Topic: Month-Specific Weather Folklore Sayings

[BKS97]

No one has posted under this topic in a while, so I’ll give it a shot. I have compiled a list of around 400 weather folklore sayings and post one each day on my website.  More than a dozen on the list predict the weather ahead based on what the weather is in a specific month.  No doubt there are others I haven’t come across yet. These two are familiar to all:

If March comes in like a lamb, it goes out like a lion;
    if it comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb.
April showers bring May flowers.

A number of the month-based sayings pertain specifically to farming:

If February brings drifts of snow, there will be good summer crops to hoe.
When March blows its horn, your barn will be filled with hay and corn.

Still others assure us of the weather ahead:

If ant hills are high in July, winter will be snowy.
If a cold August follows a hot July, it foretells a winter hard and dry.
Fog in January brings a wet spring. 
Fogs in February means frosts in May. 
When March has April weather, April will have March weather. 
If it rains on Easter Sunday, it will rain every Sunday for 7 weeks.
Ice in November to walk a duck, the winter will be all rain and muck.

In 2020-2021, this one was right on target for us here in central Minnesota:

When it is hottest in June, it will be the coldest in the corresponding days of the next February.

(Fact: The hottest 2 days in our area in 2020 were June 7-8; the coldest days in 2021: Feb. 7-8.)

If we have a thunderstorm this coming September, I plan to observe whether there is anything to this saying:

The first snow comes six weeks after the last thunderstorm in September.

We’ll see.  In any case, weather folklore adds a pleasing, down-to-earth sidelight to our tech-centered hobby.

[worachj]

The larger the black bands get on a woolly Bear Caterpillar, the harsher the winter conditions will be.

[CW2274]

The larger the black bands get on a woolly Bear Caterpillar, the harsher the winter conditions will be.

The town I grew up in, in northern Ohio, had a Wooly Bear festival every fall and was hosted by the CBS affiliate from Cleveland (WJW), with their meteorologist, Dick Goddard (one guy here knows who I mean). The bands were the "big deal". Lotsa fun!

[CW2274]

Not monthly, but my dad taught me this as a kid and is quite accurate scientifically as well (that is the Northern Hemisphere).

"Red sky in the morning, sailor's take warning; red sky at night, sailor's delight!"

[BKS97]

Not monthly, but my dad taught me this as a kid and is quite accurate scientifically as well (that is the Northern Hemisphere).

"Red sky in the morning, sailor's take warning; red sky at night, sailor's delight!"

A couple of variations of the saying above are:

The evening red and morning gray are sure signs of a fine day, but the evening gray and the morning red make the sailor shake his head.

Rainbow in the east, sailors at peace. Rainbow in the west, sailors in distress.

[BaseLine]

Not really month specific but we have 3 bird species that are really good at telling what's coming and they never fail. 
Firs one leaves, weather gets cold and rainy, second leaves we get frost and when the third one takes off, snow is coming. (untranslatable because it uses bird names and kinda rimes)

[broadstairs]

Not monthly, but my dad taught me this as a kid and is quite accurate scientifically as well (that is the Northern Hemisphere).

"Red sky in the morning, sailor's take warning; red sky at night, sailor's delight!"

The slightly more common version here in the UK is

"Red sky at night shepherds delight, red sky in the morning shepherds warning"

Stuart

[DaleReid]

Now in my 7th decade, I used to think about the March saying, at least up until mid grades, say 12 or so and was never wrong.  Since then it is so off that I don't hear anyone talking about that any more.

Things change, I guess.

My grandmother, and old Slavic lady, had a saying for almost anything, some based on what others were saying (like the Red Sky which does hold a little science behind it) but most of the time it was no more accurate than the Farmer's Almanac.  Another subject which I don't understand how it got traction and persists to this day.  The National Enquirer is better use of print material than is the Almanac.

Serious question:  The little wooly worms as we call them here, are going to be out soon, and I wonder what moth or butterfly they turn into.  I guess I could use DuckDuck to look it up but it is more fun speculating about it. 

As far as season indicators, this time of year after a hot dry summer I begin to see the big grasshoppers, not the katydids, but with the black wings when they fly.  And a smaller one that made a snapping sound as it flies were automatic indicators that fall and school were not far away.

[CW2274]

As far as season indicators, this time of year after a hot dry summer I begin to see the big grasshoppers, not the katydids, but with the black wings when they fly.  And a smaller one that made a snapping sound as it flies were automatic indicators that fall and school were not far away.

This is exactly what we associated Cicadas with in late summer in northern Ohio. Their "tymbal" causes the buzzing noise that is so prevalent that time of year. Always bummed me out knowing summer vacation was all but gone.