The Folklore Our Grandparents Believed About November Might Have Some Truth

The ninth month of the year provides an opportunity to reflect and prepare before the chaos of the holiday season and the drudgery of the long winter. Although the winter solstice doesn’t technically happen until the end of December, the first of November has become the culturally accepted kick-off to the holidays. 

It’s also a time when people naturally become more in tune with our surroundings. It’s not difficult to see why. For centuries, people looked to the natural world for clues about what lay ahead. Our ancestors depended on visible markers, like November’s full Beaver Moon, the thickness of an animal’s coat, and the timing of a tree’s changing leaves, to predict what kind of winter they were in for. 

These early forms of pattern recognition were often crucial to survival, so people took these observations seriously. Should we be doing the same? Is there anything to their traditional wisdom? 

Short answer: it depends. Like most old wives’ tales, there is some nuance. In some cases, superstitions are just that. In others, they represent a kind of intergenerational folk wisdom that is too often dismissed nowadays.

You may have heard the saying “As November, so the following March.” Another variation states that the weather on St. Catherine’s Day (November 25) will predict the weather in February. This all seems to reflect some wider understanding that the conditions at the beginning of winter can  be predictive for the rest of the season. 

Perhaps this is sometimes true, but it doesn’t seem to be a hard-and-fast rule. Research in the area of climate science has found only a weak correlation, so if the snow comes early, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a cause for alarm.

Animal behavior, on the other hand, might be a valuable indicator of environmental change. Humans have always looked to other species for this type of information, and it’s true that animals respond instinctively to seasonal cues like temperature and food availability. 

Some superstitions have arisen, like the idea that unusually fat rabbits foretell an early winter. There is some truth to this one; rabbits feed heavily in the late fall when the harvest has been particularly plentiful. This suggests a rough winter ahead. Ditto for geese flying south early in November; if they’ve made the decision to migrate a few weeks earlier than they normally do, they’re likely responding to colder weather conditions in the north.

Atmospheric occurrences can reliably predict the harvest, too. You might have heard the phrase “Thunder in November indicates a fertile year to come.” It’s true that it is rare to hear thunder in November. When it does happen, it’s usually a sign of above-average precipitation, which benefits crops the following year. 

None of these snatches of old-timey wisdom are sufficient weather forecasts on their own, but they provide some insight into the reoccurring patterns of the world around us. More than that, they remind us to engage with nature with respect and reverence, attuned to the seasonal cycles the way our grandparents were.