Last year was a record breaker so far as our weather was concerned, and the impact on both agriculture and wildlife was undeniable. On the threshold of the New Year how can we forecast the future?
In Pagan times the shamanic priests of Vikings and other Germanic cultures cast runes, and other objects such as sticks, stones and bones and then divined the answer to significant questions by analysing the ostensibly random patterns the particular elements formed. Other ancient civilisations would sacrifice animals and examine the corpses – it’s been suggested that some more primitive cultures would sacrifice people for the same purpose! Augurers in Egypt, Rome and Greece also added fresh superstitions and traditions arose based on some supposedly ‘scientific’ observations. Alongside the interpretations of random phenomena, such as the Chinese I-Ching, tea leaves and Tarot Cards, came the beginning of correlations based upon genuinely identifying connections between natural conditions and consequential weather events.
Agriculturists led the study of Meteorology by coming up with such sayings as “Red sky at night: shepherds’ delight, red sky in the morning: shepherds’ warning” and there is some reliable truth behind the proverb. Unfortunately, nowadays, red skies might be more associated with air pollution than weather conditions. It was often said that cattle would sit on the ground before a rain shower, but this is more of a myth than a valid sign of imminent precipitation. There isn’t much bladder-wrack seaweed to be found in Ciren, but, in coastal areas, people still use it as an indicator of atmospheric humidity. But who should know better than farmers who have spent their lives out in all weathers and all seasons? They who rely on judgements concerning when to plough, plant and harvest, and when to move herds for grazing, overwintering and the milestones of breeding?
Having something of a lifelong commitment to cider-drinking I take a lot of notice of what cider makers tell me. I have been told many times that apple harvests tend to follow a two year cycle, and that the best harvests happen once every two years. I have also been told that a sure sign of a terrified plant is that it puts out a bumper harvest of fruit when it senses the weather might kill it before it can flower and fruit again.
In 2023 I watched apple trees put out so much blossom I thought their boughs couldn’t bear the weight of the fruit to come. Bizarre climatic behaviour led to floods, then droughts and brief, almost tropical, interludes, then some plants behaved as if they’d undergone a short, mild Winter and then budded up towards a false spring. The Cedar in the Abbey Grounds sprouted a prolific quantity of cones. Rowan trees bent under their berries, Haws, Hollies and Cotoneaster burst into a remembrance blood-red. Nature seemed to scream at me that the coming winter is going to be hard.
Memories of cruel weather and a challenged Britain seem to queue in my mind. The East coast floods of 1953 – almost a thousand miles of British coast ravaged, and over two and a half thousand people killed. I was at school in the North Yorkshire Moors in the winter of 1962-3 and the ‘Big Freeze’ with temperatures falling to the upper minus-teens Celsius. Snowdrifts rose to the upper teens of feet – around six metres. Things weren’t much better in the winter of 1986, and we’ve had some short-lived impacts in 2012 and 2018. It’s time to brace ourselves; we might have another record breaking year, and 2024 could be very expensive in our need to keep warm. Like the birds we should take advantage of the bonus fruit that heralded a hard winter and mull our extra cider.
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