Weather lore has scientific basis

(Part 2)

By Sosimo Ma. Pablico

THE old folks also often cited the reaction of plants to the weather in predicting a wet or dry year. They use these indicators in planning the farm activities.

According to them, the wet season begins when the fruits of psychic nut or jatropha (tawwa-tawwa), bangkal (bulala), sineguelas, bignay and duhat start to shed. They noted that fruits ripen or rot faster when the rainy season has set in.

They also claimed that some plants, like the bamboo and karut or buga (a wild root crop with some economic value), develop buds, shoots or flowers before bad weather. Likewise, they are sure that bad weather is approaching when moss grows abundantly along rivers.

The old folks also mentioned the unusual behavior of animals as excellent predictors. They are sure that the wet season is about to start when armies of ants start to move to new sites or when cicadas start to produce an incessant humming sound.

The researchers pointed out that ants and insects are very adept at monitoring atmospheric conditions, as their survival depends on it. Odors are more intense than usual when rain develops because the density of the air drops. Ants can easily more sources of food by sampling odors from the air through their antennae that contain their organ of smell.

Dragonflies fly low due to a drop in air pressure, causing the air to become heavier, making them difficult to fly at higher altitude. Apparently, the high humidity affects their wings, which become soggy.

Cicadas chirp incessantly with the coming of rain because they can’t vibrate their wings when the humidity is high. They may be noisy to regulate their body temperature to produce energy in order that they can fly. Crickets start chirping earlier and longer in the evening. Some insects cannot fly unless their bodies can reach a desired temperature.

Also, the heron and blue-tailed bee eater (piriwpiw) move to the mountains in groups when the rainy season sets in. The most obvious and, perhaps, the most important advantage of migration is that it secures a better climate for the birds. It has been found that birds show changes in behavior when a weather front approaches.

Moreover, birds can detect infrasonic frequencies, at least as low as 0.05 hertz, the researchers said. Infrasound (like wind blowing through distant mountains or sound of breaking waves at the shorelines) can travel many hundreds, even thousands of kilometers, thus allowing birds to move to remote locations. This is because sounds travel farther in moist air and the sound of rain orecedes the actual rain.

Honeybees can also perceive moisture in the air.

On the other hand, some birds make mournful sounds or seem to be crying in trees. These are the lesser caucal (kakok), plaintive cuckoo (pitopit), white-collared kingfisher (salaksak), largve-billed crow (uwak), and slay-breasted rail (sibeg). The sounds they make announce their emotional state or mood, discharge their nervous energy, and provide emotional release, according to scientific literature.

Some birds may sing from a sense of well being. The plaintive cuckoo utters its call late in the day during cloudy and rainy days. The notes resemble the syllables ‘pee-to-peet’ repeated five or six times.

After the rain the white-collared kingfisher can be seen perching on sand, rock and stones, broken poles that were once fish corals and other places where they in a good position to catch fiddler crabs, fish or shrimp.

Dogs, on the other hand, excrete in the middle of the road or on high ground before a storm or an incoming rain. An authority on dogs said that scents are of great interest to dogs because they may be used to proclaim ownership of an area or they leave a message about the source of the waste.

By this behavior, dogs, particularly those allowed to run loose, make sure their dung or marker will not be washed away. The markers show that a certain dog ‘owns’ the territory, the researchers said.

Dogs are much more keenly alert to odors and sounds. In fact, hearing is an acute sense among dogs. They can detect frequencies up to 35,000 vibrations per second. Because sound travels farther in moist air, and dogs can probably hear or smell the coming rain, they can detect far sooner than humans the changes in the air and many times become restless with the coming of rain.

Frogs croak near swampy areas because the air is more humid and this allows them to stay in those areas. Because frogs have a good sense of smell, they often locate ponds miles away. In fair weather, odors of ponds and ditches are refreshed by descending high air pressure associated with bad weather, which produces updrafts that allow these odors to escape.

Most of the people interviewed by Galacgac and Balisacan were between ages 60 and 70 years old. They mentioned 66 aspects of weather lore that predict the onset of rainy season and adverse weather conditions.

(Readers may reach columnist at spablico@yahoo.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/harvest-time/ For reactions to this column, click “Send MESSAGES, OPINIONS, COMMENTS” on default page.)

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