SHORT-TERM WEATHER FORECAST REFLECTED IN ROMANIAN FOLK AND SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATIONS

This paper attempts to collect and systematise the information, gathered by folklorists and ethnographers in the 19th-20th centuries, regarding the weather forecast made by the Romanian peasant, in order to emphasise, once more, his creative ability of analysis and synthesis and whose observations on the weather collected from ancient times have been confirmed by much later science. Thus, it has been found that similarities can be established between short-term weather forecast based on the scientific method focused on the observation and interpretation of meteorological values (air pressure, air humidity, nebulosity, wind direction and speed, optical, electric and acoustic phenomena) and the folk forecast, which involves observing the behaviour of humans, plants, animals, birds, reptiles, insects, peculiarities of the sky, working tools and other household items, thus highlighting the trueness of traditional folk observations. Therefore, long before the regional and national weather forecasting system, involving a large network of meteorological stations, specially trained employees, complex and expensive equipment, etc., the weather was forecasted by the Romanian peasant based on the information derived from personal and ancestral experience, his artisanal method often offering accurate results on the weather aspect in the near future, at least for the territory where he lives, comparable to the information obtained from the daily weather reports issued by the specialised institute.