Country & Coast: Fallibility of weather lore

Until his death a decade ago Bill Foggitt of Thirsk was Britain’s most famous amateur meteorologist.
Bill Foggitt had a knack for predicting the snow, says Roger Ratcliffe.Bill Foggitt had a knack for predicting the snow, says Roger Ratcliffe.
Bill Foggitt had a knack for predicting the snow, says Roger Ratcliffe.

But elaborate weather gauges were not for him. He preferred to trust nature’s own ways of forecasting, since to anticipate a cold spell can mean life or death for most wildlife.

Bill always predicted snow whenever he saw lots of waxwings about, those elegantly crested birds so-named because red patches on their wings resemble sealing wax.

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It was back in 1946, shortly before what would transpire to be one of our worst-ever winters, that he first made the connection between imminent hard weather and huge numbers of waxwings - birdwatchers call them “irruptions” - migrating from their usual home among the abundant forests of northern Scandinavia.

Had he have been alive four years ago, Bill would have seen the irruption of waxwings which arrived almost overnight in November 2010 and thus he would have had the opportunity to predict the severe blizzards which brought Sheffield to a standstill and saw the village of Topcliffe in the Hambleton district of North Yorkshire near Thirsk record a temperature of minus 19 degrees Celsius - the coldest night ever endured in Yorkshire since records began.

This November, I am relieved to report, very few waxwings have been spotted, making the forecast in the Daily Express last week of our worst winter for a century, starting mid-month, already look well wide of the mark.

When it comes to weather forecasting, give me Bill’s waxwings rather than the Daily Express any day; or for that matter the moles he saw burrowing up through snow to signify that a thaw was on the way, or his observations on the behaviour of snails, flies and seaweed.

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So much faith was there in the forecasts made by “Foggitt of Thirsk” that one national supermarket chain even employed him to predict when it should buy in large stocks of suntan lotion.

In Britain there is a rich tradition of country weather lore like Bill’s, much of it attempting to predict cold or mild winters, and one I particularly like is: “Ice in November to bear a duck, the rest of the winter’ll be slush and muck.”

I take this to mean that if, at this time of year, your village pond freezes over and the ice is hard enough so that it supports the weight of its resident flock of wildfowl, you can expect milder weather from then onwards.

One weather lore adage apparently borne out by fact is, “A green Christmas means a fat churchyard,” which is a reference to bacteria thriving in milder temperatures and therefore being more easily transmitted at seasonal gatherings.

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A large number of foggy days in October is said to be another indicator of a hard winter to come, so we can reflect on a relatively clear past month being yet another indicator of the Express’s folly.

Weather lore is fallible, however. Fresh evidence was seen by yesterday’s mostly overcast day.

It seems that in past centuries the 11th of November - known as St. Martin’s Day - had a reputation for being warm and sunny, thus earning its other name of “Little Summer.” Mild it most certainly was for November, but summer-like it was not.

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