[3]. Henry Vaughn, Silex Scintillans.
It has been observed before now that we are always talking about the weather, always interested in it, always trying to foretell it, always grumbling at it, or delighted with it. Without the changes of the weather the world would go all awry. There would be no more guessing or prognosticating. Conversation must come to a standstill; if not to a full stop, at least to an awkward pause. When there is nothing else to talk about there is always the weather. It is the oil of conversation’s wheel. How many a pleasant acquaintance dates from a weather remark! Simply as a conversational factor I have no doubt it has helped on innumerable marriages. But it is ever too hot or too cold, too damp or too dry, too cloudy or too sunshiny. If one can not openly anathematize his neighbor, he may damn the weather; faint, indeed, is its praise. With a bright sun shining, a purple haze on the hills, the thermometer at 50°, and the atmosphere exhilarating as champagne, still the lament will arise that we are not enveloped with a blanket of snow. Just the day for a walk, when one may start out dry-shod to inhale the stimulating air and bask in voluptuous sunlight! But the fickle weather-vane suddenly veers, and north wind and snow are exchanged for south wind and balm; the croakers have their turn.
There is reason to believe that the weather repeats itself in a general way at regular intervals of seven or ten years, more or less. Statistics are said to confirm this statement, and it gives us reason to hope that when our records shall cover longer periods and shall be more carefully and fully compiled, we may obtain considerable insight into the weather programme for the coming year. That one extreme follows another is perhaps the surest and most valuable weather indicator we have. An inordinate degree of warmth is generally followed by a corresponding degree of cold; a period of extraordinary coolness by a contrasting period of heat. The amount of water and heat in the world is always the same, though to human observation the extremes of temperature are capriciously distributed. If it is passing cold here, it is passing warm somewhere else. If we get an overplus of wet this month we receive an overplus of dry next month, or some month after. Nature will surely balance her ledger sooner or later; the difficulty is to tell when she will do it.
Restless and impatient, man is continually seeking change. What could supply this inherent craving in the breast of mankind so happily as the weather? The old adage, “’Tis an ill wind blows no man good,” is daily verified. This change to piercing cold means one hundred thousand tons more of coal for the furnaces of each of the great cities; this hot wave, one hundred thousand tons more of ice to their refrigerators. The mild winter that brings a scowl upon the dry-goods merchant’s face is a benison to the laborer; the east wind that puts out the inland furnace fires may blow the disabled vessel into port. Blowing where it listeth, to some point of the compass the wind is kind.
If one could find no other occupation, one might busy himself in making observations of the weather. In the shifting vane and the restless clouds there is the attraction of perpetual change, elements we may not control nor yet fully understand—an omnipresent and omnipotent force. Their wayward moods bring plenty or pestilence, as the vane chooses to veer, or the tangles gather in the cirri’s hair. All animal and vegetable life is dependent upon their inexorable decrees. The laws of the weather may not be altered. We may not increase the rainfall one inch or lower the temperature half a degree. The most we can do is to study its warnings, and, by reading the signs of the earth and sky, be prepared for what changes may be in store.
There is a relief from the tyranny of hard fact in endeavoring to trace the meaning of these nimbus clouds or the prophecy of this moisture-laden breeze. What will the next change be; of what complexion will be the weather to come? I foretell it frequently through my walls of glass that enable me from within to read the horoscope of the sky. The signs exist, if we may but comprehend them. They publish every event and indicate every change. Unvarying laws that may be understood by the intelligent observer control all atmospheric conditions, and particularly storms. By noting existing conditions the corollary is to be deduced. Blasius’s laws, as stated in his volume, Storms, are comprehensive, and whoever will take the pains to study them (for many portions of the volume call for hard study) may learn to foretell much about the weather, at least so far as relates to larger storms. Many immediate changes are easy to foretell—from the moon’s warning halo and the prophesying cry of the hair-bird, to the toad’s prescient croak from the tree. From observation the farmer and mariner generally become weather-wise. Out in the open air continually, they learn to interpret the signs, their vocations being more or less controlled by and dependent upon the weather. A habit of studying the weather brings one into closer relationship with nature. However superficial the knowledge, one must know something of nature in order to be a weather-prophet, that is, so far as prophesying from numerous well-known natural signs is concerned.
There are certain indices: the clouds no bigger than a man’s hand, that indicate what is coming in a weather way for a short time ahead. Many of the old signs are reliable. From time out of mind a red sunset has been viewed as a precursor of fair weather, and a red sunrise the forerunner of storm. A bright-yellow sky at sunset uniformly denotes wind, a coppery or pale-yellow sunset, wet; and attentive observers do not need the testimony of Admiral Fitzroy to know that a dark, gloomy, blue sky is windy, and a light, bright, blue sky is fair. A high dawn indicates wind, a low dawn fine weather. A gray sky in the morning presages fine weather. If cumulus gathers in the north and rises, rain may be looked for before night. Frequently the cumuli clouds—argosies serenely riding at anchor above the southern horizon—flash forth warnings that are never fulfilled; the lightning of heat, and not of storm. If stripes are seen to rise northward from the southern sky, a change may be anticipated from their quarter. Without clouds there can be no storm.
One of the most beautiful cloud-formations, the mackerel-sky, is well known to be usually indicative of a change. Oftentimes on the otherwise unclouded blue of the heavens delicate volutes or scrolls may be observed, like cobwebs spun upon the sky; these frequently portend a decided change within two days. If this form of cloud, more familiarly known as mares’-tails, curls down toward sunset, fair weather may be looked for; if up, it will most probably rain before dawn. Frequently narrow bands or stripes extend from east to west or north to south over the entire aërial arch, the storm invariably coming from the direction pointed out by the clouds.
Local signs go to show that in winter a dark-blue cloud over the lake foretells a thaw; when the lower portion, however, is dark and the upper portion gray, snow may be expected. A halo round the moon is a sure indication of rain, snow, or wind, and the larger the circle the nearer the storm. When the stars are more than usually bright and numerous, or when the hills and distant objects seem unusually sharp and near, I am certain of an approaching storm. “You all know the peculiar clearness which precedes rain,” observes Ruskin, “when the distant hills are looking nigh. I take it on trust from the scientific people that there is then a quantity, almost to saturation, of aqueous vapor in the air, but it is aqueous vapor in a state which makes the air more transparent than it would be without it. What state of aqueous molecule is that, absolutely unreflective of light—perfectly transmissive of light, and showing at once the color of blue water and blue air on the distant hills?” Distant sounds heard with unusual distinctness apprise me of rain. The aurora borealis, when very bright, is usually followed by a storm, and often intense cold. The rainbow after drought is a rain-sign.
Natural signs, other than the handwriting on the sky, are innumerable, and, again, the old sign-posts point out the way. Heavy dews indicate fair weather, while three consecutive white frosts, and often two, invariably bring rain or snow. Before a snow-storm the weather usually moderates, while there is always an interval between the first drops and the downpour. If it rains before seven it will clear before eleven, is a wise saw. Certain stones, which, when rain is in the near future, become damp and dark-looking, are excellent barometers. We have all of us noticed that fire frequently burns brighter and throws out more heat just before a storm, and is hotter during its continuance—an easterly storm, however, often being the exception.