The Moon’s Change and the Weather

A reader at Doctors’ Commons sent Hone a table for foretelling the weather through every lunation of the year, copied from Dr Adam Clarke in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine and claimed to rest on many years of observation. Everything turned on the hour at which the moon changed or entered one of its quarters. The nearer that moment fell to midnight, the fairer the following seven days would be, and the nearer to noon, the fouler and wetter; a change between four and ten in the evening might bring fair weather, depending on the wind. The table gave winter readings too, such as hard frost for a change between midnight and two in the morning unless the wind was south or west. Tables of this kind were long printed and trusted as almanac weather lore.