How accurate is weather lore?
Any sufficiently lengthy process of observation, combined with testing of hypotheses, will produce some useful information, and weather lore is no different. However, it may not take into account or be aware of larger circumstances which affect local conditions. The rhyme above, for instance, describes circumstances which occur as the planet-girdling north Polar front slips south and meets warm, moist air pulled in from equatorial regions. Two hundred years ago, the concept of huge rotating air masses creating weather was not only unknown, but would have gotten one laughed out of a scientific establishment if ventured as an explanation. As a consequence, even though there is some predictive value to much of the body of folklore, it is necessarily ignorant of why it predicts what it does, and of inconsistent reliability in how accurately it predicts what it does. However, a considerable body of weather lore is reliable enough that it can be said to be useful. True lore, and why Red sky
