Skip to main content

Weather or not to care

"Storm Front" Nebraska by Mongo, Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)


Socially most of us know, and some obey the unwritten rules of idle conversation or chit-chat.  In conversations with casual friends and acquaintances the topics of religion and politics are considered inappropriate or elicit the response, “Dems fightin’ words”. Ok, nobody I know talks like that, but almost everybody I know talks incessantly about the weather, whether or not we care or are interested.

Interpreting or lamenting about the weather has the same effect often as one who enjoys listing, describing, and generally complaining about their medical issues and ailments.  Hypochondriacs and meteorologists unite! You're both casual observers of a process beyond your comprehension. 
Safe topics of discussion are life savers in uncomfortable social situations; they break the solid ice block of unstable stranger ground and build a (light-footed) communication bridge.   Observing and attempting to understand, predict and put some sensible order into Mother Nature’s plan has been a frontier mankind has tried to conquer since first noticing a relationship between the sky and food, or crops.  This would have been a survival skill and the last era of honest (and valuable) conversations about the weather were taking place at that time.  Even the “avenue” (ditches) or ancient pathway leading to Stonehenge was just understood (2013) by modern day scientists as a sundial for predicting weather of a sort. The fact that we just figured this out (maybe) confirms that archaeology is painstakingly slow and perhaps even scientific evolution lags behind that.  

Not to count our chickens before the eggs have hatched, I have strayed off the ancient path.  We’re talking about weather talk.  As the month of March begins with a storm predicted the old idiom “March comes in like a lion, out like a lamb,” came to mind. After doing some research I discovered some similar sage sentiments, that may or may not be accurate, but all claim to be prophetic. Perhaps that’s why we are obsessed with such mundane incontrollable topics such as weather and health, we’re in it for the prophesy. Hence the obsession by muses throughout time. A "prophesy" can be defined as receiving “a divine message, inspiration or revelation”, which is why there are so many rhymes and poetic lines dedicated to these “musings” by writers and poets.  

Let’s look at a few rhymes of reason for predicting the seasons:

When halo rings the moon or sun,
Rain’s approaching on the run.

*It is safe to look directly at this picture*
A solar halo on Airforce Base via Wikimedia Commons


There is of course a scientific explanation for this. A “solar halo” is created and visible when there are high cirrus clouds (20,000 feet) that contain a ton of tiny ice crystals which refract, splitting the light. There are some illuminating photos of both solar and lunar halos on EarthSky.org.

No weather is ill, if the wind be still.

And

Seagull, seagull sit on the sand
It’s never good when you’re on land.

Ok, both of these are just common sense for the most part and not very clever rhymes, which is why we’ve never heard these before. The first means if its calm, without wind, it’s nice. Duh. The seagull is just a poor rhyme, but means if the seagull is not flying its too windy or blustery for him and abstaining from flying, which means you too should probably notice the gale force winds.

Rain before seven, clear by eleven.

For the most part this is true in my experience, but I also live by the coast. There is no doubt geography (and topography) play an important part in predicting weather. Some places are lucky enough to get rain at a certain time every day (for a season) and are even able to set their handy watch by it. I’ve personally heard of this occurring in Colorado, Hawaii, and even in Costa Rica. Likely these old rhyme writers simply did not think of, care or know what weather conditions were like anywhere other than their own locale. Why should they care unless traveling.  Since I am really only familiar with West coastal living, I know about humidity, which is normally “above normal”, making the following selection false (sometimes).

A summer fog for fair,
A winter fog for rain
A fact most everywhere,
In valley or on plain.

Admittedly it does say it takes no account for coastal weather patterns or a marine layer.

When windows won’t open, and the salt clog the shaker,
The weather will favor the umbrella maker!

All I can say to that is we don’t use a salt shaker.

"The North Sea in a Storm" by Laurits Tuxon, 1909 via Wikiemedia Commons (Public Domain).


The most practical (and accurate) weather chatter was mapped out by seamen and sailors, as well as attentive and seaworthy passengers. The following is one of my favorites and is popular all over the globe.

Red sky at night, sailors delight,
Red sky in the morning, sailors warning.

I wish everything was that easy to figure out, but what would we have to talk about? Anyway, this one is ominously and categorically always true because of the way our weather moves across the globe, crosses the Belt of Venus, and involves the scattering of the shortest wavelengths in our defined color spectrum.  Handy and life-saving advice, like teaching a man to fish.

Image of Painting by Pierre Auguste Cot, 1880 via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)


When the wind is blowing in the North
No fisherman should set forth,
When the wind is blowing in the East
‘Tis not fit for man nor beast,
When the wind is blowing South
It brings to food over the fish’s mouth,
When the wind is blowing in the West,
That is when the fishing’s the best!

Speaking of Venus and fish, Shakespeare cared two pence about weather predictions and said the following in “Venus and Adonis”:

Like a red morn that ever betokened,
Wreck to the seaman, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to the shepherds, woe unto the birds,
Guts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.

I generally do not enjoy following the herd, or enjoy participating in "small talk", I prefer gargantuan conversation (most of the time). Perhaps this stems back to childhood, as most people blame the past anyway it's as good of an excuse as any to put my face into the wind and say I just don't care for radar and other predictive measures. My father had a job that required no rain in order to work, he (not so) secretly loved the rainy season. Many people that I know watch the "doppler" like Zeus, as though he were sending them his gameplan through blobs of colors on a map only they can read. Don't even get me started on the accuracy of the doppler "future cast", perhaps this will become accurate when we figure out how to get Hover Boards to actually work. It's just gravity, what's the pressure?

Belt of Venus 2006 by Christine Churchill via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)



As the rain gently begins to fall here, and I flip the knob on my electric fireplace (with real looking flames) complete with built-in heater, turning up my customized Spotify station, congratulate myself for finishing this today, I shall still ponder the weather myself, likely evermore. Man versus nature is always a winning theme, if man wins that is. I think of how detached we are from it all, but ultimately tied to its whims of a wind. It still rains on parades, and there are still freezes and droughts that affect the produce department at the grocery store. While some of us run from the rain, some build snowmen and dig tunnels, and some people sit in their comfortable cottages with their computers talking about the weather when they could be outside in it, or at least looking at the sky, don't ask me why? I will  predict however, that I won’t be searching anymore for more archaic rhymes for the oncoming season (I safely predict is approaching-dare I say like a little lamb) and that really contain no rhyme or reason anyway. I think I will talk a walk in the rain (without an umbrella) down to the farmers market. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

10 Types of Water & More..

10 Types of Water and More Diluted Truths Water you talkin’ about? Water is of course one of the most basic of life substances on planet Earth. It is the tell tale "sign of life" that astronomers seek evidence of beyond our blue planet. While the significance of water is common knowledge you may be surprised to learn that many people don’t know what 'distilled water' is, or the difference between hard and soft water even. Don't you think we should all know the elementary basics about water? Not just for our own survival but also to debunk or sink all of the diluted truths that are not so crystal clear or don't hold water. 10 Types of Water 1.De-ionized De-ionized water is not exactly ion free , as one may assume. The process of de-ionizing by physicists is called "ion exchanging", whereby the water is passed through a specific resin to eliminate “most anions and cations”. Those are then replaced by combinations of Hydrogen and Oxygen that ...

One of a kind of...

I do not have a problem with being unique, or should I say not being unique. I mean, I suspect beyond a hunch that I am exactly like many people-most people even-but not all people in more than a handful of ways. I like the uniqueness of others. I am not unique though. I am like many people that are as just different as I am. “I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.” Harper Lee Americans love sugar, we even coat our fondest words with it. And fat, we love to chew our fat too. It seems most of us will eat whatever is placed in front of us. I lived in Texas briefly and many, many men (and a few women) called me ‘Sugar’ or ‘Hon’ or ‘Doll’, I only took personal offense with ‘Sugar’ and actually adopted the habit of saying ‘Hon’. Not many people say ‘Hon’ in California, I guess that’s different. Californians don’t actually say ‘DUDE’, not all Californians are actors, athletes, hippies or hobos although we do have these citizens. Most Californians say, ‘it’s all good’ or ‘no wor...

You can’t handle social media

The internet was supposed to make us smarter. Google thinks that’s one of Alphabets main jobs, or they advertise themselves as Information Providers anyway. It’s not working. We are either getting righteously naive or socially inept, or both.  Way back in the early 2000’s, at the peak of my world wide connected optimism about this new democratic, humanitarian, freedom of information age, I taught my toddler how to ‘surf’ and ‘use a mouse’-now that terminology even dates him. On a positive note, he actually did turn out to be really smart. That may be because the chicken came before Google or if you asked the nurses at the hippie hospital he was born in, they would say it was the breastfeeding-but I have proof that’s not it. And that is just it-yes, I said it’s not it, but it is. The amount of misinformation that lingers and spreads, the lies that are let live-it’s not any better with the internet-or smart phones. Proof? Ok, my daughter. As though needed more to be said, still, ...