The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1913-09-03
OLD WEATHER PROVERBS.
They are Really Prophetic and Should
BE Known to All.

daiiy under our notice And the
scientist, ON his side, is always quite
leudy to furnish these explanations.
But scientific explanations are hard to
remember and not OF much practical
use to any except those learned In
science. Wnat mCst people need are
not explanations OF the facts, but the
facts themselves, and what they por-
tend. The former they can get By
observation. The latter are no where
so clearly and conclusively given as
in the old weather proverbs, now fall
ing into underserved disrepute.
Prof J. w. Humphries, OF the Uni
ted States weather bureau, In an ar
ticle entitled Some Universal Wealth
cr Proverbs" printed in the year
book of the department of agricul-
turc, has done a good deal to restore
them to their rghtful place
Here are a few of the oldest and
most famous. with Prof. HumphrieB
scientific explanation Of their truth:
Frost year, fruit year; year of
snow, fruit will grow; year of snow
year OF plenty, and late spring
never deceives." all three OF which
mean the same thing, are very easily
explained. If the winter Is n normal
one, with plenty of frost and snow,
and springs comes at the right time,
it Is not possible for the fruit trees
to blossom prematurely and be later
killed by hard frost or destroyed by
alternate thawing and freezing. Con-
sequently, all the proverbs means, and
It's meaning is quite obvious, is that
normal seasons mean normal fruit
crops.
Here is n still commoner one, and
"A red sun has water in his eyes"
A red sunset indicates the presence
of rain elements. If the sky near the
western horizon Is yellow, greenish or
any OF these there is less vapor con
dcnsatiOn in the atmosphere than in
the case Of red, although the red does
not Indicate quite enough water va
por to cause rain.
Here are the certain signs of rain
in the evening sun:
IF the sun set in gray,
The next will be rainy day.
IT the sun goes pale to bed,
Twill ram tomorrow, it is said"
The explanation OF this phenomenon
is simple. The space between our
earth and the sun is filled with par
ticlcs OF dust When the water drop
lets in the atmosphere are so numer-
as to saturate these particles the sun
seems to be ovcrcloudcd with uni
form gray. for the sun is obscurcd.
Rainfall is certain to follow this
phenomenon.
But there are other and equally de-
pendablc signs of rain, such as the
halos and coronas that sometimes
surround the sun and the moon. One
of the proverbs in this case is:
"'rhe nearer the ring the bigger the
wet"
These halos and coronas are caus-
ed by storm clouds If they seem
small it means that the clouds are
the result of storm far distant. If
on the other hand. they seem ncare.
and therefore bigger, it indicates that
the clouds are low down and that the
storm is not far off.
There is one set of proverbs. how
ever, which Prof Humphrics at
tacks. declaring there is no basis of
truth in them. They are the pro-
verbs relative to the influence of the
moon on the weather. He says there
is absolutely no connection between
that body and our weather phenom-
ena beyond a small tidal effect on .ile
atmosphere, which is recorded by the
barometer
He grants, however that the APP
pcarancc of the moon nav be taken
as an indie ,ti3n OF mcpukcr c,ndi-
tions, Clear moon, frost SOON"
Moonlight night has tn harvest
frost" and other proverbs of this
class have Il scientific foundation. for
on clear nights the earth gives out
most of its heat in ;hc temperature.
frost or dew is more nrobabln than