Meteorological prophecies

Weather lore

Weather lore is the collection of phrases, sayings and proverbs that appear to be able to predict the weather. The predictions are based on observations in the weather, flora, fauna or the calender. The earliest written records or weather lore come from the Ancinet Greek philosophers Theophrastus and Aratus

Most weather lore only works on the Northeren Hemisphere, between 30° and 60° degrees latitude. As the weather outside those latitudes, in the equatorial regions is much more stable and changes are very gradual and connected to the season, Monsoons for example. On the Southern Hemisphere a lot of things have to be flipped due to the seasons beign opposite and the spinning direction of the earth.

Examples

Red skies in the morning, sailors take warning. Red skies at night, sailors delight.
A red sky is because of a high air pressure area keeping dust and small water particals afload in the sky, and they reflect the red light and scatter the other colours. The red glow is amplified if there is high clouds for the red light to reflect on. When weather system move west to east, as they predominantly do, a red sky at night signals that a high air pressure area is to the west, and that means better weather. If the red sky is in the morning, so to the east, the high pressure area has already passed and low air pressure and bad weather is coming.

When the ship's cat hides below decks, storm will come
Due to the sensative ears of the nautical cats, they can detect change in air pressure, and when there is a sudden drop in air pressure, this indicates bad weather is coming, and the cats will find a dry and warm place below decks.

A ring around the moon, rain will come soon.
The ring is created by ice crystals up real high up in the sky reflecting the light of the moon. The icecrystals are blown from the top of rain and storm clouds spreading infront of the approaching rain.

Rainbow to windward, foul fall the day. Rainbow to leeward, rain runs away.
The rainbow only shows where it rains. So if it shows where the wind is coming from, the rain will come towards you. If the opposite the rain will go away from you.

Sound travelign far and wide, a stormy day will betide
When there is more moistere in the air, this will equalize the temperature, cold places get warmer and show condensation, warm places get colder and water will evaporate. Making the air more homogenous, which will help the spread of sound, as it isn't dempend by differnt air pockets of irregular temperature and humidity.

When seagulls sit on the land, storm will be at sea.
Normally seagulls will sleep floating at sea but same as with the cats previously mentioned, seagulls can sense that badweather is coming, and they don't like being out at sea during storms, so they seek a nice spot to settle down along the coast.

Calm before the storm
Is when you can see the dark clouds gathering on the horizon, but the weather at your place is strangly calm, no wind, maybe even sunny. This is due to the storm clouds pushing the wind over them, and creating a wind-shadow in front of them, relative to their direction of travel.

Clear skies cold night
When the sky is cloudless there is no blanket trapping the heat of the day and the earth will cool down more then it would on a clouded night.

If the captains pipe smells on his watch, the mate will have a wet jacket.
The higher humidity will increase the sensation of the smell, an increasing humidity can signal a rain shower approaching. And the mate has watch after the captain.

If the new moon holds the old moon in her lap, fair weather is here.
If you can see the dark part of the moon inside the sickle of the bright part of the moon, it means the air is very stationary, there is hardly any currents and turbelences. This means you are in a high air pressure area, giving you nice weather.

When clouds appear like rocks and towers, the earth's refreshed by frequent showersb
Big clouds approaching will rain out soon.

The sharper its blast, the sooner it's past.
A strong storm passes faster then a slow drizzle.

WIP, something something connecting it to the story

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