Following The Moon
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In this short month of February, the new moon fell on the 5th, last Saturday. There is a belief that the weather on the fourth, fifth, and sixth days following the new moon during any month, will be indicative of the weather for the following four weeks. So, the weather for tomorrow, Thursday and Friday may just set the stage for the rest of the month. Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow and this is The Weather Notebook.

This is one of the many beliefs that pins the weather to the state of the moon. The associated proverbs most often sound something like this: The first and second never mind, the third regard not much, the fourth, the fifth the sixth you find, the rest will be as such.

According to Albert Lee's book Weather Wisdom, The US Weather Bureau in 1962 studied patterns of weather occurrence and did find a correlation to phases of the moon. In fact in the seven days surrounding the new moon, rain or snow had a higher probability of falling than during the remaining three weeks of the month. Greek philosophers observed this 2400 years ago. Also something called the Herschel chart used by some farmers these days, tells the exact weather given the to the minute beginning of the moon's four phases. It's inventor, a Sir John Herschel, late in his life disavowed any connection to the chart and it's seldom displayed accuracy.

But many farmers are full aware of the visual qualities of the moon that do very accurately indicate the state of the weather in the immediate future. Not serving as a predictor per se, but like weather instrument, sensing the present conditions and relaying them to the trained eye.

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