Batten down the hatches after a bright Christmas
Forgive me for casting my mind back to Christmas as the New Year looms before us, but wasn’t the weather glorious?
Up in the Peak District the air was crisp and sun bright. Walking up to Stanedge Pole, the ancient boundary between Yorkshire and Derbyshire marked by a crooked branch ensconced in an iron basket, crepuscular rays lit up the grit stone edge.
The many happy faces I wished a Merry Christmas to on my stroll may not have realised that their enjoyment of the weather could be short lived. Thomas Pennant, the 18th century naturalist, devised a means of forecasting that claimed the weather on any Christmas Day informed us of the severity of that remaining winter.
“If Christmas Day be bright and clear/there’ll be two winters in the year,” claimed Pennant of his theory, which has possibly not been subjected to all that much scientific scrutiny over the centuries.
Another 16th century method of forecasting has it that the first 12 days of January predicts whether it will rain or shine during each month for the following year. I wrote about this theory in a weather column of a few years previously and received a note from a reader who had given it a go.
My correspondent registered rain each day, she gloomily told me, so hoped that the test was bunkum.
With a new decade upon us I’ve been searching, in vain, for some ancient theory which purports to predict the next 10 years ahead. Sadly the only theories I’ve been able to find about our future weather are those written up by climatologists rather than folklorists – and I’m afraid the news doesn’t look good.
Anyway, let us save such doom mongering for another day and descend once more into the festive fug.
If Pennant has it correct and our delightful Christmas Day weather means a foul winter is imminent, then you’d better batten down the hatches and reach for the cheese board.