Moon, Tide and Weather

...After the full, and until the first quarter of the next lunar month, the weather is apt to be more variable and uncertain as the areas of high and low barometer pass in quick succession unimpeded...

...Usually they do not appear ominous at first, but gather force as they approach, piling up overhead and hanging there, sometimes for hours, with vivid, almost incessant lightning, and thunder that shakes the earth...

...This is exactly what we should be led to expect if we were to reverse the present-day theory of atmospheric pressure which holds that when the barometer is high, we are under the crest of the wave, and when it is low, we are in the trough or hollow between two crests...

...It is a commonplace saying hereabouts, that early frosts come on the full...

...the water around and above it is thick and murky with sediment and sand stirred up by the wave's movement...

...Both the ocean of water and the ocean of air are forever upheaved by an endless series of waves with shallow troughs between...

...I have studied daily the general forecasts of the Weather Bureau that give the positions of the areas of high and low barometer the country over, and almost invariably between the first quarter and the full, these slow up as they approach our seacoast and inlets of the tide...

...The early hoar frosts of autumn generally come in still, clear weather, just in front of the cloudy area which precedes rain, and the power which the waxing moon seems to possess of retarding the approach of the rain-clouds furnishes just the conditions for still, clear, frosty nights, but it may be that the slight increase of heat reflected from the sunlit face of the moon at that time partially offsets this...

...We live like ground fish and crabs on the mud beneath an ocean...

...After the wave has passed by, the water becomes clear and quiet and the daylight penetrates to the bottom, granting the fish a glimpse of sun and sky until the next wave comes along...

...The long storms, those "three-day storms," whether of snow or rain, come near the full...

...On the other hand, the old saying that between the first quarter and the full you can pretty safely count on fine weather, but that when you do get a storm at such times it will prove heavy and long drawn out, has very seldom failed...

...On one slope of each sea wave the water is ascending, on the other descending, and the same is true of the waves of atmosphere...

...While we talked the matter over and gossiped of neighborhood affairs, a low mutter of thunder in the west caused my father to say, "We had better be going before that thundershower gets here...

...still, personal observation and local weather lore have their value when used in connection with the official predictions...

...Every gunner knows that before a storm the ducks and geese fly low with, great apparent effort, whether the winds are high or still, with or against them...

...At times, though very rarely, the offshore wind succeeds in pushing them over, down into the east, the western sky begins to clear and then as the moon rises the clouds bank up and back inland...

...As the blue-fish, herring and mackerel swim at mid-depths or near the surface of their ocean far above the eel and cod and halibut, so the hawks—like the airmen—sail at mid-depths in the ocean of air above us...

...In the falling atmosphere at the front of the wave they fly heavily with labored beating of the wings...

...Also the smoke, whether from campfire or factory chimney, disputes it, by rising upward when the barometer is high, and sinking earthward with a falling barometer...

...Thunder-storms—even more than the wide-spread, slowmoving areas of precipitation—appear to be under the dominion of the moon...

...that is to say locally, right here on this section of the New England) coast, and I imagine along all the other reaches of the coast, as well...

...I watched that growhng thunderhead pile up, then fade away and disperse in scattered ranks of fleecy clouds, and from that day to this I have never seen a thunder-shower "come up against the moon...

...When the smoke beats down to the ground, a storm is coming on and you may look for rain or snow—except, of course, in times of drought, when all signs fail...

...The heaviest thunder-showers that we ever get come down from the west or northwest just as the moon (nearing the full) is still below the eastern horizon...

...the ocean above us is atmospheric air...

...The faintest breath of air pushes the smoke this way or that, and it is beyond my power of comprehension to understand how it could possibly rise when the air is falling or sink when it is rising...

...The birds dispute this theory by rising when the barometer is high and flying low and with much effort when it is falling...

...After the height of the storm has passed, we may frequently observe that migrating birds of every sort are flying near the ground to avoid an opposing wind, but the effort to keep aloft is no longer evident...

...There has hardly been a month in the last half-century that I have not watched the waxing and waning of the moon in connection with the present subject...

...on the contrary, at such times they often appear to be borne upward against their will, and may be seen from time to time driving downward to escape the gale...

...The showers either back away below the western horizon, split and go north and south, or else climb half-way up the sky and then break up...

...Curtis glanced up at the moon in its first quarter, half-way up the eastern sky, and replied, "You needn't hurry, William...

...I have never experienced one of these at any other time...

...When the moon is in the west, clear sky and clouds are separated by a clear-cut line, "just as if you had sliced it down with a knife," as I heard one farmer say...

...As I look down into the water of sea or lake or river, I notice that the aquatic life just beneath the wave is in the shadow...

...on the other slope of the wave they sail upward without effort on the ascending air...

...The ocean above them is salt sea water...

...Whether it is the moon or the tide or the following sea wind, I do not know, but something at that time most certainly holds bacic the weather, checking its advance across the country from the west, so that fair or foul continues while the moon is big...

...The greater severity of those rare storms which come at the full, would, I should say, just about counterbalance the long stretches of fair weather which may generally be looked for at such times...

...A storm of quick passage across the inland country arrives on the coastline and to all appearances is held almost stationary there...

...As to whether it is the moon's power* of attraction on the clouds that rules the weather, or the incoming tide that follows the moon and is itself accompanied by the wind from off the ocean, who shall say...

...which proves nothing one way or the other...

...One summer afternoon when I was a boy, my father and I walked across lots to the Curtis farm and bought a cow...

...I am inclined to think that they do as a rule, though not by any means invariably...

...Now work is largely indoors and rest and recreation outdoors, and the daily forecasts of the Weather Bureau are the chief dependence...

...I have lived almost wholly out of doors, and fifty years of careful observation leave me convinced that the moon has a great deal to do with it...

...If clear skies then get foothold here, they hold possession until after the moon is full, and it is the same with storms, whether of rain or snow...

...then the worst is yet to come...

...Concerning the moon's power at the full of dispersing the clouds, my observation is as follows: When the moon is rising or half-way up the eastern sky, the clouds thin out and scatter on all sides...

...Rain or fair are then likely to be of short duration...

...In this particular locality nearly all the thundershowers come down from the west or west-northwest, and are quite as frequently seen making up there when the moon is in the east as at any other time, but once the moon has climbed above the eastern skyline we can safely leave our hay in windrows as far as any danger of getting it wet is concerned...

...The Weather Bureau has stated over and over that the precipitation is about the same year by year during the various stages of the moon...

...I have found nothing in the way of verification of the belief that the weather would be wet or dry according as the position of the new moon in the west at sundown was erect or reclining...

...Yet I know of no weather sign that is more dependable or more generally marked by outdoor folk...

...Though you live to be a hundred, you'll never see a thunder-shower come up against the moon...