On Dormouse Day, people sweat in the east while it rains and thunders in the west and south. What does that mean for the next seven weeks, which according to the farmer’s rules should be similar? And is there anything to the dormouse myth at all? The ntv weather expert knows the answer.
Germany’s east is groaning again under the June heat, but in the west and south rain and thunderclouds are sweeping over the country. June 27th is also the day of the dormouse – according to farmer’s rules, it decides what the weather will be like in the next seven weeks. All humbug? Or is there something to the dormouse myth after all? And if the latter: can we hope for a summer, albeit a very hot one? Or will it end up being a typical Central European change of summer?
“The dormouse is one of the farmer’s rules that you can give a little something to,” says ntv weather expert Björn Alexander. But it is actually a longer period, from the end of June to around July 10th, when the weather conditions for the summer usually remain stable. “If then, for example, a high forms over Scandinavia, there is a good chance that the weather will also remain stable in summer.” In this case, Germany could expect a real high summer, possibly with hot days.
But is such a stable high already recognizable? No, says the weather expert. An Atlantic high will “put out its feelers” next weekend. But until then it will be a very changeable weather week, which will also bring storms in some places. “Conversely, this means that if an unstable situation arises, it will also last for a long time,” says Alexander. In this case, a changeable, partly rainy summer is likely to bloom – a well-known picture in Germany. But nothing has been decided yet.
The dormouse day itself is not particularly reliable for forecasts, but also cannot be completely dismissed, says Alexander. “The probability that the weather will remain the same in the coming weeks is 70 to 80 percent in southern Germany,” explains the weather expert. The hit rate is lower in the north, at around 60 percent.
By the way, the dormouse day does not owe its name to the dormouse, a cute rodent that hibernates for eight months. Rather, the name of the Seven Sleepers Day goes back to an old legend about seven sleeping brothers. The young men who were persecuted for their Christian faith are said to have fled to a cave near Ephesus in modern-day Turkey in 251 and were walled in there. After almost 200 years of sleep they are said to have been discovered alive. The Catholic day of remembrance for her is June 27 in Germany. The original date was shifted by a few days after the Gregorian calendar reform in 1582, so that Dormouse Day would actually only be on July 7th or 8th.
(This article was first published on Monday, June 27, 2022.)
