THE MOON AND THE WEATHER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIV, Issue 10786, 25 October 1895, Page 6

THE MOON AND THE WEATHER.

{Nature.) Fallacies about the moon are numerous, such as that the full moon clears sway the clouds; that you should only sow beans or cut down trees in the wane of the moon; that it is a bad sign if she changes on a Saturday or Sunday; that two full moons in a month will cause a flood; that to see the old moon in the arms of the new brings on rain, and many others, of which a catalogue alone would take up a good deal of space. M. Plammarion says that “ the moon’s influence on the weather is negligible. The heat reaching us from the moon would only affect our temperature by twelve millionths of a degree; and the atmospheric tides caused by the moon would only affect the barometric pressure a few hundreths of an inch—a quantity far less than the changes which are always taking place from other causes.” On the whole we are disposed to agree with the rhyme which thus sums up the subject The moon and the weather May change together; But change of the moon Does not change the weather.

Even the halo round the moon baa been discredited, for Mr Lowe found that it was as often followed by fine weather as by rain, and Messrs Marriott and Abercromby found that the lunar halo immediately preceded rain in thirty-four cases out of sixty-one. We always have a lingering hope that some future meteorologist will disentangle the overlapping influences, and arrive some day at a definite proof that our • satellite after all has something to do with our weather.