As a slight detour from the current topic "Running out of road salt", do any of you on the forum use any of the old forecasts that we've picked up along life's way to forecast the weather (no disrespect to Carnkie who is the weather expert on the forum :)). I ask this as being fed up of the present cold spell and remembering that I was told the weather pattern in the UK roughly changes every four to five days, I looked for the date of the new moon as weather also goes with the moon changes doesn't it? It's a new moon on Friday (15th) and the long weather forecast for this area looks to change for the better then and hopefully for the rest of the UK

I remember as a small child my granny telling me that "if it rained before 7 it would be fine before 11" and after saying that, sending me out into the garden to gaze into the sky and look for enough blue sky amongst the cloud to "make a sailor a pair of trousers" - I spent ages when young trying to draw trousers against the sky! Another saying was "if it was too bright too early in a morning then the weather would change to rain later". We all know about red skies i.e. "red sky in the morning shepherd's warning, red sky at night shepherd's delight". "Mares tails" in the sky indicated wind, lots of it. Living in the Peak District animals also indicated the weather, cows moved to the tops of hills in fine weather, they also got very agitated and mooed a lot just before a bad storm. Cats tend to sit with their backs to an open fire when bad weather is about. Down here in south Hampshire it's said that if you stand on the top of Portsdown Hill and look over Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight, if the Island can be see very clearly oulined then rain will come, and it invariably does.

Strange a lot of these old sayings but often true. Of course they will be regional as well, so it would be interesting to hear them from the other parts of the UK.

p.s. Sorry Iclok (slap on wrist) I'm off back to Butterley :curse:

Reminds me of a letter to Viz not long back, asking "What right do cows have to decide when it rains?"... I couldn't stop laughing 🙂

If you can't see Kit Hill it's raining. If you can see Kit Hill it's about to rain.

Reminds me of the weather rock that hangs outside the warden's office in the Ogwen valley at the foot of the Glyders and Tryfan.

I cannot remember the exact wording but it goes something like this......

Rock is hot...........sunny
Rock is wet..........raining
Rock is swinging...windy
White rock...........snowing
Rock is missing....stormy

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Rock is gone = Tornado
Rock is swinging = windy


It's very good... :thumbsup:

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If it's sunny and raining at the same time, then it's a monkey's birthday.

Not folklore but the 'Crossed Winds' is worth remembering.

http://www.whitesquall.com/pdf/cross_wind_rule.pdf 

, I looked for the date of the new moon as weather also goes with the moon changes doesn't it? It's a new moon on Friday (15th) and the long weather forecast for this area looks to change for the better then and hopefully for the rest of the UK.

Your quite right sougher. Astrometeorology still flourishes today. wiith the fascinating theory that certain planetary alignments might indirectly affect the weather by causing a shift in the centre of mass of the solar systems.

Not to forget of course that the moon is closely associated with certain mental delusions.

On the other hand on this occassion it may well be quite correct.

Before that it looks like the south west may be in for a brief spell similar to 1891.

I'm glad I'm no expert. 😉

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Forgot to mention one i always found a bit odd.

Cats scratch a post before a wind, wash their faces before a rain, and sit with backs to the fire before snow.

No wonder my Siamese put mine explorer on his CV and not Met Cat. 🙂

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Just had a look at Moolock's link. The jet stream forecast for the 16th. Looks like we may be out of the mire. The coloured bits are the JS.

🔗Personal-Album-272-Image-46217[linkphoto]Personal-Album-272-Image-46217[/linkphoto][/link]

Sorry sougher had flash back. Time for a Horlicks or perhaps......

Mind this site brings one back to reality so perhaps is becoming a stong possibility. 🙂

http://www.machinehead-software.co.uk/traffic_cones/weather_prediction_cones.html 

Well there is a new moon on the way.

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Regarding cats, I gather (from mother) that if a cat "washes behind it's ears" you're going to have a visitor.

She has lots of stuff regarding the weather, probably usual stuff

Red sky at night, shepards delight.
Red sky in the morning, sailors warning.
++Holly berries = Harsh Winter

She also swears by her pine cone.

Despite the madness about the cat "washing it's face", her weather modelling could teach the IPCC a few things :lol:

I remember the pine cone thing from the 50s, it was like the Met Office and was always a day behind any event. 😉 :lol:

Carnkie - you tanterlisingly keep mentioning the 1891 blizzard, please put us out of our misery and tell us the full story.

All I know is that snow ploughs (and like Peter suggested, in all probability the majority were on the railways) were out on 28/02/1891, also around that time all the canal network froze and many canal people and their horses froze and starved to death. It must have badly affected the rest of the UK and caused other deaths too. Of course in previous record snowfall winters we have to remember that the population of the UK was smaller and there were less cars and lorries on the roads, in fact in 1891 there would have been no cars at all.

Waiting with anticipation!

Sougher- will do my best but we may have a problem that will become obvious later.

Essentially I obtained copies of the synoptic charts and daily weather reports from the Met. Office archives for the period. The latter gives info. on temps, pressure wind, etc. Plus reports from contemporary newspapers. So far so good.

The story unfolded thus. On Monday the 9th March a deep depression formed just to the south west of Cornwall and it soon started snowing heavily accompanied by gale force winds. The air near the ground must have been cold enough to turn the rain to snow. Very soon Cornwall and Devon came to standstill with trains stranded (apparently the worst disruption since their inception), telegraph poles down so no communication. There doesn’t appear to have been many deaths [on land] although one young lad was found frozen to death near his house at South Frances. At sea it was a different matter with many lives being lost. The ‘Bay of Panama’ went down in Falmouth Bay with the loss of 20 lives being just one example. Needless to say towns and villages were completely cut off.

The depression travelled along the south coast causing much disruption en route (mainly to shipping) and by the 11th was over Denmark. I think you can now see my problem, The dates don’t appear to fit and also from what I can see it wasn’t that cold in the midlands and the snow doesn’t appear to have spread that far north. The temperature at Loughborough on the evening of the 11th was 32F.

I have no doubt your information is correct so how to explain it? My first thought is we are talking two different weather events, similar in a way to the current one although fortunately it’s pouring down with rain here. There could well have been a very cold spell affecting the midlands before the warmer air from the west sneaked in. I’m sorry if this is not very helpful as my charts don’t go back that far but it has got me intrigued so I rang the Met. Office archives for information for late February. They are going to get back to me with the information (I hope) but it will be at least a couple of days. Will keep you posted.

The following three fairly rough charts for the period. Not up to Met. Office quality but they are difficult to reproduce.:)
🔗Personal-Album-272-Image-46220[linkphoto]Personal-Album-272-Image-46220[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Personal-Album-272-Image-46221[linkphoto]Personal-Album-272-Image-46221[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Personal-Album-272-Image-46222[linkphoto]Personal-Album-272-Image-46222[/linkphoto][/link]

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I have a book written about the 1891 blizzard. It concentrates on the SW but might give a more general picture.

I have read a book on the blizzard (I don't know whether it's the same one but I suspect it is) and as you say it really only concentrates on the SW. I suspect some digging is going to be required to get the full picture.

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There are some fairly long accounts from the Times at the time in the Netweather forum that doesn't tell us much more apart from detail. You need to increase the print size to be able to read it.http://forum.netweather.tv/topic/40594-the-times-the-great-march-blizzard-of-1891/ 

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"One such winter was 1947. From January 22nd to March 17th, snow fell every day, somewhere in the UK! The snow accumulated quickly, causing real problems. The temperatures rarely rose more than a degree or 2 above 0! Several of these snowfalls where of 60cm or more, and depths of level snow amazingly reached 1.5m (150cm) in Upper Teesdale and the Denbighshire Hills. Across the UK drifts of more than 5 metres in depth blocked roads, and affected traffic. The armed services were brought in, to drop supplies to people in danger, trapped in their homes due to blocked roads and railways".

I worked with a person who remembered this winter, the school he attended in Rassau never re-opened due to the structural damage resulting from the prolonged freeze.