So, what were the denizens of our hills and hollers doing for climate information?
The answer to that is mainly: observation, nature, and tradition.
Observation is pretty much an instant gathering of facts by way of the five senses. Like stepping outside and noticing whether it’ s hot or cold, or dry or wet. The time of day the information is collected might determine whether those conditions were going to be short-lived or set in for a spell.
There have always been folks who were diligent in their observations of weather phenomena right up to the point of keeping diaries. By keeping daily, weekly, and yearly journals of changes in the weather they could extrapolate climate trends. Some of these folks would publish their weather prognostications, along with various tidbits of interest in books called almanacs. And almanacs, along with Sears and Roebucks catalogs, were staples in most privies.
Nature, of course, was the treasure house of the raw information that folks took note of. Clouds might foretell rain, snow, or frost. The morning dew( or lack of), could spell the difference between a sunny pleasant day or one with rain on the way. And tree leaves turning back-side up was another sign that wet weather was approaching.
Animals are reliable harbingers of weather changes. Folks used to take note of the thickness of an animal’ s fur, or how much food they were gathering, to tell how cold winter was likely to be. Or, as one feller told me, you could just check your neighbor’ s firewood stack; if it’ s more than a couple of cords it might be a good idea to acquire some extra“ long johns.”
Tradition is the distillation of most of these natural observations into pithy sayings and / or rhymes, such as:
“ When spiders are many and spinning their webs, the spell will soon be very dry.”
“ A ring around the sun or moon means that rain or snow is coming soon.”
“ When dew is on the grass, rain will never come to pass.”
“ When the wind blows from the west that’ s when the fish bite the best.”
“ If bees stay home, rain will soon come. If bees fly away, it will be a fine day.”
“ Stuck doors and drawers means the rain pours and pours.”
And then there is one that I have heard lots of folks say:“ Red sky in the morning sailor take warning. Red sky at night is a sailor’ s delight.”
Now, this last one, I imagine, didn’ t have a lot of currency in Brown County, being that we’ re pretty landlocked. But it’ s one of the sayings that I have heard all my life.
I think that there is quite a bit of truth to these old proverbs. But a serious downside is trying to remember them, keep them straight, and use them at the appropriate occasions.
There is one more saying about the weather in Indiana that goes,“ If you don’ t like the weather now, just wait an hour or two and it will change.” I can personally testify to experiencing three seasons in a single day.
Come on down to the“ hills o’ Brown” where the weather is always fine, the folks are friendly, and the children are above average( most of them). •
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