Those who believe in proverbs and superstitions will not be happy to know that the bad weather of today, April 4th, does not bode well for the weather situation of the next 40 days. In fact, there is a Neapolitan saying that reads “Quattro aprilante, giorni forty”.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
What does it mean? Simply that if it rains on April 4th it means that we will carry rain and bad weather for the next 40 days. Of course this is a popular saying, one of the most famous in the field of meteorology, but it has no scientific basis.
In fact, it is not well known where this belief comes from, even by consulting the data of theMeteorological Observatory of the University of Naples (which has existed since 1872) no confirmation was found with the reality of the facts. Or rather it is true that, statistically, if it rains on April 4th, the following two weeks could be equally rainy but nevertheless the 40 days mentioned in the saying are never reached.
There would therefore be a grain of truth: if the first days of April are rainy, the month could be more at risk of rain. In fact, statistics have shown that in 70% of cases, if it rains on April 3, 4 and 5, there are more than 15 days of bad weather until May 16.
It must be said, however, that the bad weather of the first days of April is considered positively in the Neapolitan proverb. In fact, it seems that the first 4 days of this month were formerly defined as "brillanti "(hence the variant of the saying:"four brilliant days forty”) Precisely because it is usually rainy and if this actually happened it was a good omen for the current year. So we have a good year ahead? (or is it only valid for the Neapolitans?).
There is also another proverb always linked to the rainfall in April: “When April thunders, a good sign for the barrel”. In fact, the farmers were sure that if it rained during this month they would get a good harvest. The concept of rain therefore returns as something positive.
How will the weather really be?
Only the best meteorologists (and sometimes they don't even take us anymore!) Know how things are really going to go. The fact is that in recent days our Peninsula has been affected by snow disturbances even at low altitudes. For this week the weather is clearly improving from North to South, with the arrival of the n ° 2 perturbation of the month which will be stationed in the Center South and on Sardinia.
Read also:
- Why do we like the smell of rain so much? You don't know it, but it has a specific name
- The life lessons we can learn from the rain
