The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1884-12-12
THE WEATHER PHENOMENA.
AN OBSERVERS lows now TO FORE
TELL WEATAER.
Signs which Careful Observers Way
Rely upOn-The LacIS of Accurate
Observation Among Farmers.

Signs which Careful Observers May
Ee1y Upon-'rhe Lack of Accurate
Observation Among Farmers.
A communication to the Southern
Planter deals with the subject of weather
prognostics. Few intelligent people
can have any sympathy with the So
called prophets who oracularly announce
phenomena, giving dates, occasionally
making Lucky hits, but as often firing
their random shots altogether wide of the
mark. That there is, however, some
thing in weather philosophy, intelligent
persons will be quite ready to concede,
and they will be in accord with the
views of the writer when he recon-
mends the habit of obervation of natural
phenomena, which has been long prac-
tised, its results being handed down to
us in the homely weather proverbs with
which all are familiar. There is good
ground for belief that observations of
this kind will prove useful, the more so
Us modern science enables us to give the
reasons, unknown to our forefathers, for
many phenomena, and thereby to de-
termine the value of indications, by the
association of causes with effects, instead
of following blindiy the erroneous OBJ
servations of others. An apt illustra-
ton of this is furnished in the article
under notice. Persons really intel.
ligent and not uniformed have
maintained that the direction Of the
milky way changes and intimates the
course of the wind, when, as every child
to-day knows, this film of white crossing
the sky is receivable by the telescope
into myriads OF stars, whose position is
of course independent of terrestrial cur
rents. How this deeply rooted idea
originated is mystery, since it could
not have come from observation. Care
full and intelligent study in the field of
weather phenomena would undoubtedly
establish many facts, while it would dis
pei great many errors and false infer
ences; the knowledge gained would be
beside of practical interest and benefit to
the observer and to the community, pro-
vided the observations were recorded.
On this ground the writer's views well
deserve commentator. He says:
If one could read the signs, each day
foretells the next; to-day is the pro-
genitor of tomorrow. When the at
mosphere is telescope and distant objects
stand out unusually clear and DISTINCT, a
storm is near. We are on the crest of
the wave, and the depression follows
quick. 1t sometimes happens that clouds
are not so indicative of storm, as their
total absence. In this state of the atmos-
phere the stars are unusually numerous
and bright at night, which is also bad
omen. 1t appears that the transparency
of the air is prodigiously increased when
certain quantity of water is uniformly
ditfuscd through it. Mountainous pre-
dict change of weather when, the air
being calm, the Alps covered with per-
petual snow, seem on a sudden to be
nearer the observer, and their outlines
are marked with great distinctness on
the azure sky. This same condition of
the atmosphere renders distant sounds
more audible.
There is one redness in the East in the
morning that means storms; another that
indicates wind. The first is broad, deep
and angry; the clouds look like an i'm
mense bed of burning Goals; the second
Is softer and more vapory. At the point
where the sun is going to rise, and in q
few minutes in advance of his coming,
there rises straight upward rosy column,
like shaft of dyed vapor, blending
with and yet partly separated from the
Clouds and the base of which presently
comes to glow like the sun himself. The
day that follows is pretty sure to be
windy.
1t is uncertain to what extent birds
and animals can foretell the weather.
When swallows are seen hawking very
high, it is a good indication, because the
insects upon which they feed venture up
there only in the most suspicious
weather.
People live in the country all their
lives without making one accurate obser-
walton about nature. The good observer
of nature holds his eye long and firmly to
the point and finally gets the facts, not
only because he has patience, but be-
cause his eye is sharp and his inference
swift. There are many assertions, the
result of hasty and incomplete observa-
ton, such as, for instance. that the way
the milky way points at night indicates
the direction of the wind the next day;
also, that every new moon indicates
either dry or a wet month. There are
many other stories about the moon, too
numerous to mention. Again when
farmer kills his hogs in the fall, if the
pork be very hard and solid he predicts
Il severe winter; if soft and loose, the OPP
posite, overlooking the fact that the kind
of food and the temperature of the fall
makes the pork hard or soft. Numerous
other instances could be cited to prove
that the would-be shrewd farmer does
not interpret nature in the right way,
and that his conclusions, being hasty
and incomplete, are wrong; and until he
studies nature Understandings, using a
little common sense, so long will lie be
more or less under the ban of superstition
and ignorance.
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