We had an unexpected big rain on Saturday evening; it was great to see the new guttering work well with none of the usual leaks.  I have found that lately, since we have been actively looking at the weather forecast, we have got nothing right!  Two weeks ago, when there was a forecast of rains we quickly put our guttering up.  Not a drop of rain.  This time round: forecasts of endless bright sunny days so we didn’t bother emptying the big tank to put underneath the new guttering.  What happens…big rain…with no available tank to fill.  Gnome quickly ran out to shove a 55 gallon barrel underneath the gushing water.

This makes me think of an article that I read in an old English magazine from the 1980’s.  The writer had mentioned that during World War 2, no weather reports were broadcasted from the United Kingdom in an effort to thwart possible enemy attack.  This resulted in people reverting back to the old traditions in  weather prediction including the study of the constellation of the stars, the sky colour at dusk and dawn, etc, etc.

Some people even listened to the different “moo’s” of cows to figure out the weather!

Now, I wouldn’t dismiss this as being too far fetched as…

We had for some time (when we didn’t have Internet) listened to certain bird calls which, in our personal observation, signified rain.  The “rain-hawk” cawing is one example.  We also noticed that the Wee Wee ants come out early if there are going to be evening rains.  The other more obvious one is the croaking of frogs…we found that they only do this is unison when there is a surety of rain.  Otherwise, they are deathly quiet apart from the random isolated croak.

There of course no absolutes but the observation of nature to help predict the weather is definitely worth looking at.  Especially when the super-duper hi-tec forecasts haven’t been very helpful!

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