Saturday, 3 January 2015

"Le Trois Fait le Mois" - Weather Folklore


Today is the 3rd of January.  Is today's weather a sign of what's to come?
January in North America can be a month of extreme cold with some brutal winter storms thrown in. Imagine our ancestors coming to America unprepared for their first winter!!




The ever-popular Farmer's Almanac began in 1792 and developed issues for different climates. Before there was radio and television, and before there were weathermen of global weather services with their education in meteorology and/or science, people had their own methods of predicting the weather. There were weather predictions for farming, gardening, sailing, etc. There are more weather proverbs than you can shake a stick at!

Every third of the month my mother-in-law would say "Le trois fait le mois!" ... or literally "the three makes the month", meaning that the 3rd day of the month was an indication of what the month's weather would be like. Do you find that to be true?

What are some of the weather adages you heard growing up, most likely passed down from your ancestors? Are they fact or fiction?


Related Links:

The Farmer's Almanac for the Year of our Lord 1800

The Old Farmer's Almanac - 1829

The Canadian Farmer's Almanac for the Year of our Lord 1836

Royal South Australian Almanack for 1839

Weather lore: proverbs, sayings, and rules concerning the weather - 1869

A handbook of weather folklore; being a collection of proverbial sayings in various languages relating to the weather - 1873

Weather folk-lore and local weather signs - USA 1903

Almanac - Fact behind the Folklore - Weather Proverbs

Folklore and Sayings (NOAA Newsletter 2010)


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