St Swithins Day - Rain or Shine for 40 days???

Britain's short-term meteorological future hangs in the balance today, and it's all down to a modest bishop and some over-enthusiastic monks. Some of you may well be familiar with the weather lore associated with this day:
St Swithin’s Day, if it does rain
Full forty days, it will remain
St Swithin’s Day, if it be fair
For forty days, t’will rain no more.

St Swithin, an Anglo Saxon Bishop of Winchester, died in 862. Legend says that as he lay on his deathbed he asked to be buried in a churchyard "where the rain would fall on him and the feet of ordinary men could pass over him." His wishes were followed for nine years but then the monks of Winchester felt it wasn't a fitting resting place and decided to move his remains to a shrine in Winchester Cathedral on the 15th July 971. Legend has it that torrential rains poured down on that day and every one after for the following 40 days and 40 nights. Believing that it was St Swithin showing his displeasure by weeping in despair, the monks decided against moving his remains. Hence the rhyme.

Basically this myth states that if it rains on St Swithin’s Day it will rain for the next 40 days, or if it is fine it will be fine for the next 40 days - well, I wish we could all be that certain in our forecasts! But according to the Meteorological Office this is untrue. They have tested the myth on 55 occasions and each time 40 days of similar weather did not follow. Despite having dismissed this just now as ‘rubbish’ there is quite an interesting story behind the legend.

To mark St Swithin's Day, I thought I would let you know about some other international weather wisdom with such gems as

• "snow is due when the cat washes behind both ears"
• Killing a spider will make it rain the next day.
• When you see that the ants are excited and coming out at unusual hours to do their work, it means that it is going to rain.
• If ant hills are high in July, winter will be snowy.
• Worms plug the entrances to their holes when it gets cold.
• If the day starts cloudy, once there is a patch of clear blue sky big enough to make a sailor a pair of trousers, the weather will improve (I have heard that one before!)
• If you sneeze three times within a few seconds, the next day will be sunny.