founded on fact, that the same violent changes in temperature, the same deep snows and unseasonable seasons that we endure to-day were noticed then. To quote: "The whole winter of 1780 was intensely cold. The Delaware was closed from the 1st of December to the 14th of March. The ice was from two to three feet thick." We despaired of ever living up to this until three years ago when the same thing happened and sleighs crossed the river a little above the city. And despite the new ice-boats!
"The winter of 1779 was very mild, particularly the month of February when trees were in blossom."
"On the 31st of December, 1764, the Delaware was frozen completely over in one night, and the weather continued cold until the 28th of March with snow about two and a half feet deep."
"The winter of 1756 was very mild. The first snow was as late as the 18th of March."
And so it goes. 1750 was mild; 1742 "one of the coldest since the settlement of the country"; 1741 was intensely cold, 1725 mild, 1714 very mild after the 15th of January, 1697 long, stormy and severely cold. The upshot of it all is that February violets and April snows were just as well known to General Washington as they are to us.
[Ill.u.s.tration: NIMBUS.
Courtesy of Richard F. Warren.
Nimbus is any cloud from which rain is falling, and the important thing to know is how to judge from the formless thing how much longer it is to rain. The wind is the surest guide. In this picture the nimbus cloud is only that at the end of the cape. All the rest is torn stratus and c.u.mulus, which needs to condense a little further before it becomes nimbus. This will likely happen because the cloud at the left is very dark. The broken appearance denotes some wind. Rain does not fall from a mottled sky nor yet a streaky one; the nimbus is uniform in appearance. In summer a break in the nimbus will show a veil of cirro-stratus above. Just nimbus by itself will not support much of a storm. In winter if the nimbus is particularly seamless snow is about to fall.]
But though all facts point to the fact that the climate does not change in a decade or a generation or a dozen generations, there is some comfort for those who are not satisfied in knowing that it doesn't stay the same forever. During the carboniferous times the poles were as warm as the tropics and when the Ice Age came on it was very chilly everywhere. If one might only live an eon or two he might then well complain of the changing climate.
Climate, however, is one thing, weather another. The climate is the sum total of the weather. Climate is as enduring as our Const.i.tution, the weather is as changeable as our city governments. No matter how proud a scientist may be of the lasting qualities of the climate, he has to admit that our weather, taken day by day or even year by year, is versatile in the extreme. And the question he has set himself to solve is how to explain the variations of the seasonable weather. He wants to find out why all winters are not alike, and why no two successive springs are the same. Then he will be on firm ground at last and able to make scientific forecasts for the ensuing year.
The obvious thing was to find out as accurately as possible what had happened and science's keenest eye was focused on records in the hope of discovering fixed periods of warmth or wetness, cycles of cold and drought. So far no cycles have been discovered that are beyond dispute. Nothing has been found that cannot be contradicted successfully. This is discouraging.
One of the most frequent starting places for investigators is the spots on the sun. They found that periods of three, eight, eleven, and thirty-five years should bear some resemblance; 1901 was eagerly looked forward to. They wanted it to correspond with the remarkably cool summer of 1867. When it started off in July with a temperature of 103 degrees, the highest ever recorded in Philadelphia, they concluded that the sunspots were fooling them. A connection between sunspots and weather has not been established, therefore, although they are now known to affect the electrical condition of the earth's atmosphere. Longer periods of observation will permit comparisons that may yet define concurrent cycles of sunspots and weather.
A definite weather cycle has not yet been discovered, but one step in the way has been cleared up. We now are pretty sure of one cause for unusual single seasons of heat and cold.
There exist in winter great bodies of cold, dry air heaped up over Canada and Siberia, which are formed by the greater rapidity of radiation over land surfaces than over water. These mounds of cold air build up during December, January, and February and form great so-called permanent areas of high barometer. It is on the skirts of the Canadian high that the smaller highs form which sweep over our country, giving us our cold waves. Also in winter permanent lows form over the North Pacific and North Atlantic where warm currents afford continuous supplies of warm moist air. From the great Aleutian (Pacific) low spring most of the cyclones which swing down below the border of the Canadian high, make their turn somewhere in the Mississippi Valley, and then head for the Icelandic low.
It can be seen that if the Canadian high is a little stronger than usual and spreads a little farther south, then the northern half of our country will come more directly under its influence and we will experience an unusually severe winter. As the storms are pushed south and as the cold air pours into the northern quadrants the snow line is pushed south too. Hence all abnormally snowy winters are caused by a strengthening of the permanent Canadian high which may be central anywhere north of our Dakota or Montana borders.
Conversely, if this high is weaker than usual the cyclones can cross the country on a line farther north, there will be less snow, and the cold waves that follow will be less severe or even non-existent.
In summer the reverse occurs. Great oceanic highs are built up over the South Atlantic and South Pacific and a permanent low occupies the center of our continent. The character of the season is determined by the strength and position of these areas. The eastern states are affected especially by the slow movements of the South Atlantic low. The puzzle is why should these areas change their power and position, and if they must change why don't they do it regularly? The puzzle will undoubtedly be solved. These great centers of action will be plotted against and observed from every vantage point by a thousand observers. A fascinating field for scientific speculation opens.
At present our Government exchanges daily observations with stations in Siberia, Canada, and the West Indies. The great storm-breeder, the Aleutian Low, is watched from Alaskan sh.o.r.es. In the Atlantic the Bureau needs stationary ships to record the growth and decline of the High over the Azores. Knowledge of the wind circulation from this would inform us whether our storms were to be shunted farther north and pushed somewhat inland. A storm which is pushed to the left of its normal track increases tremendously in intensity. Whereas a cyclone that limps slackly to the right of its normal line loses intensity at once. It misses coil. In this respect storms seem to resemble rattlesnakes.
The energy of the Azores High influences the number and destructiveness of the West Indian hurricanes: the larger the area is the closer do the hurricanes hug our sh.o.r.es and the more destruction do they accomplish.
The very sureness that the general average of the seasons is to be the same enables us to guess pretty accurately for individual purposes as to the kind of season coming next. A guess, let me add, is not a forecast. It is a gamble and disapproved of by the Bureau, but until they supply us with a basis for judgment we will have to go on guessing, for human curiosity is as near to perpetual motion as the weather is to the lacking fourth dimension.
One of these guesses is that if the winter has been a warm one the summer will be cool, for the very good reason that the yearly average does depart so slightly from the fixture. Unfortunately one hot summer does not mean that the following summer will be cool. Certain sequences of the seasons have been observed often enough to have been gathered into proverbs. Everybody agrees that "A late spring never deceives." "A year of snow, Fruit will grow." "A green winter makes a full churchyard."
Of the many hundreds of proverbs relating to the seasons a few are sage, some outworn, and many sheer nonsense. Nearly all refer to the obvious fact that one kind of season is followed by another rather unlike it, not much telling what. And there, unsatisfactorily enough, they leave one. But much is to be hoped for from the scientific explorations now in progress. And until they are heard from few of us will realize how many seasonable seasons we really enjoy.
CHAPTER VII.
THE WEATHER BUREAU.
At the cost of a cent and a half a year apiece we Americans are supplied with detailed information in advance about the weather. And the information is correct for more than four-fifths of the time. If stock brokers never missed oftener, what reputations would accrue!
Cheapness, accuracy, and a certain modesty are the three qualities that distinguish the out-givings of the Bureau from the old-fashioned predictions of the weather which used to appear in almanacs. Almanacs have probably kept appearing ever since the art of printing first allowed unscrupulous persons to juggle with words. They cost fifty cents and their predictions were based on nothing but the strength of their author's imagination. Of course, it was impossible for him to guess wrong more than half the time so that when he announced in January that July would be hot with thunderstorms he was often right. This gave him prestige, but aided his clients little.
The Weather Bureau was in about the same position in regard to the quack predictions of the almanacs as was the honest doctor of the last decade who could only prescribe good food and fresh air and moderate exercise for the patient who much preferred the expensive allurements of the medicinal cure-all as advertised. In humility the Bureau said that as things stood it could not forecast with accuracy for more than 48 hours, and its honesty brought it into disregard.
But, although the Weather Bureau,--like the Christian Church and other things that have had to combat superst.i.tion at every step--has grown slowly it has grown surely and its work is being recognized more widely and relied upon more understandingly every month. It was an American scientist who discovered the rotary motion of cyclones and their progressive character, but due to the conservative nature of our Government three other nations had established weather services before we had. In 1870 the War Department was authorized to start a system of observations that would permit of a rough sort of forecasting. The forecasts proved of so much value to shippers and sailors that the work was handed over to the Department of Agriculture and enlarged (1891). To-day every part of our country contributes to the knowledge of existing weather conditions.
At 8 A. M. observations are made at hundreds of stations and wired to the Central Office at Washington. The Chief there, knowing these conditions, is enabled to locate a storm, to gauge its rate of speed, to learn its course, and to measure its intensity. He can dictate storm warnings and be sure that within an hour every sailing master will have a copy. He can detect a cold wave at its entrance into our territory and know that within an hour every shipper, every truckster (who has signified that he wishes to be informed) will have the facts that will save him money.
At 8 P. M. the same stations telegraph the changed conditions, and if any very violent disturbance is in progress an observation is made at noon. Besides the Washington distributing station there are 1700 others from which warnings are sent by telegraph, telephone, or mail. There are 100,000 addresses on the mailing list and 5,000,000 telephone subscribers can get them within an hour. The newspapers reach many millions. And all this at a cost of 1-1/2 cents a year. If we, in a fit of generosity, should pay 2 cents, or even 2-1/2 the Government would be enabled to work out many of the larger problems awaiting only a larger appropriation to be attacked.
The people's investment of $1,600,000 a year is a good investment. In one year the Service saves a great many hundred per cent. A few known savings are worth giving; $3,500,000 worth of protection was made possible from one exceptionally severe cold wave; the California citrus growers estimated that one warning saved $14,000,000 worth of fruit; $30,000,000 of shipping (and cargoes) was known to have been detained in port just on account of one hurricane warning, and there are many warnings of gales every year. Uncalculated savings have been effected among the growers of tobacco, sugar, cranberries, truck. The railway and transportation companies save, through use of the forecasts, in shipments of bananas, oysters, fish, and eggs. Farmers, manufacturers, raisin driers, photographers, insurance companies, and about a hundred and fifty other occupations increase their profits by a systematic study of the forecasts.
The people who live along the rivers often owe their lives and frequently much of their property to telephone warnings of approaching floods. The flood stages in all the princ.i.p.al rivers and streams have been calculated and losses are reduced by 75 per cent. by accurate predictions as to when the crest of the flood may be expected and how high it will reach. A hundred uses of river forecasts, even when flood stages are not expected are given in the booklet, "The Weather Bureau" which you can have from Washington for the asking, like many another of their publications.
Yet, with all the good it does, the man on the street still regards the Bureau as an uninteresting, undependable exhibit in the upper corner of the newspaper,--if he regards it at all. It is his child, however, who is instructing him. For his child is being taught in the public school all about it and he takes his teaching home and becomes the teacher. The child is father of the (old) man in lots of instances.
The most impressive thing about the whole output of the Bureau to the child is its Map. The Bureau issues a map every day which is posted in post-offices and railroad stations and in schools, too, if they ask for it. And every day this map shows in all its gripping details the way our storms are sidling across the continent or rushing up our coasts. It prints the word low where the stormy area of low barometer is. About the low run continuous black lines numbered 29.7, 29.8, 29.9, etc., which show where in the country the pressures are the same.
As the numbers run up to 30.0, 30.1, 30.2 they begin to circle about the word High which denotes where the pressure is highest. Little circles will be observed on the map. Some are clear, indicating clear weather; others are half clear, half black, indicating partly cloudy conditions; others are all black, showing clouds; others have R. or S. inside them, telling where it is raining. The numbers under the circles show how much it has rained or snowed and the numbers under the other numbers are the velocities of the winds. The arrows through the circles fly with the wind. A little zig-zag locates each thunderstorm and the shaded portions show over what portions of the country it has rained during the last 24 hours. As an intelligent puzzle picture the map is unequaled and no wonder the child likes it.
With this map you can tell at a glance what the weather is doing to your uncle in Tacoma and to your cousin in Missouri. With two successive maps you can find out about how fast the storms are traveling, in what direction, and how low the temperatures are under their influence, and so estimate for yourself the weather for the next three days.
Besides the invaluable daily weather map the Bureau issues many other maps that present the phenomena of the week, the month, and the season in graphic form. Masters of vessels are now cooperating with the government to provide observations at sea, and both on our northwest and southeast coasts such information is very valuable. In the west several hundreds of stations are maintained in the mountains for the purpose of obtaining the depth and content of the great snowfalls there. Estimates can then be given out as to the amount of water to be available for irrigating purposes. In addition to the 220 stations of the first cla.s.s there are 4200 cooperative stations at which observations are made and mailed to 44 centers for distribution.
Special local data help to establish the relations between climate and forestry, agriculture, water resources, and allied subjects. Many bulletins are compiled by experts in their respective lines and these are for free distribution. A study of forest cover is being made in Colorado and the effects of denudation on the flow of streams will soon be scientifically established. As soon as practicable the Bureau hopes to extend its period of forecasting. Weekly forecasts have been tried in a general way with success, but long-range forecasting depends upon so many relationships of the air that present knowledge and facilities do not warrant its adoption.
CHAPTER VIII.
A CHAPTER OF EXPLOSIONS.
In the good old times when a man was born, spent his life, and died in the same village the weather proverb was fashioned. Generations had watched the clouds gather under certain circ.u.mstances and scatter under certain others and they naturally drew conclusions. These conclusions crystallized until they resembled nuggets of golden weather wisdom. Some were even used as charms. And all contained a deal of truth so long as they were only meant to refer to the country in which they had originated.
But nowadays when the very idea of remaining in the same place for very long at a time is obnoxious the weather proverb suffers. It suffers chiefly by transportation. The weather in County Cork is so very different from the weather that makes Chicago famous that the same weather lore does not fit. Yet it is often applied. The old truths, treasured in picturesque phrase and jingle, were brought over the ocean unchanged and made to do duty,--a case of new wine in old bottles again, for a gentle old Irish proverb splits up the back when it tries to accommodate itself to a week of our reckless but magnificent weather.
Fairy stories are jewels to be cherished. And it is a careless and unimaginative race that perpetuates no legends. Even old saws are quaint and should be preserved: "See a pin and pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck." Let that sort of thing go on because it adds richness to our conversation. But if a thousand men, after having picked up their morning pins, sat around waiting for the ensuing luck the progress of scientific business management would be halted. And precisely that way is the knowledge of ordinary weather facts halted,--a full-grown superst.i.tion sits in the path. Instead of relying upon their eyes the majority of people rely upon a bit of doggerel. For example, millions of people firmly believe that the ground-hog is a key to the weather. They say that if the ground-hog does not see his shadow on the 2nd of February that winter is over!
This is the sort of thing that obscures the findings of science not to mention common-sense. Few of these people have ever seen a ground-hog. Few of the rest have ever studied its habits. The ant, the mouse, the fly, the rat, and the mosquito have far more influence upon our lives than the ground-hog has and the most ambitious animal cannot expect to influence atmospheric pressure, which is responsible for our weather. Yet as often as the 2nd of February comes around the hopes of many are either dashed or raised according to the actions of this creature. As a matter of fact, whether February 2nd is clear or cloudy can have no influence on the rest of the winter.
Almost all the other proverbs have a basis of reason. But this puts its believers in the wrong either way. If they say that it is the actions of the animal that they rely upon they depend upon a characteristic thoroughly and surely disproved. No animal, although it may sense a change in the weather a few hours in advance, is able to feel it for three days ahead to say nothing of six weeks. If these people say, on the other hand, that a cloudy February 2nd means an immediate and complete let up of winter, or that a clear February 2nd means a certain continuance of cold weather for six weeks, they have only to trouble themselves to look at the files of the nearest Weather Bureau for the last forty years. They will find no connection. The trouble is that they will not look, but keep on repeating the bit of nonsense and believing in it, although the strength of their convictions probably does not reduce their coal-bills.
The same people are fond of saying that the first three days of December show what the winter will be like. That is, if the 1st is fair so will December be; if the 2nd is cold so will January be; and if it snows on the 3rd, so will it snow in February. If all three should be clear and warm certainly a remarkable winter would follow! No rain, no snow, no cold! You see how absurd this superst.i.tion is.
"A dry moon lies on its back!" After the ground-hog the moon is supposed to have the most influence on our seasons. The Government and many scientists connected with no governments have made careful, exhaustive and conclusive investigations. No relation between the moon and our weather has been discovered except as she causes our tides and they affect atmospheric pressure in an infinitesimal degree. We would still have just as much and just as variable weather if there were no moon. The weather changes with the changing moon, and it does not change as the moon changes, and the chances are about even that the times of change will coincide. So there is, therefore, absolutely no foundation for the dozens of proverbs that yoke the changes of the moon with the changes of our weather. Neither in science nor in observation has any sequence been deduced.
So the moon may lie on its back or on its side or stand on its head and the weather will remain dry if no low pressure areas cross the country, and it can lie on its back for days and the country be drowned out if they do. There are enough pretty things to say about the moon, anyway, and will be more all the time for, to commit a paraphrase: Science is stranger than superst.i.tion.
"It will rain for forty days straight if it rains on St. Swithin's Day," which, I might as well say for the benefit of those who don't know their saints, falls on July 15th every year. It would be interesting to know how many people in a hundred really believe this, or really believe all the other things that are attributed to the saints,--quite a few, probably. Luckily for St. Swithin July and August are wet months, with often several days of showers or thunderstorms in succession. But never once in Philadelphia has it rained for forty days, one right after another, although half the July 15ths have been rained on. This proverb is one of those that had better never been transplanted from its native Ireland where rain for 40 days would excite scarcely a curse.
"Long and loud singing of robins denotes rain." It does not. Oftener than not it denotes the time of day. Just watch the robins and listen to them and see what they do before a storm, during it, after it, and then you will see how little the songs of birds can be depended upon to supplant the barometer.
"If March comes in like a lion it will go out like a lamb," and the other way round. I have seen March come in like a lion and go out like a lion, come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, come in like a lamb and go out like a lion, and come in like a lamb and go out like a Noah's ark. But I never have seen March do anything dependable. It is quite impossible to tell how March is going out on March 27th, and absolutely impossible to tell on March 1st.
But there is this much observation expressed in the proverb, that March is so changeable that, if it comes in cold, windy, unsettled, there is not so much chance for such weather still to be going on at the end of the month, and still less in England where the proverb came from. This is a harmless proverb unless it should lead people to actually count upon a pleasant spring just because March had an unpleasant inception. Misfortunes rarely come singly, even on the weather calendar.
"When squirrels are scarce in autumn the winter will be severe." Aside from the scientific truth that the animals cannot know in advance about the seasons there is little evidence on either side to base a contention. n.o.body has made a squirrel census; n.o.body, probably, has found out whether they increase in numbers for six years and then die off in great quant.i.ties as do the rabbits in the north country on the seventh; n.o.body has connected their apparent numbers year after year with the actual severities of the winters. And so n.o.body has a right to promulgate the report (except as a bit of nonsense like April Fool) that the ensuing winter is going to be a record breaker because the squirrels have disappeared. It would be far truer to say that "When squirrels are scarce in autumn the hunters have been busy," and let it go at that.
There are a lot of proverbs in this connection about goose bones and hickory nuts and wild geese, which sound plausible but are never proved. If the birds have all the sense credited to them it is strange that some allow themselves to be caught by an early snowstorm in the fall and decimated. Also it is not uncommon for early migrations in the spring to arrive in the north to be slain by the thousand by a belated blizzard. It is granted that animals and birds, having a far greater sensitiveness than man, occasionally sense a catastrophe some hours before it is evidenced by any visual signs, but seasonal wisdom has not been proved in any one instance and disproved in many. None of the proverbs relating to the animals and birds are to be depended upon. They deceive, much to the regret of all the meteorologists who would welcome any genuine clue to nature of the coming season. Any farmer would be only too glad to keep a menagerie of squirrels and wild geese and toads if only he might be a.s.sured by them of the coming seasonal conditions.
The proverbs given indicate the range, possibly, but certainly not the full absurdity of the old weather sayings. There are many other proverbs that contain at least a half truth.
"Enough blue sky to make a Dutchman's breeches indicates clearing," is one that is true if the wind has changed to the west. If the wind still blows from an easterly quarter blue sky for a Dutchman's whole wardrobe would not insure clear weather. All sayings must be tested many times before they are believed implicitly.
"There is always a thaw in January," is about as true a generalization as can be made about things for which generalizations are never strictly in place. Even in Canada the severity of the winter is often broken by a spell of warmer weather with a rain, perhaps, in the dead of winter. In the United States a winter without some break in each of the months would be a most unusual occurrence. So that it is quite reasonable to expect the "January thaw" any time from Christmas until the middle of February.
"A late spring never deceives," unless it is so very late, like the phenomenal spring of 1907, that the jump is made, perforce, into summer. That is a cruel deception. What is meant of course is that if the freezing weather continues consistently, well past the average, the likelihood of frost-damage to fruit is slight. There is nothing much worse than for the blossoms to be forced by a period of warm weather early, for there is only a slim chance that it will continue past the danger limit. It is surprising how late frost may occur,--the last date for killing frost in Pennsylvania is about May 10th on the average, which makes it possible till June.
"The first robins indicate the approach of spring." But certainly not its arrival.
"If the moon rises clear expect fair weather." Right; because if it is summer even the eastern horizon would show the humidity necessary enough to cause a thunderstorm, and in winter the cirrus clouds give several hours' warning. But, again, the wind is the chief factor to be considered.
Proverbs, representing variations of the truth, could be given about every manifestation of the skies as well as about things that were never manifest except in the imagination, for every country has contributed to the volume of weather-lore. But, unfortunately, neither age nor amount of repet.i.tion are as good as the truth and they should be discarded if they are false. The way to discard is not to repeat.
The man who desires weather-wisdom should seek it with his eyes. His comparison will be that which he sees with that which he has seen, and he will soon form all the weather axioms he needs for himself. The local Bureau or the Bureau at Washington will answer all his inquiries, cheerfully, promptly, and free of charge. Of course there are things that the Bureau wants to know itself. It is very curious about the higher strata of air. Small balloons have carried very light instruments to an alt.i.tude of fifteen miles and brought considerable knowledge to earth, but each bit makes more knowledge imperative.
The cry of "last frontier" hurts the adventurous, the exploring, the woods-loving as no other cry has power to hurt. With the Poles gone and Alaska in harness we are inclined to think that it is all over. We resign ourselves to our trammelling globe,--as the gold-fish do,--forgetting. But there is plenty of interest left. The birds must be brought back. Forests must be made and patrolled, and the air-ocean is still unknown. That, at any rate, has remained unspoiled by man.
The seas have been charted and the mountains have been disemboweled, but the atmosphere is unconquered. More must be known. Squadrons of aeroplanes cannot ride out the gale until their pilots know all about the gale. Until that time there need be no cry of last frontier, for until that time the weather will continue to be our overlord, whose dominions are flaunted before the watcher on the porch and the runner on the trail.