The Importance of Weather

Every day, Isaac B. Werner recorded the weather in his journal--the temperature, the rainfall, the condition of his crops.  As a farmer, he followed the markets, relying on trips to town or reports from neighbors, having no radio, television, or internet to check for the latest reports.  Neither did he have a local weather man or woman to advise him of projected changes in the weather nor NOAA to warn him of approaching severe weather.

What he did have, however, were folk sayings and a keen sense of observation with which to make his own weather predictions.  "Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning."  He learned the signs of his region and was constantly alert.  After seeing his first tornado, like a sock hanging down from the clouds, he became more watchful of cloud formations like the ones from which the sock-shape had developed, better understanding what had preceded the tornado that touched down and darkened with the dirt it carried upward as he watched. He consulted his journal entries to observe weather patterns from year to year, and bought the pamphlets containing not only weather predictions but also solar and lunar events.  He also corresponded with Professor Shelton at Kansas State College, Director of the first Experimental Station, and he subscribed to farming journals.

Today we have so many sources of information, and most important is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, founded October 3, 1970 by President Richard Nixon within the Department of Commerce.  In the words of President Nixon, by bringing earlier scientific agencies within the government together, it would provide "better protection of life and property from natural hazards  ...for a better understanding of the total environment...[and] for exploration and development leading to the intelligent use of our marine resources."  The need for such information and intelligent use of resources was recognized early, and agencies to achieve those goals were among some of the oldest in our federal government, for example:  United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1807; Weather Bureau of the United States, 1870; Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (research fleet) 1871; Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps, 1917.   

The breadth of essential responsibilities under the umbrella of NOAA is remarkable and, I suspect, largely under appreciated by most of us.  At a cost of about $3 per person, the following services exist:  Weather Service; Ocean Service; Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service; Marine Fisheries Service; Oceanic and Atmospheric Research; Marine and Aviation Operations; Geodetic Survey; Integrated Drought Information System; NOAA Commissioned Corps; and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman (1819-1892), who was living throughout Isaac Werner's entire life, wrote in his book Specimen Days under the heading 'Nature And Democracy--Mortality', "American Democracy, in its myriad personalities, in factories, work-shops, stores, offices--through the dense streets and houses of cities, and all their manifold sophisticated life--must either be fibred, vitalized, by regular contact with out-door light and air and growths, farm-scenes, animals, fields, trees, birds, sun-warmth and free skies, or it will morbidly dwindle and pale.  We cannot have grand races of mechanics, work people, and commonalty, (the only specific purpose of America,) on any less terms."  

During a very dry season, when farmers desperately needed rain, I was in the local Wal-Mart when a woman came running into the store, proclaiming loudly in disgust to everyone close enough to hear, "I just got my hair done and this rain is spoiling it."  The economy of our community is based almost entirely on agriculture and ranching, and whether this woman lived in town or not, her family's livelihood was probably dependent on farms and ranches surrounding the town.  Yet, she seemed unaware of the need for the rain she found so unwanted because it spoiled her freshly styled hair.

Whitman was right.  Isaac Werner and those early settlers knew the importance of those things under the umbrella of NOAA today, but those who have lived their lives in cities may forget how essential all of that is.  Perhaps even some of us who live in the country may fail to reflect on the importance of all the interconnected responsibilities "for a better understanding of the total environment" as described by President Nixon.  The flooding and wildfires may be making more Americans aware of that.

Remember, you can click on the images to enlarge them.

Isaac and the Weather

An almanac Isaac used

As a Kansas homesteader learning to farm in the sandy loam soil of the prairie with weather different from the Pennsylvania farms and weather of his youth, Isaac Werner depended on both almanacs and folklore to help predict the seasonal weather patterns.  In locating books that Isaac owned in his personal library, I was eager to include the specific almanacs Isaac owned and used frequently.  You can only imagine how excited I was to find a 1892 McLean's Almanac with the Storm Calendar and Weather Forecasts of Rev. Irl Hicks--an example of the very publication Isaac was almost certain to have owned!  I could hardly wait for it to arrive so I could read the forecasts Isaac would have relied upon, and when it came, it was in perfect condition, its cover pictured at right.

The joke was on me, however, for although that cover is in English, if you look carefully at the lower right-hand corner, you will see the word "GERMAN."  All of the pages inside the almanac are published in German!  Isaac was raised in the Pennsylvania Dutch country, and in the early pages of his journal, written in 1870-1871, he occasionally writes short passages in German, so it might be possible that Isaac owned a German language almanac.  However, I'm sure that the almanacs he picked up in St. John to pass around at the Farmers' Alliance meeting would have been in English.

Not everyone trusted the storm predictions of Rev. Hicks, but the almanacs also illustrated phases of the moon, predicted eclipses, and other information, and Isaac continued to rely on the weather predictions in his almanacs as one source to consider.

In April of 1889, he recorded in his journal that nine of his roosters had begun crowing the previous evening, which he interpreted as a sign of changing weather.  This is consistent with the folklore that "When a rooster crows at night there will be rain by morning."  Isaac also saw a good season for hatching toads as a prediction of a change in the weather, and he wrote in his journal about a trip to St. John with his early harvested potatoes loaded in his wagon, during which there were so many toads hopping in the wagon tracks ahead of his horses that he could not avoid crushing some of them.  He was perplexed as to why they chose the road for their exercise, but he did feel that the abundant crop of toads predicted a weather change.

However, during a droughty period he wrote that the usually dependable signs of rain, like frogs croaking in the evenings and gnats and mosquitoes being particularly bad, had not brought the rainfall that was needed.  Perhaps this quote from Alice Hoffman would have been better suited to Isaac on both accounts:  "When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure."

If you missed the blog about folklore weather predictions posted 4-3-2014, you may want to read it now. 

Folklore Forecasts of the Weather

Red sky at morning,  sailor take warning...

In an era when there was no NOWA to alert us to the approach of severe weather, no constant weather channel to share weather conditions across the nation, and no television weatherman (or woman) to artfully point to temperatures and predictions on a local weather map, people relied on almanacs and folklore to predict the weather.  Isaac Werner's journal contains his observations and predictions about the weather, and every daily entry included the temperature, moisture, and wind conditions.  

My father often mentioned weather sayings, paying particular attention to the evening sky to predict the coming weather.  I believe observing a ring around the moon as a prediction of bad weather was one of his comments.  There is some scientific basis for that bit of folklore, since the ring is caused by a refraction of reflected sunlight from the moon onto ice crystals in the upper atmosphere.  Thin cirrus clouds normally precede a warm front by 1 or 2 days, and a warm front is often associated with a storm.  Some people believe the number of stars inside the ring indicate the number of days until the bad weather.

Nearly all of us know the saying, "If March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb."  Given the recent severe cold across the nation, surely most of us are hoping for the appearance of a lamb that doesn't disappear during the following days!  Another familiar quote to many of us is "Red sky at Morning, sailor take warning; red sky at night, a sailor's delight."  One prediction utilized by my father was "Rain before seven, fine before eleven," although I don't think he used the rhyme.  If you would enjoy reading more examples of weather folklore, you may want to visit http://www.granny-miller.com/50-old-time-weather-proverbs-signs/.  

...Red sky at night, a sailor's delight!

Having been raised in a farming community, I could certainly identify with what Kim Hubbard had to say:  "Don't knock the weather.  If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation."  Farm families depend on suitable weather for their growing crops, and although merchants and service providers in agricultural communities should also realize the significance of weather conditions to their customers and clients, apparently not everyone does.  I was shocked by a woman dashing into Wal-Mart one day, complaining loudly to everyone within earshot about the rain spoiling her hair.  Those of us with crops desperate for rain after a lengthy dry spell weren't too sympathetic about her spoiled hair-do!  As Benjamin Franklin observed, "Some are weatherwise, some are otherwise."

A later blog will share Isaac Werner's methods for predicting the weather!