Candlemas

[damianslaw]

I always post this topic today. It is Candlemas, there are a number of sayings, old weather folkfore for the 2 February, along the lines of the following:

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright winter will take another bite

If Candlemas Day be grey with rain winter has gone and won't come again.

Its a rather ill=founded saying as we are slap bang in the middle of winter, plenty of time left for snow and cold even if we are enduring a wet mild spell.

There is another saying which is rather more truthful, needing to have half your hay still available, i.e. we are just at the mid-point of winter.

[I remember Atlantic 252]

today here kind of both, wet start, dry most of day with bits of sun

[4wd]

The general thrust of the Candlemas weather rule is not without foundation.

If it's sunny it implies anticyclonic conditions which at this time of year can be persistent and often cold.
To get that shunted away snow and more storms are possible if not likely.
If it's cloudy or raining/snowing we are likely in a more mobile flow with milderer temperatures which will soon start to encourage spring growth.

Trouble is some take it too literally and apart from anything else a lot of times there'll be some sun and a splash of rain later!
This year we are clearly in an unsettled spell just now, but a strong anticyclone *might* be in the offing and has tended to be the dominating pattern for much of the winter.

[Chris.R]

Candlemas 

 

 

Oh winter, she’s a mistress hard, as all in whitened shrouds of snow she moves, to throw upon the pleasant land a blanket thus to hide the bare disfigured trees, that tell of autumn’s Roth. Through wind that sings among the chill-ed peeks, with snow that whispers softly in the night, she speaks, her icy voice to cut the morning air, upon those days of February clear.

 

Now winter, though she cruel may be, her anger melts like Crystal snow to meet the sun’s embrace, as spring puts forth its gentle hand, at Candlemas to touch the earth with grace.