Pay Attention To The "Ember Days"...!

I know many folks don't hold much with telling weather using Folk Lore, but I figure it never hurts to cover all the bases.

Besides, the local weather guys don't do all that well...if you know what I mean! All of the modern equipment, all the images from space, all the computer models and they still only get it right about 50% of the time!

I'm using the Old Farmer's Almanac because their record, using folk lore and old time methods, is nearly just as good! Besides, it's a lot more fun using the Almanac! Things being what they are now days, I'll take my fun whenever and where ever I can!

It would be nice to live in a place where we had some fall, but here on the coast we usually go from Summer one day... straight into Winter the next. The joys of Texas weather!

Ember Days

The Almanac traditionally marks the four periods formerly observed by the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches for prayer, fasting, and the ordination of clergy.

These Ember Days are the Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays that follow in succession after (1) the First Sunday in Lent; (2) Whitsunday–Pentecost; (3) the Feast of the Holy Cross, September 14; and (4) the Feast of St. Lucia, December 13. The word ember is perhaps a corruption of the Latin quatuor tempora, "four times."

Folklore has it that the weather on each of the three days foretells the weather for three successive months; that is, for September’s Ember Days, Wednesday forecasts weather for October, Friday for November, and Saturday for December.

Now you know what the Ember Days are! Wasn't that a lot more fun than watching some boring ol' weather guy on television? Ya know, if you go on over to their website, you can get a hard copy of the almanac to hold and read while the Winter winds are blowing...or when you just need some reading material for the "Library"! You know where I mean, right?

Now, my friends, let's get some fresh coffee and sit outside for a bit!

Here's Some More Weather Folk Lore...!

I'm sure you've noticed that the weather has been a little crazy as of late!

I did a little research over at the Old Farmer's Almanac, and came up with some bits of folk lore that might help tell you what's on the horizon, weather-wise.

See if any of these help you out!

Here are some ways to judge the weather, grounded on 50 years' experience and observations by an ancient English shepherd in 1812.

If the sun rises red and fiery, it certainly betokens more or less wind or rain. This observation agrees with the old English rule: If red the sun begins his race, be sure that rain will fall apace.

If cloudy at sunrising, and it so decreases, it is a certain sign of fair weather, agreeable to this is an observation of Pliny's, in his Natural History, which says: If at sunrising the clouds are driven away and retire as it were to the west, it denotes fair weather.

Little round clouds like a dapple grey, and at the same time a north wind blows, denote fair weather for a few days.

If the sun be surrounded with an iris, or circle of white clouds, and they equally fly away, 'tis a sign of fair weather.

And this old English proverb is often right: In the decay of the moon, a cloudy morning bodes a fair afternoon.

If the weather be hazy, and the wind falls away, and small clouds increase, depend on much rain, and that soon.

When mists rise in low ground and soon vanish, nothing is a surer sign of fair weather; when they are heavy, rise slowly, and keep visible on the hilltops, they soon fall down in rain, which, however, seldom lasts long.

A mist in the morning, before sunrising, and at or about the full of the moon, betides fair weather; if mists appear in the new moon, you may depend on more or less rain in the old; and when they arise in the old, there is generally rain in the new.

If the wind shifts from the north to the south in a few days without rain and turns north again with rain, returns to the south in one or two days, and so on for two or three keeps shifting, it will afterwards fix south or west two months or more.
In summer, or autumn, when the wind has been in the south two or three days, and the weather very hot, and the clouds rise one above another with white tops, like battlements of a tower, and joined together, and black on the hills, depend on thunder and rain very speedily.

You may sometimes see two clouds, one to the left, another to the right, which denote a sudden shower.

When clouds float in a serene sky, you may expect winds, and if they rise from the south, depend on rain; if you see them driving at sunset, come from what quarter they will, depend on a tempest approaching. Clouds that have a dusky hue and move slowly are laden with hail; if they have a blue cast, with large hail; if yellow, small.

The faster it rains, the sooner it will be over, and sudden rains never last long. But when the air grows thick, and the sun, moon, and stars shine dim, then it is likely to rain six hours successively.

When it rains an hour or two before sunrising, it generally clears before noon and continues so the whole day; if the rain sets in an hour or two after sunrising, it generally rains all day, unless the rainbow appears a little before the rain begins, and then it seldom lasts long.

When October and November are warm and rainy, January and February are frosty and cold; but if October and November be snow and frost, then January and February are open and mild.

I don't know if this will help or not, but the almanac has a better track record than the local weather guys with all their fancy equipment, so use your own judgement!

Now, coffee and iced tea is ready on the patio if anyone is interested! What say, my friends?