The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1900-06-09
The Moon and the weather.

A belief hat the moo has a potent
influence on weather changes is we'll
nigh universal. The moons appear-
ance goes through such marked
changes each month that it would be
very natural to attribute weather
changes to these. In this way IN
doubtedly such sayings as these have
arisen: THE weather won't change
till the moon change" "If the moon1
lies so that the waite: cannot run out
we shall have a drought" "A wet
moon is one upon which a huntsman
can hang his horn etc. Diligent in
quiry, at one time, as to the popular
belief regarding this question, brought
out the view more persistent than any
other, that more rain will occur at the
new moon than at the full moon. Sin
gularly enough, in Connecticut,On Long
Island Sound, there does seem to be
such a law, but it does not hold in
the interior of the country, and a test
on the Pacific coast showed, if any
thing, exactly the opposite. At Lon
don, where observations have been
made for more than a century, a care
full computation for the whole period
has shown no effect. If we reflect
that the moon is dead and does not
have any air, even, up on it, that L
always shows the same face to the
earth, that its changes are simply due
to changes in it's position as respects
the earth and sun, and that it's vary
ing appearances are all borrowed, we
see how absurd the notion is that the
moon does influence our weather.
There is, however, another argument,
that appears quite valid at first
sight. If the moon can raise a tide Of
sixty feet in the ocean, why may It
not raise tremendous tide in the
extremely tenuOus air, 500 times light
er than water, or a tide Of about as
600 feet, and if so, ii seems easy to see
that such a commotion would affect
our weather enormously. The tide Of
sixty feet, (the highest in the world)
is experienced only in the Bay of Fun
dy, and is due to the confguration Of
the Atlantic coast. In the open Pa
cifc the tide is only a little over one
foot. Most careful observations of a
lunar atmospheric tide have been made
at st. Helena in mid-ocean and have
shown a tide a little more than .001
inch. Since ordinary weather changes
affect the pressure a thousand times as
much, we see how extremely i~nsignifi-
cant the moons total effect must be.
There is a common saying, The full
moon has power to drive away Clouds"
and some computations seem to bear
out this idea. If any one will look to
the east as the rising full moon shines
through the clouds, he will often see
the clouds disappear. There is a nat
ural explanation for this, however,
and in no wise dependent Upon the
moon. A long series of observations
have shown a diurnal range of cloudi-
ness with a minimum point, or time
Of least clouds, from 6 to 8 p. m. hence
we see that as the full moon rises and
advances in the sky during this period,
there will often appear a diminution of
clouds. Lord Rose turned his leg
rejecting telescope $50 b e that a tall
man walking erect in it could carry a
spread umbrella) toward the moon and
found that if anything, the earth re-
ceived a little chilling from che full
moon. More recently the bolometer,
an instrument which can measure less
than one-millionth of a degree of tenn
perature change, has shown that the
earth receives a tiny bit of heat from
the full 'moon. The evidence is cumu-
latiye and overwhelming, that no
weather changes can be ascribed to the
moon.-Prof. II. A. Hazen, in Popular
Science.