We could be in for 40 days of rain if folklore is to be believed.
Today is St Swithins’ Day, and legend has it, if it rains today it won’t stop for the foreseeable.
In popular belief, if it rains on St. Swithin’s Day, it will rain for 40 days, but if it is fair, 40 days of fair weather will follow.
St Swithin was bishop of Winchester from 852 to 862. At his request he was buried in the churchyard, where rain and the steps of passersby might fall on his grave.
According to legend, after his body was moved inside the cathedral on July 15, 971, a great storm ensued.
The first textual evidence for the weather prophecy appears to have come from a 13th- or 14th-century entry in a manuscript at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
But Alan O’Reilly from Carlow Weather says there’s little proof of the story ever coming true!
