(00:00:00) Now the weather outlook for the entire state of Minnesota is for the skies to remain cloudy in the northeastern part of the state with a snow diminishing as the day goes on high temperatures today from the upper 30s in the Northeast to the low 50s in the west clear tonight with lows in the 20s and 30s tomorrow partly sunny breezy warmer with highs from the low 50s North East to the mid-60s South West course, the weather forecast that I just read you is based we think on the latest technology analyzed by experts at the National Weather Service, but long before computer models and Satellite photographs people were still interested in the whether it's been a pursuit of mankind since the very beginning I suspect they developed ways of predicting the weather based on observation and what they couldn't understand they probably made up in some fashion or other some of these things made their way into whether folklore. Studio guest has a special interest in that he is a scientist. Dr. George fryer is he's a physics professor at the University of Minnesota and we welcome him to the Studio's today and will be opening the telephone lines in just a moment so we can answer your questions about the scientific basis or maybe the scientific non basis for some of the weather lore that we hear. Dr. Fire. Welcome. Thank you for coming in. How do you do pleasure to be here? How did you happen to get interested in this business of weather mythology. Anyway, well, I was born and raised on a farm and I observed that when all the farmers got together either in town or after church that there's biggest subject of conversation was the weather and at that time we didn't have even radio information about the weather. So they always talked about whether in terms of Proverbs and then I kind of observe that those who knew the most proverb seem to be the most Prosperous farmers and I got to wondering about this sort of thing and later on after I learned a lot of physics and meteorology. I looked into it further. And now I think there's a lot of Truth in many of the Proverbs. Some of them are not right but many of them are okay. I wonder how the Proverbs developed well Proverbs developed by people just observing their surroundings and time and time again, they see the same thing happen over and over again and pretty soon. They formulate this finding into a rather salty common-sense statement about this particular observation. Did they have Proverbs that covered say why like the forecast I just gave us for the rest of today and tonight and tomorrow did they have those two? They also have the long-range forecasts. They had many long range forecasts and I must say that I Figure many of them out. I see a little truth in some of them but finding a cause and effect sort of thing for a long range situation is very difficult. The Weather Service can't do this either they do it statistically but to give a cause and effect relationship is not very easy for them to do either so I don't feel too badly about that. Yeah, I notice in the paper for example that they'll publish the 30 day outlook, but they never tell you how they did in the last 30 day outlook. So don't have any way of comparing it's kind of fun to look at but you really can't base a lot of plans are at well, let's let's talk a little bit about some of these these specific Proverbs. I was talking with some folks around here and we came up with two or three that maybe you can explain and then we'll open the phone lines and I bet that listeners will have a lot more. There's one old saying that talks about a ring around the Moon being a sign of rain. All right, the ring around the Sun or sun or moon will bring rain. The ring is brought about by refraction of sunlight or Moonlight in ice crystals at a very high level probably at 10 miles or so, and these ice crystals have been either blown off of high Thunders thunderheads to our West or in Warm Front situations. The clouds the first clouds that you see are ice crystals serous type clouds and since weather travels from west to east we know that when these ice crystals are coming are far up there then there will be this refraction of the light. We see it as a ring. Sometimes as a colored ring even and if the clouds thicken we know then that there's more blowing in all weather travels from west to east and this is a good indication that something's going to happen possibly not for 24 hours. I was going to ask you how long in advance that in the case of a warm front. This can be as much as 24 hours ahead of time six minutes past 12:00 noon. Let's open the telephone lines and give you a chance those of you who are listening a chance to ask some questions doctor george fryer a physicist at the University of Minnesota has a special interest in whether lore and if you have a question for him this noon do give us a call in Minneapolis. And st. Paul. The telephone number is two two seven six thousand 2276 thousand in Minneapolis, and st. Paul elsewhere around the state of Minnesota. Our toll free number is available at Nine seven zero zero one eight hundred 6529700. If you're listening in one of the surrounding states call us directly in the Twin Cities area codes 612 and the rest of the number is two two seven six thousand. Sometimes people say all the ants are so busy that's got to be a sign of rain to I don't believe that one myself. But is there any truth to that? Well, I think there's a lot of trees are at one. Yes, answer cold-blooded animals and the higher the temperature the faster they move around that is their body processes are just proportional to the temperature. And so if you watch the speed of ants you can tell pretty well another one that I always liked is the Crickets if you count the number of cricket chirps in 14 seconds and add 40, you've got the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. It works pretty well pretty amazing. We have some listeners. On the line with questions for you, dr. Fire. So let's go to our first caller. Hi, you're on the air. All right, there is very interesting. I've got to one. My grandfather used to always say red sky at night Sailor's Delight red sky in the morning Sailors take warning the comment on that surely read at night Sailor's Delight. I think that is one that I don't think is correct. It really should be rainbow in the morning Sailors warning rainbow at night Sailor's Delight. And the reason for that is is that our weather goes from west to east and you always see the Rainbow on the opposite side of you from the Sun. So if you see a rainbow in the morning, that means that there's a lot of you you're seeing it in the west and that means that there's a lot of water drops out in the west and since weather goes from west to east it's coming your way rainbow at night means that the rainbow is in the East the Is past you and probably fair weather is moving in. This one ran gave me a lot of trouble in that it's also in the Bible if you look in Matthew verses two and three, I think it is the Pharisees had asked Jesus to show some sign of his ability to know the future and so on and really what he said was no business. It was none of his business to do something like that. If you look at the older manuscripts or the better translations of the Bible, but in the that is this verse is missing in older manuscripts and it's believed that some scribe thought that Jesus should answer differently than he did and he stuck in a other proverb there and I think it would he stuck it in incorrectly a little revisionist history. Yes more or less. Have questions about whether this new one whether Largo ahead you're next. Well, they're my name is Mark doll and interesting show you've got there and I was out fishing recently and saw double rainbow in the East Sky just after a rain passed and it didn't affect the fishing certainly wasn't any better. The question is what kind of weather generally has an effect on fishing and could you offer a comment on the double rainbow all hang up and listen? Thank you. Okay, first of all, the double rainbow the double rainbow the first of all the single rainbow is the sunlight comes into a raindrop is refracted at the front surface reflected at the back surface refracted at the front surface again, and different colors are refracted differently so that you see it as a color. I see a bands of colors now on the double rainbow is there is a double reflection in the at the back of the rainbow it hits one. I think you can kind of see how that might work. Comes in and hits and reflects what's and reflects again? And of course that changes the light the direction which the light emits and you will see that rainbow then at a different position. You will notice one thing you will notice in the two types of rainbows is that the colors are reversed in the to and the colors being reversed comes from the fact that once there's a single reflection and the other is a double reflection now as to fishing weather fishing is good more many of the Proverbs say that when the pressure Falls that fishing becomes better and there seems to be a good physical reason for this you talk to old trout fisherman and so on and there in the bottoms of lakes and rivers there is a fair amount of decaying vegetable matter and these Generate gases in the form of little bubbles which cling to them then when the pressure starts falling as it always does before Stormy Weather these bubbles expand and grow due to the Lesser external pressure and makes these little particles buoyant there's little nymphs and other things of which a smaller fish can feed on. What quick is a smaller fish start feeding the bigger fish start feeding and you start a whole kind of chain reaction here so that when the pressure is falling before rain and you see bubbles coming up or foam on the River fishing should be best then 12 minutes past noon. Dr. George fryer is in the Studio's today a physics Professor from the University of Minnesota with a special interest in whether lure will get to another caller in a minute but talked about rainbows. I've got to ask you the one about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow where in the world that one ever comes I never have run acrost any explanation of that area know. What is it the end of the rainbow then if not a pot of gold there really is no end to the rainbow really what you're seeing is a bundle of light rays that are coming to you as if they came from somewhere else. That is the real source of the light is the Sun and they've been reflected by raindrops. And there may be a raindrop that is in the right position to make it look like it's at the end of the rainbow. So I guess my answer to your question would be that there's rain drops at the end. Absolutely and how far away do you suppose the rainbows might be they can be any distance away. They can be any distance away like a mile or two. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't know about 10 or 15 that's pretty far away because you have to see the rainbow in the Rain, that's falling usually below the cloud base. And that means that probably the Rainbows are usually from rain that's within a mile of you. Okay more listeners are waiting with questions and we'll take you next here on the are calling from Richfield. I have a question if never run across anything has to do with bubbles forming when rain falls relating to the duration of the rainfall it might or if he sees any relationship it might be related to the one about the Bubbles coming up from the water and the lake to therefore number of Proverbs that are in this ballpark, but I don't know about the duration of the rainfall again when the pressure Falls the bubbles start coming up and you can get a fair idea as to how much the pressure is dropping by the rate at which the bubbles come up and over what period they they're coming up now on a river these bubbles usually get together and form a foam but I've noticed in fishing myself that they don't tend to form a foam they'll when the pressures falling they're just simply are more Bubbles and of course a falling Is one of our indicators that we have to have in order to get rain. All right. Another caller has a question. Go ahead. You're on the air. Hello doctor. I'd like to know if you have any proper herbs for the predicting the first killing fall Frost I'll hang up and listen. That is what I call a long range forecast. And I'm not very good at that. Not much better than the Weather Service are not as good probably they there are Proverbs that try to relate to the first killing Frost but they usually fail there's one that six weeks after the last thunderstorm in September. We have the first Frost but that failed miserably this year because we had our thunderstorm and snow all on the same day. Okay, a lot of these especially the longer-range ones tend not to be as accurate as that right. I think I can't see truth in them. I see truth in partial truths in these things. But again, since I can't put cause-and-effect together. It's very difficult to make much sense out of them. But anything within three or four days, which is the time period of a weather system going across then these most many of these problems are very helpful. Okay more listeners have questions your next good afternoon. I'm Justin and I'm asking how clouds were like clouds. And how they are made clouds are a manifestation of their being water vapor in the air. That is the air besides containing besides containing oxygen and nitrogen also contains water vapor. Now this water vapor normally is just dispersed water molecule by molecule through the air so you don't see it. But if the atmosphere becomes a bit unstable, then the air rises and cools and pretty soon. The cooling is sufficient to make the water molecules get together and start condensing to form little water drops and you start forming a cloud base and as that air condenses it gives up what we call its heat of vaporization. So it makes the cloud are a little warmer and that makes the gives you a warm air. Tends to rise more air moves in and more droplets form below that in the other droplets move upward and grow larger as more moisture condenses on them. So what you're seeing is water going from The Vapor to the liquid state and pretty soon if conditions are right. You also get rain out of that's right. And as if the drops grow more and more pretty soon coalescence can set in and then you get rain out of the thing, but often for instance if there is warm air a layer of warm air above the clouds that is what we call a temperature inversion and the clouds then will not be buoyant in that warmer air as they rise into it and they stop growing so you'll get just a nice little Cloud sitting there with nothing happening. I once heard that all rain begins as snow. Is that true not necessarily no, No, they cart. You have a lot of rain in the tropics in the Caribbean and so on and this rain is these rains are all produced below what we call the zero degree isotherm. I think most of the rain we get around here probably has gone through a nice phase along especially if it's a thunderstorm. It's 19 minutes past 12:00 noon. We have a couple of phone lines open again in Minneapolis and st. Paul to to 76 thousand if you have a question about whether lure or whether mythology for dr. George fire this noon, in other parts of Minnesota that toll-free number is 1-866-560-4440 now Willie Bear Caterpillar the other day and it reminded me of the legend of the will of woolly bear predicting the severity of a winter and I was curious if the doctor knows where that came from. I don't know where it came from. I find it in a lot of Europe. In writings of whether Proverbs but I do not know which country is really responsible for it. And the the proverb goes is if the woolly bear has a Broadband will have a mild winter if it's a narrow band will have a cold winter. I've read in one place where some guy has tested this out and he claimed it was 80 percent true, but I can see no good reason. No physical reason why this should be true if it's broad it's going to be mild yarrell. Yeah narrow. It'll be a cold is our caller still there. I wonder what what she isn't I wonder what width of bands you saw on her particular wooly caterpillar. Maybe somebody else will tell us about that move. Meanwhile, we'll move on to you. Go ahead. Please doctor fairies listening. Yeah. I got a question. I guess it specifically relates to how farmers in the past would predict a blizzard that was coming. Upon them in the field how you know what what signs they might look for and I guess another question is why is it so rare that we have with a blizzard very heavy snow along with very heavy wind and I'll hang up and listen. Well, the energy of any storm comes from comes mostly from the heat given up when the water vapor condenses as we were talking about a minute ago in the formation of a cloud in a we might back up to a big thunderstorm a thunderstorm is more violent and just a little shower because much more water condenses into a thunderstorm gives up much more heat and we have a big cloud heat engine operating that way now in the case of a blizzard the we still have an awful lot of water being condensed. The blizzard is a big system of very deep low usually and this implies that the air is very unstable can draw a lot of water vapor into the system and as this condenses, it's releasing more and more energy. And making the storm more violent now as to how the farmers predicted this thing. I imagine that they had a lot of them that dealt with the with the pressure for instance. If you see suit falling down your fireplace chimney, it's a sign that the pressure is falling again. It's bubbles of gas being released which breaks the Footloose. If you note that birds for instance are flying lower than normal Birds tend to fly at an Optimum density of the air and they will fly low and the pressure is low and they'll find this Optimum density High when the pressure is high. But again, the blizzard is accompanied by a low pressure in the spring. They might even see it from the sap of maple trees will flow differently. Springs well tend to flow more when a low pressure is falling is coming in. I wonder if the if the Pioneers were very successful at predicting blizzards, you would think maybe not because look at the 1940 Armistice Day blizzard that we had and so many people were killed and we've had worst blizzard since then but the death toll hasn't been as high because people knew they were coming. Yeah, but I think that these Old Farmers they knew they knew they had to depend upon their own observations in this blizzard that we had this Armistice Day blizzard. I think we had a lot of people out there that well, sometimes they say they didn't know enough to come in out of the rain about the weather. They just didn't understand the weather themselves and they didn't get adequate warnings. And that's one of our problems I think right now is that people don't know their environment as well as they shouldn't complacent I suppose. Yes. Yeah more listeners have questions and we'll move on. You go ahead. You're on the air. Thank you. Thank you for this good show. Just once I saw a circle of rainbow around the sun Perfect Circle, and I'd like to know how unusual this is and something about how it came to be a circle instead of the usual Arc now hang up and listen where you in an airplane. You're on the ground on the ground was in Dakota County last spring. I can't see how an ordinary rainbow will give a complete circle did that was the circle around the Sun? Okay. There is a phenomena again. Like we were talking very early about a ring around the sun or moon and there are occasions when the ice crystals are so that there are so many that the thing I'll brighten up to the point that you can distinguish the colors and and then you see a really a rainbow around A son in this case, but it's really not a rainbow. It's a nice Bowl if if that'll help. Okay. All right. Thanks for the explanation and we'll move on to another listener. Go ahead you're on the air and International Falls. I have three questions. I've seen a number of times brings around the wound and the Sun and I've been told that the ring around the Moon forecasts bad weather within certain number of hours, but I haven't found this to be true the other Quest. Do you want me to ask you all the questions and they hang up or ask them in order? Well, why don't you spit them all out and then and then we'll see. Okay. The other question next question was how do the almanacs achieve the degree of accuracy that they do whether they claim they do. Okay, and the last question is refers to the Green Flash. The green let me start in reverse on this because that Green Flash doesn't very often come up. The green flash is in exceptionally clean air and you usually comes at a sunset over something like an ocean a large body of water so that so that the Sun goes behind a very straight line. It won't happen very often, you know on a hilly horizon or something like that and it's a peculiar bit of refraction of the sunlight in the atmosphere that gives you a predominance of green light and just momentarily you will see this green flash the Proverbs say that unless a girl should not get married until she sees the Green Flash because the Green Flash always produce always predicts a successful career at Marriage now, let's see now your timing on the ring around the Sun or the moon now that time can vary very much in that the I don't I would I would hesitate to set a time on it after I saw it because it's difficult to know how fast the weather systems are moving. You know that in the last few days. Let's say you were from International Falls. I don't know if you had the same trouble we have here not but we had a weather system that came in here and just sat here and give us rain for I don't know how many hours continuously which meant that the weather system wasn't moving very fast, and it's difficult. If at one position to know whether the the weather system how fast it's moving. I haven't figured that one out anyway, and her final question had to do with the accuracy of the Almond whole the accuracy of the almanac. I don't know whether they're accurate or not. They put in a lot of good long-range Proverbs and they claim they've got a secret formula for putting together things and making these Proverbs work for them, but I don't know how right the how correct there that green flash is something you might very likely not see except up in International Falls or someplace where the where the air is very clear the air is clear and you can look across one of the big lakes and you see it at Sunset and at Sunrise it just when the sun gets below the Horizon usually is when you see it pretty ideal conditions for that up in International Falls, I would guess. Yeah 29 minutes past 12:00 noon. Dr. George fryer is our guest this noon. He is a physics professor at the University of Minnesota with a special interest in whether lure whether mythology and we have a number of listeners on the line with questions. Go ahead please you're next. Yes. I Like to go back to the question regarding the red sky at night Sailor's Delight red sky in the morning Sailors warning. I've got understanding regarding this and I would be interested in the doctors comment about it. I've always been under the impression. Well, you mentioned that the weather does in fact come out of the West and really begins to form with high clouds and then the ceiling beginning to lower so that as the sun came up in the east in the morning, they would strike those clouds and in the early hours, of course, it would be ready on the bottom of the clouds and it would forecast a approaching storm system or weather system of some kind however in the evening if in fact you would get a red sky, you would indicate at least a break in the clouds from the Western area for the sun to come through so that it could get onto the bottom side of the clouds and would indicate Possibility that there's a breakup in the system or that at least openings in the system. I would just interested in hearing his comments in that regard. I don't think that you should think about this read as coming from as this reflection off of a surface of a cloud really it's a sort of what we call a light scattering problem in that red light in the white light from the sun has we say a longer wavelength than the blue light that comes through and the shorter the wavelength the more it can interact with the particle. Let scatters the light so the blue light is scattered out of the sunlight and that leaves the sun being read now if that's in the west if that scattering is in the west that means the scattering things. Our in the west the scattering bodies are particles and that weather is still coming towards us on the other hand. If you see this in the morning the scattering is done to the east of us and that means that the scattering centers all to the east of us and the the weather moves from west to east. It seems to me that we're we're in good shape for the rest of the day. Of course, there can always be another shower or storm coming but in general it works this way the sky is blue for the simple reason that particles in the atmosphere scatter blue light more than they do red light. Hmm every once in a while. You see an absolutely brilliantly Red Sun near Sundown not all the time, but every once in a while I is that that's exactly what I've been talking about that that very red sunlight. It is a result of first the sunlights white but really light is made up of the colors of the rainbow. It's the same 7 it's the same thing and that very red Sun then comes from the fact that all the blue light has been scattered out of it and leaves only the red light in the beam that gets through. Alright more listeners have questions for dr. Fryer. Go ahead. You're on the air. Thank you again for the show and I'm calling from Chisago County and I have a couple of questions one is I'm wondering what atmospheric conditions are the cause of on a windy summer day that there will be this long in the wind at dusk that enables all the mosquitoes to come out and feed but that then the wind will resume again perhaps an hour after dark the second question is On a clear summer day. I can often look around and see that there is a clear sky above me. But I Halo of clouds around the Horizon and I'm wondering if that's a mirage of sorts or you know, if I couldn't drive the fifty to a hundred miles to where that would be if I would I be standing under a clear sky and seeing a Halo of clouds around me or would I be under clouds clouds? Okay. I don't know whether that's very frequent that that that that letter thing should happen. If there are no clouds above you you can have a region you can have local regions in which there are there's rather stable air and probably there's a fairly large vertical circulation so that where air is coming down. That's usually that Hair is dry and that might be what's over you and then that air moves out it can pick up moisture and then go back up again and when it goes up then the moisture and it starts condensing and forms of clouds that you see around the Horizon. Let's see. The first question. First one was why the wind dies down all Sunset allowing the mosquitoes to come out and then it picks up again. Yeah. I don't know about the picking up again so much. But the reason that the wind dies down at Sunset is because the Earth the heating of the earth is causes air to warms the air next to the Earth and that are tends to rise and that causes a vertical what you call a vertical circulation now when when the ground is being heated that circulation is the strongest so that usually there's a rather strong wind up. Love and that allow that vertical Rising allows the lore are to couple with the upper air and it can be windy all day long then in the evening that heating at the ground stops. And then this local rising of the are quits and then we lose our coupling to the air above you can still see clouds up there going by at a pretty good clip, but you will not feel much wind on the ground. But now I do not remember too many experiences of where the wind picks up again after after sentence seems to me that it stays down is our part of the country does our part of the country tend to be more windy than some others. I think that well, we've got such a theater of Seasons here, which we should be very proud of and there are places that are certainly windier their places in Colorado that have Tomorrow wind and you get on the mountains and so on we don't have what we call orographic lifting of the air like in mountainous regions, which can give them a lot more wind often. I would say that we've just got about the right amount of wind bringing us all our good weather a true Minnesotan speaking here. All right, here's another listener. Go ahead, please you're next. Yeah. I've got three quick questions about animals and how they're able to sense earthquakes. Can they also has a sensitivity towards the weather and in my second one would be about ball lightning. Is there some kind of a weather lore and relationship with ball lightning and my third one and I'll hang up after this and listening is about the Aurora Borealis. And I thank you very much. Okay, let's see. The first one was on animals, whether the how they're able to predict earthquakes. We as animals in earthquakes. This is a very interesting thing. The Chinese are very very interested in this particular problem of how dogs and birds may help us predict earthquakes dogs have a much Keener sense of smell than we do and it's believed that prior to the earthquake. There is a snuff shifting that it can releases gases which the dogs can smell and the dogs and hole and wine and are quite upset whether they get the right message across die or not. I don't know but even as far as weather is concerned when the pressure Falls Miners did Deep down in the mines can tell that it's going to rain even though they can't see anything about the sky because they can often smell follow gases coming out of the mine walls as the pressure Falls and of course pressure falling will release the gases, but also any Motion in the Earth's crust will do it Birds on the other hand are most interesting in that they can hear frequencies much lower than we can pigeons can hear down to a tenth of a cycle per second where we're Limited at about 20 cycles per second. Now in order for a bird to hear they have to apparently here with their feathers because if you're going to hear a very low frequency, you have to have set kind of a large object in into oscillation and a bird's feather works very fine. So it's believe that birds can hear with their feathers and and there's a proverb that says the burden Never flies into a storm and apparently what they hear is the turbulent motion of storms that is with big microphones and Recorders. You can find that there are noises in storms other than thunder and wind blowing that we don't hear they're real low frequency and birds apparently can hear these fish are also some fish especially have scales along their side which allow them to pick up sounds and they have behaved peculiar behaviors when they hear various things so they want to want to Study their behavior to see how they might relate to earthquakes. Now. Let's see. The next question was on Lightning balls. Oh, yeah ball lightning is is a real mystery. I've been very interested in that for many years for many years people said that it didn't even exist but more and more very competent observers have gotten so they can see this thing now science has not been able to explain how this thing works. We've tried everything but we haven't come up with the right equations or concepts to do so yet. We're as a taxpayer you're spending millions of dollars trying to get what we call a stable plasma and these big Fusion generators and they can make them last for about order of microseconds to get Fusion going but here comes nature along and can make it what we call a stable plasma that will last Almost a minute in some cases. So There's no good explanation of the of the ball lightning but there's definitely there's sufficient evidence from lots of observers that it really does exist. And then finally asked about the Aurora Borealis and these are electrons coming into our atmosphere along magnetic lines of force. The Earth is a great big magnet its lines of force extend way out into space and then particles like electrons are ejected from the Sun. They get trapped on these lines of force into a spiraling around him and spiral into the Earth's atmosphere and if they're energetic enough to get low so they can ionize the air in the upper atmosphere and we see it then his light any relation between the sighting of aurora borealis and any weather changes, that's one My really been working on and it turns out that these spiraling electrons seem to be able and the spiraling protons also come in and many of our weather systems, you know start at about 50 degrees north latitude and after an aurora over the Northern Pacific there seems to be some correlation with a formulation of high cirrus clouds, which then eventually turn into a low pressure system which eventually develops and goes across the country. So the Aurora May determine where the low pressure system start very interesting 17 minutes before one o'clock more listeners with questions for physics Professor George Friar from the University of Minnesota on whether lure go ahead please you're next. Good afternoon gentlemen Professor fryer I have to Questions for you, the first being on long-term forecasting proverbial observational. Approaches to forecast for long term. I'm only aware of one proverb and that is a for instance if animals coats get heavy farmers will say it's going to be a really severe winter and I was wondering if you would first of all relate some other Proverbs that you might know of and in relation specifically to long-term forecasting. Okay. My second question would be this in relation to Modern scientific approaches to forecasting do they use any of the proverbial approaches? And if they don't would you feel that their effectiveness and accuracy would be improved by using those types of approaches and I'll hang up and listen to your responses to those questions, sir. Okay. Let me give you some more long-range weather Proverbs for instance besides the thickness of the fur If corn husks are on the corn is sick exceptionally thick. We expect a real hard winter if the cock Molt's before the hen will have Winter thick and thin if they hand Molt's before the cock will have winter hard as a rock or onion skins, very thin mild winter coming in onion skins thick and rough winners going to be real tough. And if there's feathers far down on the turkeys leg, we're going to have a hard winter. You may watch your breastbone of your turkey at Thanksgiving and if it's got a lot of red spots on it, it's going to be a hard winter. If there are no red on it. It's going to be a mild winter. None of these have I been able to give a cause and effect relationship between our two of his question was whether the National Weather Service Experts are the other meteorologist take any of these old Proverbs into account when they're thinking about their long range forecast. I don't think so. They their instruments will certainly tell them more about the weather then then the Proverbs will but a pursed just the way I used Proverbs and I think I can do a pretty good job when I'm out fishing or out camping and so on is just like the Proverbs is that one swallow does not the summer make one proverb does not the weather make you have to know a lot of Proverbs and you have no fair amount of meteorology. And if you put all the Proverbs together, they can tell you something about the pressure the temperature the relative humidity that wind directions and so on so you can put together a weather pattern from it and they can do that much better with instruments and I could with Proverbs. So I doubt whether the using somebody just brought in a book with a couple of Proverbs about October. Let me read these to you and get your reactions to them much rain in October much wind. December I've heard that I can't give you any comment on that except that one thing they find when they in studying long-range things as if we find that we have a Seasons tend to repeat themselves. That is if you have a cold fall you'll have a cold winter and things like that, but I can't put any all right. How about how about this one? Listen to this? There are always 21 Fine Days in October by cracky. They must be talking about Florida. Yeah, I think so. Okay and this one ties in a little bit with the one you were mentioning earlier about the birds when birds are fat in October expect a cold winter. Yeah. That's the same type of thing as the excess for honest on the squirrels or on other animals and so on. It's 13 minutes before one. Let's go back to some more listener. Since hey, you're on the air. Yes. I have two questions. One is a wondering if there's anything to the wives tale that the women who were very pregnant will go into labor at as a strong low pressure area approaches and my second unrelated question is what is an upper-level air disturbance and how is it different from just a good old low pressure or high pressure area? Okay about pregnant women going into labor. I course. I'm no doctor but we are very susceptible to pressure changes. I think and of course temperature also, but we're shielded pretty well from temperature variations by living in air conditioned buildings and so on but we still have to suffer through all the pressure changes. Now, there's a lot of problems for instance like never sell your hand on a rainy day. That's when the pressure is dropping don't We tend to feel more miserable and the pressure is dropping. So you might accept a lower price for your hand. Then you should yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you just can't make a good deal or on the converse of that is when the weather is fine or licked the platter clean and have a fair day that is you eat better and so on now, I think they're and animals are affected in the same way cats and dogs eating grass. It's going to rain now. The reason for that is they eat grass because they feel distressed in their stomachs and they eat the grass then to regurgitate so and they feel better as relieve themselves. That way now people definitely I get a lot of letters from people saying that there's especially some are much more sensitive to Falling pressure than others and there seems to be a good physical reason for it in that when the pressure is released. Rising and or as the pressure Rises and Falls. We have to change him out of are absorbing our body otherwise would explode or collapse this way. Now when we absorb air, it goes into the fluids of the body molecule by molecule and that doesn't seem to bother sand and on the other handle when the pressure Falls and we have to get rid of excess air in body fluids. It doesn't come out molecule by molecule laws in all physics. It has to nucleate lot of molecules have to get together and form little Bubbles and it's apparently these little bubbles. They must somehow get at the synapses and so on at the nerve Junctions and make us feel feel not so good. Your tooth will start to ache people's rheumatism complain Etc kind of cranky and that yeah, everybody is miserable this caller also want All what's the difference between a an upper-level disturbance and a regular old level low pressure center system an upper level disturbance. Is usually a big swing in the jet stream and the positions of our highs and lows as they move across the country are determined pretty much by whether the jet streams got a north to south swinger south to North swing and as to where the highs and low pressures will be and it but it takes a while for the jet stream to really set up the highs and lows on the ground. So I think what they're talking about is this jet stream is whipping around up there, but it hasn't really told us what's going to happen on the ground yet. All right, we have about eight or so minutes to go and we'll move along to some more listener questions how you're next. And I found very cold snowy. And contrary to the old dingy Fremont. I have found that if my woodpile is plenty and big to the snow. I will not have to dig if a wood pile is not big enough. No one would to be deep in tough. That's a good one. Yeah. I've never heard that one before there are weather Proverbs like that that says the snow is going to be as deep as the weeds are high. And of course that makes little sense because a drifts usually car caught in the weeds and they long as that. They're weeds are there it'll fill up until then but there are things like watched for where the Hornet's Nest is in the snow will be as deep as The Hornet's Nest, but I can't really comment explicitly on your wood pile one. That's that's an entertaining one though for sure. Thanks for calling with that from Brainerd. Go ahead please you're next. Oh, yeah, I was traveling in. Rural, Minnesota two Winters ago and it was very cold. It was maybe 10 degrees below zero and I saw a rainbow on either side of the Sun at say the positions of ten and two and I was just wondering why there was a rainbow when it was so cold like that. Those are not real usually called rainbows. Again. Those are ice phenomena crystals of ice and they're called Sundogs. These are what we call the sun dogs that sun light is refracted by ice crystals in the air when it gets very cold. There are many more ice crystals in the air. Of course, then there are four like a reading around the sun or moon and they make enough of a splash so that we can see all the resolve colors in them. Very interesting. Here's another listener with question. Go ahead. Dr. Fryer is listening. Hello. Dr. Fair. I was curious about if there's a reverse of color. in the sort of the reverse of rainbow in the sky under certain conditions I've heard there has been there are there is this phenomenon just curious if you could comment on yeah well I we were talking about that a little bit earlier now in the single rainbow there is a single reflection and you get the order of the colors that you get for that in the double rainbow there's a double reflection in the in the thing and if you just take your mirror to take something and look at it or band The Colors directly and then look at it in the mirror you will see that it's reflected now you take your two mirrors take two mirrors now and set them at right angles to each other so you see a double reflection and you'll see the colors reverse again every reflection reverses a colors in other words Another listener with a question. Go ahead. You're on the air. Yes. I have a question that or I actually bought three questions in one and it has to do with low pressure and high pressure cells. The question is this when we when we see on the on the weather, I'm television. We usually see like a low pressure cell for instance that just comes in somewhere it mysteriously appears off the west coast of the United States travels across the country and produces its its effect on weather and then disappears supposedly. Never to be seen again off the east coast. My question is this does do those pressure cells actually have a lifetime that may cause them to go around the world. Let's say and come back and two or three weeks and give us another weather system and a so how long do they typically live for if that's the proper term and then secondly in the the southern hemisphere do do these do the the air? Ocean around these cells are they opposite from what they are in the northern hemisphere? And the third question I have has to do with with something that I've noticed a number of years ago and has to do with the shift of it's not exactly weather-related but it has to do with what the motion of the earth and that is that the the shift of high noon. If you measure the the exact time between sunrise and sunset and you do this for a year's time, we find that the high noon measured that way ships vary considerably and I've never really been able to understand that if you could have an explanation for that, too at appreciate it. Thank you very much. I'll hang up and listen. It's tall order there. Yeah, let's see. What was number one again. Number one was do these these weather systems that way out of the life of yeah. Now the weather systems usually form what we call in a process called fronto Genesis and we have what we call pole early easterlies in a climatic sense, and we've you've probably heard We are in the path of the westerlies and the easterlies are cold air and the warm air warmer air is in the westerlies. And when these masses of air slide past each other at about 50 degrees north waves are set up much like on the surface of a lake. There's there's a wave motion set up between these two masses of air and chunks of air will then kind of break off and form a low pressure system and it sent down say like over at Kennedy United States and then these discs then these low pressure systems after they've hit us then they usually form over the Pacific goal crossed our country and then they kind of deposit themselves up in Iceland and we've got what we call an Icelandic. Which is more or less a permanent low up there. I don't think the meteorologists understand this phenomena to well that there is this Icelandic low there all the time. I imagine some people say they understand it but at least I don't understand it. Exactly now these don't go around the world around the world around they generate they do they're storming and then they dissipate again very much like water waves on the lake the water waves, you'll see them build up and then they died out and they'll build up and die out. It's more that kind of a fun on does the part to does the air circulate in the other direction in the southern. Oh, yes in the southern hemisphere very definitely everything is reversed it goes. Well it it's because the Southern and the reason for it is we say is the Coriolis force and that comes from the fact of the Once of rotation of the earth, if you say if you're looking down on the earth in the northern hemisphere, you see the motion from west to east and if you're looking from the southern hemisphere where you'd see that same direction again, but you'd see let's see in the north. You would see we going counterclockwise. I guess I should say it that way. If you were looking down on the Northern Hemisphere, you'd see counterclockwise rotation. If you were looking down from the southern hemisphere, you would see clockwise rotation. This reverses all the highs and low circulations. See how wonderful radio is. You have all these images right in your head. Just exactly as you speak them. Right? Let's take just a second for his last comment about High Noon varying from time to time depending on the sunset and sunrise. I'm not good sure what this question is driving at but the the noon and sunset thing changes because the Earth's not only is rotating. We're In an orbit about the Sun and that that that motion about the sun well with respect to the fixed Stars the Earth rotates 360 6 and 1/4 times per year with respect to the sun. It's 365 and 1/4 times per year and there's one day. One day difference between those two and that's gradually ironed out due to the added to the rotations. And and there we have kind of complicated. Unfortunately. We have to stop thank you, dr. Fryer. Dr. George fryer physics Professor from the University of Minnesota. Today's broadcast of midday made possible by Citibank citicorp providing Financial Services to the world since 1812. This is Bob Potter. No our forecast for the Twin Cities occasional periods of sunshine this afternoon, the high will be near 50. This is whether law from the National Weather Service. The low tonight will be 30 to 35.