Weather

“ We have had floods of sunshine followed by deluges of rain, alternate tears and smiles from the petulant sky, gusts of wind and storms. The weather is like a spoiled child whose wishes and expression change twenty times in an hour. ”

“ The sky in summer is clear and of a beautiful azure, without cloud, and with very little rain; moderate dews descend after sunset As the autumn approaches, the weather becomes less serene; the sky is occasionally darkened with clouds, and lightning and thunder with heavy showers occur. ”

“ The sombre skies and changeable—alternately chilly and sultry—weather of our latitudes are replaced by a regular temperature and good settled weather. Each one rejoices in the glorious heavens, in which none save the little trade-clouds are to be seen—which clouds in the trade-winds region make the sunset so enchanting. ”

“ There may be a promising sky and a light wind; you are justified in expecting fine weather. From some unexpected quarter the clouds mass together, the wind dies away, and you are under a steady, heavy, pattering rain. ”

“ Though usually the weather is balmy and pleasant, sometimes a sudden coolness springs up and a frost is often distinctly felt. A stormy time may ensue, and then suddenly the clouds clear away and all is sunshine once more. ”

“ We are so constituted that diversity of air, weather and prospects, is indispensable to our enjoyment, and progress. Would you appreciate the beauty and blessing of spring, summer and autumn, you must experience in their unfailing turn, the gloomy rigors of winter. ”

“ The weather agrees exactly with my state of mind, and I begin to believe that it is the weather around me which has the most immediate effect upon me, and the great world thrills my little one with her own mood. ”

“ The summer is past. This is our typical weather. Look, here, out of my window, you can see the clouds coming up over the moor as you never do downstairs, because the trees in the garden hide all the view. ”

“ It is a place of fine weather, and this is a book of fine weather, a book written in Spring. I will not remember the winter and the rain. It was the Spring that brought Sarah Brown to Mitten Island, and the Spring that first showed her magic. It was the Spring that awoke her on her first morning in the House of Living Alone. ”

“ Weather Rhymes and Sayings To the countryman who lives by tilling the soil, or by tending sheep and cattle, the prospect of fair days or foul is all-important; we therefore find in the dialects a mass of weather-lore, in part based on old superstition, in part on trustworthy observation. Sun, moon, and stars, clouds and [Pg 314] wind, the habits of animals, and the various signs of the approach of winter, or the advent of spring, are all observed and studied, and then, in course of time, the results of this observation have become crystallized in popular sayings and homely rhymes. ”

“ It was tantalizing fall weather. The sea-breeze, which had blown steadily all summer, was gone, and in its place were capricious winds and murky skies which made the time of arriving anywhere extremely problematical. ”

“ Summer weather had already set in, and during the middle of the day the glare of heat-waves and mirages obstructed our view of other wayfarers like ourselves, but morning and evening we were never out of sight of their signals. ”

“ The languor that oppresses me does not disappear, and I live with alternations of exertion that reflect the weather. There has been an immense amount of sunshine and the same amount of rain, compressing into a single day as much as would suffice at home for weeks of summer and winter. ”

“ It is this that makes our sky be cloudy or clear; that produces rain and sunshine, snow and hail, refreshing coolness in summer and warmth sometimes in midwinter, as also chilly nights in summer and thaw in winter. In other words, it is more properly the motion of the air, the wind, that produces what we call weather; that is, that changeableness from heat to cold, from dryness to moisture, all of which may be comprised in one name, weather. ”

“ All are familiar with the ordinary prognostics of good and bad weather. A “broch” round the moon, in her troubled heaven, indicates a storm of rain or wind. When the dark crimson sun in the evening throws a brilliant bronzed light on the gables and dead leaves, we are sure that there is an intense radiation from the earth to form dew, or even hoar-frost. ”

“ If the sun's rays appear like Moses' horns—if white at setting, or shorn of his rays, or if he goes down into a bank of clouds in the horizon, bad weather is to be expected. If the moon looks pale and dim, we expect rain; if red, wind; and if of her natural colour, with a clear sky, fair weather. ”

“ Fogs and clouds which conceal the overshadowing mountains lend the breadth of the plains to mountain vales. Even a small featured country acquires some grandeur in stormy weather when clouds are seen drifting between the beholder and the neighboring hills. ”

“ A Weather-gall (n.Cy.) is the stump of a rainbow left visible above the horizon. A Weather-breeder (n.Cy. n.Midl. e.An.) is a fine warm day out of season, regarded as the precursor of stormy weather. When streaks of light are seen radiating from the sun behind a cloud, the sun is said to be drawing wet, for the Sun-suckers (Chs. Shr.) are sucking up moisture from the earth, to form rain. Roger’s blast (e.An.) is a kind of miniature whirlwind, which suddenly on a calm day whirls up the dust on the road, or the hay in the field, high in the air, to herald the approaching rain. ”

“ But either the ordinary red-cloud surroundings at sunrise, or the western foreglow at rarer intervals, betokens to the weather-prophet wet and gloomy weather. The farmer and the sailor do not like the sight, they depend so much on favourable weather conditions. ”

“ For my own part I consider the general run of cloudy and wet weather to be a blessing of Providence. Hot weather would have caused us to have died with thirst; and probably being so constantly covered with rain or sea protected us from that dreadful calamity. ”

“ Their skilfulness and sagacity in other things, particularly in natural prognostications of the weather; "You know that a red sky over-night is a presage of fair weather, and a red sky in the morning of foul weather." ”

“ The direction from which the wind is blowing usually indicates what the weather will be for the day,—wet or dry, hot or cold,—but here is a rhymed prediction which puts all such prophecies to shame:—
“The West wind always brings wet weather
The East wind wet and cold together,
The South wind surely brings us rain,
The North wind blows it back again. ”

“ Every thing in Time becomes to him a Sort of Weather-Gage. The Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Clouds, the Winds, the Mists, the Trees, the Flowers, the Herbs, and almost every Animal with which he is acquainted. ”

“ The country folk, who are much about at night and naturally pay great heed to the weather, are persuaded that on rainy nights more shooting stars are seen than when it is bright and clear. The kind of weather they mean is when scudding clouds with frequent breaks pass over, now obscuring and now leaving part of the sky visible, and with occasional showers. ”

“ A negative instance is exhibited in weather by its coldness with an east or north wind, beyond what the season would lead us to expect, just as the contrary takes place with the south or west winds. An inclination to rain (especially in winter) attends warm weather, and to frost cold weather. ”

“ You will find the proper names of these things in the reports of the Weather Bureau—cirrus, cumulus, and the like and charts that will teach by study when to sow and take up crops. It is astonishing the trouble men will be at to find out when to plant potatoes, and gloze over the eternal meaning of the skies. You have to beat out for yourself many mornings on the windy headlands the sense of the fact that you get the same rainbow in the cloud drift over Waban and the spray of your garden hose. ”

“ Soft-looking delicate clouds foretell fine weather with weak, moderate, or light breezes. Hard edged, oily appearing clouds, wind. A dark, gloomy, blue sky indicates wind; a bright, blue sky clear fine weather. Generally the softer the clouds the less wind. Small inky clouds foretell rain. ”

“ Nature’s features vary with the seasons, but change little from day to day. Every morning, during the summer vacation, the same objects greet your eye, but how differently you feel towards them, according to what we call the weather, which after all is the condition of the atmosphere. ”

“ My own conclusion, after fifty years of out-door life on the farm, in the woods, in the garden, at out-door games, and on the roads, is that fine weather brings fine weather, and wet weather brings wet weather, in other words, it never rains but it pours, in an extended sense. ”

“ As I have mentioned about thirty times in each letter to you what a shocking climate this has been, ever since we came, it is but common justice to observe that the weather now is very enjoyable. Of course there can still be but one hour’s going out for those who do not get up at sunrise, but the air that blows into the house all day is pleasant, and the evenings are charming. ”

“ I must again add a few remarks on the weather, which, perhaps, favours me so highly in return for the great attention I pay to it. On the lowlands one has good or bad weather when it is already settled for either: on the mountains one is present with the beginning of the change. ”

“ To-day I am writing in latitude forty-nine degrees. The weather promises to be fair, and even here the people complain of the coldness and wet of the past summer. The morning was cool, but it was the beginning of a glorious and temperate day. The mild atmosphere which the mighty river brings with it is something quite peculiar. The fruits are nothing very surprising. ”

“ TO be the better informed in such Cases, it is best to have Recourse to a variety of Signs, for it is not only the Clouds and Sky, or the Sun, Moon, and Stars, that gives us previous Notice of rainy Weather, but almost every Thing in the Creation, and Vegetables particularly. ”

“ Saturday, 15th. Winds at East during the day, in the Night a light breeze off the land; and as I apprehend it be usual here for the Trade wind to blow during a great part of the day from the Eastern Board, and to have it Calm or light breezes from the land that is Southerly during the night with fair weather, I shall only mention the wind and weather when they deviate from this rule. ”

“ A sky with a greenish hue, described as a sickly-looking sky, is an indication of both rain and wind. A sailor’s sky, which is red in the morning, means either wind or rain, and it makes no difference if the sky is cloudy or clear, if at sunset it is rosy, it indicates fine weather. A gray sky in the morning indicates fine weather. When daylight is first seen above a bank of clouds, look for a good stiff wind. Wind is indicated if we have a bright yellow sky in the morning, and rain is indicated if the sky takes on a pale yellow hue. ”

“ Wind you may have, and sometimes fog, but extremes of either heat or cold, never! Besides other blessings in this particular spot of this wonderful [210] land you can also choose your own temperature. If you like warm weather, walk in the sun. If you like cold weather, walk in the shade. ”

“ Why shouldn’t one write about the seasons, I wonder. There is scarcely anything more important, or more universally interesting, than the weather. Ten to one it was the first thing we all thought of this morning. ”

“ We had variable light airs next to a calm, and thick foggy weather, till half-past seven o'clock in the evening of the 22d, when we got a fine breeze at north, and the weather was so clear that we could see two or three leagues round us. ”

“ The state of the weather, at all times an object of intense interest and general conversation amongst Englishmen, has latterly engaged much of our attention; and the observations which we have made on the extraordinary changes which have taken place in the weathercock during the last week warrant us in saying “there must be something in the wind.” ”

“ Hence, in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. ”

“ In weather which is showery rather than steadily wet, when between the intervals of sunshine a cloud appears in the W., passes over the spectator, and as it passes pours down a considerable quantity of rain, if the barometer be watched from the time of the cloud's appearance in the W., to its appearance in the E., it will be observed to fall a little and then to recover its original level, the fall being quite a local one. ”

“ In whatever direction we turn are to be found alternations of what may be termed terrestrial work and rest, day and night, summer and winter, periodical winds extending over longer or shorter periods, seasons of rain and dry weather. ”

“ A hare crossing a man’s path, on starting in the morning, has been held in all countries alike to prognosticate evil in the course of that day.
WEATHER OMENS. FOR FINE AND DRY WEATHER OF LONG CONTINUANCE.
1. If the wind be north, north-west, or east, then veer to the north-east, remain there two or three days without rain, and then veer to the south without rain; and if thence it change quickly, though perhaps with a little rain, to the north-east, and remain there—such fine weather will last occasionally for two months. ”

“ 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 51the 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. ”