Easing into the New Year with Weather Magic

I'm one of those people who really love holidays, particularly holidays where we get to do something special. Foods only eaten on special days? Decorations? Costumes? Count me in. This might be one of the reasons October, November and December are my favorite months of the year.

Often in the past I have been a little depressed when New Year's ends. It's the last of the major holidays, and once it's done it's time to take down the tree and the lights and stop eating so much gingerbread. It's also time to stop engaging in all the holiday socializing we usually do and get back to work. But this year I'm not feeling quite as depressed about the end of the holidays. Partly that's because we just didn't do any holiday socializing, except on Zoom. There's nothing to miss! I also don't miss some of our other usual holiday activities, like going to the movies or trying new restaurants, because we didn't do any of that either.

However, my New Year's attitude might also be better because I'm engaging in a little piece of folk magic: paying attention to the weather. There's an old piece of New England folklore that says the weather on the twelve days of Christmas predicts the weather for the next twelve months of the year. So I've been writing down a weather report every day since Christmas.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how this is supposed to work. The tradition that Christmas has twelve days dates back to 567 AD, when a council of bishops declared it a special festive season. I think there's still some confusion, though, whether the twelve days include Christmas and end on January 5, or if they start the day after Christmas and end on January 6, the Feast of Epiphany. Different churches and different regions have different rules. 

Personally, I started keeping track of the weather on Christmas Day. The weather was warm, wet and windy. Gusty winds knocked down power lines, but the temperatures were above average and most of the snow melted. So does this mean that January will be warmer than normal with heavy winds? According to the folklore it does. 

I'm not entirely convinced this is an accurate way to forecast the weather, but writing down my observations about the weather at least helps me feel more grounded. I've also been taking notes about birds and animals. They aren't technically weather, but I'm hoping they can offer some insight into what's going to happen in the coming year. For instance, I saw a black squirrel outside my house on December 25, 26 and 28. I dubbed him the Black Squirrel of Winter. Who knows what he foretells for January, February and April? Hopefully good things...

I hope 2021 has good things in store for all of us. Happy New Year!

How to Predict Snow

The first official day of winter is coming up fast. With winter comes snow. Some people hate it, some people love it (like me), but we all want to know when the white stuff is going to fall from the sky.

Modern New Englanders have satellite technology and the Weather Channel to help us, but our regional forebears weren't so lucky. They had to rely on almanacs and their own senses to predict when snow was coming.

They also had a storehouse of folk knowledge to draw upon. For example, it was believed that you could predict snow by looking at the bottom of your tea kettle when you took it off the stove. Snow was on the way if the bottom was white. Similarly, you could be sure a snowstorm was coming if the wood in your fireplace hissed a certain way. Sadly, there's no record of what that certain way is.

The logic behind those two methods is a little murky to me, but these next three seem more practical:

1. When it starts to snow, look at the size of the snowflakes. Large flakes mean the storm will be over soon. Small, fine flakes mean the snow will continue for quite a while.

2. If the snow on your roof melts off, the next storm to come will be rain. If the snow on the roof blows off, the next storm will be more snow.

3. In the same vein, if the ice on the trees melts off, the next storm will be rain. If it is blown off by the wind, more snow is on the way. 

Unlike the kettle and firewood methods, these three seem like they're based on some empirical fact, which is the air temperature. If the air is warmer, the flakes will be bigger and the snow will melt off trees and roofs. It's still no guarantee the next storm will be rain, though, because a new cold front could always move in.

Of course, you can always throw practicality out the window and indulge your irrational side. It was believed that if you make a wish on the first snowflake your wish will come true. And if you're the betting type, writing down the date of the first snow storm will guarantee that you'll win a bet sometime that winter.

I culled this information from Clifton Johnson's What They Say in New England (1896) and Fanny Bergen's Current Superstitions (1896). It looks like 1896 was a good year for folklore books!