Candlemas

[damianslaw]

I start this thread every year, and it always makes me realise how quickly time goes..

Anyhow for those who don't know, the 2 February is Candlemas - the mid point between the winter solstice and spring equinox, and for me weatherwise marks the mid - point of winter (for the north at least much of March is usually more wintry than first half of December - despite signal of spring, extra daylight and sun strength, in weather terms cold and snow is equally as likely as in much of December).

There is old weather folklore attached to the date, as follows:

If candlemas day be fair and bright, winter will have another flight

If candlemas day brings cloud and rain winter won't come again

If candlemas day be dry and fair

Half o the winter's to come and mair

If candlemas day be wet and foul

Half o winter gone at Yule

So a dry bright fine day means more winter to come, a wet grey one means mostly gone..

Its a saying that I feel holds some truth -tomorrow promises to be a fine dry one, lets see if it holds some truth this year - I think it firmly will!

[NL]

How about.. I f candlemass day be cold with snow, winter will have another go.

[Walsall Wood Snow]

If I remember rightly it was fair and bright last year and we all know what happened come the end of the month. Hope we get the same again this year, still too early to be dismissing the possibility of a epic spell of Winter in the weeks ahead, despite the deflated mood in the MOD thread today.

[4wd]

I'm not sure I agree with everything in this link but worth a look.
http://www.projectbritain.com/year/candlemas.html

February is the start of spring in many ways. 
When the sun reaches 25 degrees above the horizon there's a step change in how much energy hits the ground rather than bouncing off the atmosphere.
The south coast will be there any day now and by the end of the month only the far north will need to wait a few more days.

[hillbilly]

There is plenty of life left yet certainly in the extended winter.February  and March certainly has brought the cold and snow in recent years where December and Jan has failed.A third of our springs have winter periods including April and May in 1996

[Walsall Wood Snow]

Looks as though we had a fair and bright Candlemas Day then. According to folklore then we should expect Winter to have a final fight in the next few weeks sometime. It's certainly increased my optimism if nothing else and I know full well the window of opportunity as far as cold and snow is concerned is still open for a good while yet, considering what happened in late Feb/ early March last year and all the way into late March in 2013.