Predicting Weather By The Moon - Xavier University Libraries

Looking Directly at
the Moon
Watch the phases of the Moon, because there are
weather patterns associated with each phase. By the Middle
Ages it was realised that there was no such thing as
moonlight; what we see is reflected sunlight. Of all the
moonlight that we see, it is still only a tenth of what actually
falls on the Moon And if you were on the Moon you
would see earthlight - reflected sunlight bounced off Earth.
The Moon’s phases are simply the changing angle that the
Moon makes as it is seen at different times between us
and the Sun.
Early in the third century BC, Aristarchus of Samos
accurately determined the distance of the Moon from Earth
by measuring Earth’s shadow on the Moon during a lunar
eclipse. But it was Galileo who, gazing through his telescopes
at an imperfect Moon, realised that real truths about
celestial bodies were within man’s reach.
Although there were a few inaccurate adages, like that
a Full Moon on a Saturday foretold bad weather, pointing
at one brought bad luck but getting married under one was
lucky, much ancient Moon-weather predicting was quite
sound. Two in one month was said to bring floods and one
at Christmas foretold a bad harvest. Shakespeare put little
trust in the matter when he wrote
167