Merominia. An Investigation of Their Scientific Basis

Abstract

In this work, the ability of a long-range weather forecast via the folklore “Merominia” is investigated in detail. Merominia are called either the first twelve days of August or the days from the 14th to the 25th of August. According to local traditions and beliefs, by observing the weather of these days, someone can forecast the weather of a whole year, as the weather of each of these twelve days corresponds to the mean weather of a future month. For a scientific investigation of this belief, 42 year daily values mean temperature and precipitation were used for Ioannina and Thessaloniki. The values of these parameters during the above twelve days periods were correlated with the corresponding average values of the next 12 months or 30-day periods. Furthermore, it was investigated whether there is another 12-day period during the year, which could be used for a successful weather forecast for the next twelve 30-day periods. In all cases it was proved that the weather of a single day is not able to forecast the average weather conditions during a future month.