“Now, I don’t care what the weatherman says,” sang Louis Armstrong, “when the weatherman says it’s raining.” Had Armstrong been a modern- day Brit and seen a cow lying down, however, he may have been a little more perturbed.
According to new research by the Met Office, which appears to have had more time on its hands during Wimbledon than one might expect, three quarters of Britons admit to using folklore and old wives’ tales to predict the weather. The most popular is “red sky at night, shepherd’s delight”, which is actually often true, predicting as it does that high pressure has trapped dust in the air, filtering blue light away. The variant “red sky at night, shepherd’s house on fire” was not polled. Although it is probably true too, as it indicates that conditions are likely to be dry.
Almost a fifth of us believe the old saying that rain on St Swithin’s day foretells rain for the next 40 days, a statistic mostly remarkable because it suggests that almost a fifth of us know when St Swithin’s day is. Many of us also believe that seeing cows lying down indicates that it is about to rain. This one is a simple confusion between experience and causation. In fact, seeing cows lying down merely indicates that you are in the countryside. If it is indeed about to rain, this is actually only because you are on holiday.
Seeing Sir Cliff Richard at a tennis match also means it is about to rain. Attending a music festival also means it is going to rain. A hosepipe ban inevitably indicates that it is already raining. Hanging out the washing, planning a barbecue or lowering the roof on a convertible car can actually cause it to rain, in the manner of an indigenous people’s raindance. Remembering to leave the house with an umbrella will prevent it from raining, unless it is a broken umbrella, in which case it won’t. We hope you are getting this down.