As the year draws to an end, we look back on the last year and ahead to the year to come. Our ancestors were no different, especially when it came to using the season’s weather to predict the nature of the following 12 months.
Many proverbs look forward to the next summer’s harvest. But most are pure superstition, such as the rhyme that begins: “If Christmas Day on Thursday be …” and goes on to predict a “good and dry” summer to follow.
Wind on Christmas Day itself is supposed to bring a good year ahead, while snow on Christmas night is also a good omen, meaning that the crops will do well. But if Boxing Day – also known as St Stephen’s Day – is windy, next year’s grape harvest will apparently be poor.
Of course, all these sayings – especially those that refer to long-term forecasts – are based on nothing more than guesswork.
The only thing we can be reasonably certain about – at least going on the past couple of decades – is that the bookies are unlikely to be paying out for a White Christmas – the last one was in 2010.
The Met Office has decreed that for this event to officially occur, a single snowflake needs to fall at one of a selection of locations up and down the country:
These include Buckingham Palace, Coronation Street in Manchester, Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium and Edinburgh Castle or the Pittodrie football stadium in Aberdeen.
So a blanket of snow on the Cairngorms – or indeed anywhere else – doesn’t count as a White Christmas.
