Next Monday is Candlemas Day, a day traditionally of long range weather prediction, pancakes and of course, candles.
Weather lore is more than folklore, but based on sensory observations over many years, changes in temperature, smell, sounds and sights.
If Candlemas Day be fair and bright
Winter will have another fight.
(In other words there is more wintery weather to come, approximately another 6 weeks)
If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain
Winter won’t come again.
(Spring will be earlier)
This Candlemas Day is predicted to bring a 40% chance of rain so the coming months could go either way. Winter has been a diverse and differing season this year, so it’s final month has the potential to be exactly the same as the previous two months depending on where you are in the UK.
Weather obsesses boaters – and you’d be forgiven for thinking that only ocean going boaters watch forecasts and their radar rainfall apps constantly. Inland boaters are just as obsessed by weather – it is important to keep an eye on what life is going to be like in the coming days. Will we need to plan ahead, to prepare to get to water points or waste disposal points today if tomorrow’s weather is going to prevent movement?
It has become very apparent from boaters across the inland waterways this winter how very different our experiences have been depending on where we are geographically. Some people have been frozen in for weeks, others have had to tackle flooding, and there were the boats and boaters subject to the disastrous breach on the LLangollen canal. That is a breach which many are speculating was exacerbated by the extreme weather we (and the waterways) are experiencing. Julie Sherman Canal and River Trust’s Chief Operating Officer said: “As you can imagine, the reasons behind embankment failures are complex and not always immediately clear so we are undertaking a full and robust investigation as to the cause. We will of course share the findings publicly in the coming weeks.”
Changes in the weather have been significant as we notice on the water. Our photographs record the differences on a single day this week over past years.
Previous generations were as obsessed with the weather for tmvarious reasons. My farming grandfather paid great attention to the weather lore. This time of Candlemas was wss significant for him as it was when the farming year would start in earnest after the quiet fallow time over Christmas. It was a time when some fields could begin to be worked. I have to say any fields around our current mooring are impossible for farmers to work this Candlemas. They remain waterlogged and it looks like they will be for some considerable time.
As they say,
January brings the snow
Makes us oft our fingers blow,
February brings the rain
And thaws the frozen lakes again.
That sounds like we are scheduled to have even more rain blurring our horizons.
It has, for us, been a soggy start to the year. Since 9 January the River Soar has been continuously in flood. The month started with some frosty cold a days but then came Storms Ingrid, Goretti and Chandra bringing downpours.
The storms brought flooding, power cuts and travel disruption to many parts of the country so we have been lucky to escape as lightly as we have.
We can but hope that the recent rains will have replenished some of the reservoirs that have been drastically depleted during the past year. The predictions are though that we need more rain still until the end of March in order to prevent water restrictions this summer of the type that we faced last year. So we need this Candlemas to herald yet more rain even if we are getting heartily sick of squelching around in mud and water and seeing the stove steaming soggy socks, jeans and coats.
There is some comfort in being connected to our ancestors through weatherlore even if climate change gives it less relevance to what might happen around us. I wonder if future generations will be connected by weatherlore or whether the centuries of observation are already and will always now remain irrelevant. It’s a reflection that I find sad as well as alarming.
So whether Candlemas weather lore is going to have any accuracy this year, I will at least be lighting a candle and making the traditional food on Monday. Pancakes, those tasty golden brown circles that symbolise the sun. It is probably the nearest we are going to get to enjoying much ‘sun’ for a while! It will be good to get some practice in before Pancake Day on February 17 or the Mountsorrel Pancake Races on February 15. Some traditions I’m glad to say continue unabated.
Pickingupducks 