NPR Explains How Cats Predict The Weather

NPR exceeded all of our expectations for a National Public anything this week when they uncovered an ancient tome originally commissioned by the US Government that explains how cats predict the weather. Small talk with strangers is about to get a billion times more interesting.

Weather Proverbs was written in 1883 by one H.H.C. Dunwoody, and what it lacks in possible scientific accuracy it more than makes up for in creativity and cuteness.

Dunwoody was commissioned by the U.S. Army Signal Service to write a guidebook to predicting weather for a longer period of time than the “frequently not longer than twenty-four hours” typically covered by the “ablest meteorologists” of 1883. Apparently Dunwoody didn’t have a very high opinion of ye olde weathermen, but he was super stoked on cats.

Here are some of Dunwoody’s government-approved theories on how cats predict the weather, from a list compiled by Time.

• When cats sneeze it is a sign of rain.
• The cardinal point to which a cat turns and washes her face after rain shows the directing from which the wind will blow.
• When cats are snoring foul weather follows.
• It is a sign of rain if the cat washes her head behind her ear.
• When cats lie on their head with mouth turned up [on their back] expect a storm.
• When a cat washes her face with her back to the fire expect a thaw in winter.

Some of HHC Dunwoody’s non-cat claims? Lamps burn less brightly before a rainstorm and thin onion skins foreshadow a mild winter.

Alth0ugh it’s likely that all basis for Dunwoody’s beliefs was purely anecdotal, I’m not too stoked on modern-day weathermen (or weather) either, so it seems harmless to implement his theories a little bit and suck whatever joy we can from this thick-onion winter.

Following Weather Proverbs‘ second wind, I think it’s obvious that the TODAY show now needs to have a segment in which Al Roker tries to engage with and analyze a cat.

Since NPR also seems invested in Dunwoody’s theories, maybe This American Life could just be replaced with Ira Glass telling us what cats are up to, because few things seem more American to me than a cat-book commissioned by the Army.

(Jezebel via NPR, images via jamiev_03)

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