The Full Moon and the Weather in Folk Belief

 The moon has taken the blame for a lot of mysterious forces in folklore over the course of history. Men's nature is said to grow wild beneath the light of the full moon, that insanity increases, werewolves emerge. It is from this belief, in fact, that we're given the name lunatic. There are claims that the full moon increases pain, that it influences the cycle of reproduction and birth by increasing fertility.  But the moon isn't only used to rationalize the wild things humans do in the night. Much of our folklore centered on weather focuses on the moon and its power to affect the atmosphere. 

    Many of these beliefs are shared in the farmer's almanac or from sailors, and the focus is typically on predicting the weather based on the behavior of the moon. Much of the lore around the moon and it's effect centers on water, it bringing rain, or floods. Typically these predictions are based on specific phases of the moon, the most common being the new moon, which seventeenth-century English farmers looked to to determine coming rain fall, and the full moon, which can signal weather both terrible and benign. Much of the folklore about the full moon's behavior focuses on water and cold. It brings frost, or floods in many beliefs, though some, such as the "full moon eats clouds" attributed to sailors seems to imply it may circumvent storms from happening. In many of these the moon is presented as an active agent in causing the change. "The moon with a circle brings water in her beak," "a full moon in April brings frost," and many are specific to when the moon occurs in the calendar year or month. Rare occurrences such as two full moons in a month are positioned as increasing dangerous weather, and the moon shifting phases to new or full-on certain days of the week is blamed for bringing bad weather, according to Norfolk folk belief.  The moon being a measure of weather makes sense in many regards; it is one of the most stable elements of the natural world in the way it moves through its phases so consistently and looms so large it can't be ignored. One can easily see how farmers, so dependent about the natural world behaving, might want to treat it as a meteorological clock, or sailors, left alone with it and nothing but the black ocean and night, might come to depend upon it and see it as an ally eating up storms before they can happen, and warning them when they cannot. But it is also distant and mysterious enough, and cold in its largeness on a winter's night,  that we can never know its true intentions, and may fear, sometimes, that it intends to do us ill.  Past that, science has backed that the moon does indeed have an effect on the weather. Scientists have found that a few days before the quarter moon there is an increase in rain fall . The quarter moon, isn't as popular in folk belief as the full or the new. Perhaps because the half-way point isn't as interesting or eye-catching as the beginning or the ending. However, since it falls directly between the two, either can be conveniently blamed.