Weather Folklore

We're Mari and Lindsey and we want to be meteorologists someday. We wondered how people predicted the weather in the days before Doppler radar and computers. We've heard folklore about "homemade" or natural ways of predicting the weather and we were curious if some of those tales were actually true. Our question: Can you use folklore to predict the weather?

How Would You Investigate This Question?
Do research on weather folklore or legends. You may have heard the little poem, "Red sky at night, sailors' delight..." Make observations to determine whether sayings like this are truly reliable. Pick five or six weather sayings, legends or pieces of folk lore to study. How many days worth of observations will you need to make? Write your ideas in your notebook and discuss them with your classmates and your teacher. Then watch the video segment, or go to Forecasting to learn what Mari and Lindsey discovered.