When Patrick, William and Leo align
March… the Ides, St. Patrick’s Day, the storms, the lion, and the lamb.
Most of us have a love/hate relationship with the third month of the year. I will leave the topics of saints and Shakespeare to someone more qualified; I’ll deal with the weather.
Our Atlantic Canadian weather is always quite changeable regardless of the season; but, as my friend, CTV senior anchor Steve Murphy says, "March can break your heart."
To forecast – or perhaps just better deal with the bitter March blows – many of us turn to an old and very famous bit of folklore.
After "Red sky at night," without a doubt, "In like a lion, out like a lamb" is the most-recited weather proverb. Grandma loved it. She looked forward to the first day of March for weeks. We know how this one goes: if the weather is stormy on March 1, the month should go out on a quiet note and vice versa.
Most weather lore is based on careful observation of nature's cycles and animal behaviour. There were no lions on the farm, but there was a famous lion high above the old gray barn: Leo the Lion. According to astronomers, the expression, "In like a lion, out like a lamb," may have originated from ancient observations of the stars. In the springtime, two of the constellations visible just after the sun goes down are Leo the lion and Aries the ram or lamb.
Leo rises in the east at the same time that Aries sets in the west. While this happens throughout the year at varying times, it’s most visible at night in early March. If the sky was clear on March 1 and Leo was spotted overhead, the lion ushered in the month and it would end on a quiet note. Conversely, if clouds covered the night sky on the first of March, the lion would roar at the end of the month and the weather would be stormy.
That’s just the opposite of what Grandma believed: a clear start to the month was more lamb-like.
So, which is it? Based on the original understanding of the expression that takes the weather into account, it's more right than wrong. Over the past 20 years, the popular weather saying was correct 14 times.
The proverb might not be well understood or even accurate, but it does, somehow, manage to bring some hope after a long winter.
Speaking of which, it's over! That's right, meteorological winter ended on Sunday, Feb. 28. The meteorological seasons were created because traditional seasons vary in length from 89 to 93 days, making it difficult for experts to compare statistics from one year to another.
Meteorological spring started March 1 and wraps up on May 31.
Happy spring!
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Cindy Day is the chief meteorologist for SaltWire Network
