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Tuesday February 7, 2012: University of Guelph Lecture
"Fair Weather Cometh Out of the North": wind, rain and dour Scots
Speaker: Graeme Morton

It was not controversial for the Enlightenment thinkers David Hume and Adam Ferguson to argue that Europe's temperate climate was one reason behind that region's lead in the path of civilisation. Doubt, however, remained for their contemporary John Miller that the national characteristics of the Scots, the English and the Irish could be explained by weather patterns that, to him at least, seemed too similar to be of great influence. And while the seasonal changes in daylight and in wind, rain and sun, were associated with Scottish national characteristics ranging from a dour demeanour that matched the clouds above, the development of muscle and sinew from long summer evenings of athletic activity, or a heavy use of alcohol once the sun set early in winter, the nation's climate remained embedded in worldwide weather patterns. The weather of others affected our weather, yet contemporary Scots were at first sceptical that outsiders could offer insight into their national climate. For many, still the best guess to the seasonal changes the weather would bring for the farmer or seafarer was to follow rhymes and prognostics passed down through experience and the trained eye, to trust indigenous knowledge. Even after British national weather forecasts came to Scottish newspapers in 1862, the use of science to describe let alone predict the weather was not always adjudged an improvement upon local knowledge.

By noting that weather always comes 'second-hand' this talk explores the relationship between Scotland's earliest weather forecasts and the characteristics of these northern people.

Dr. Morton, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, is Chair of the Scottish Studies Foundation at the University of Guelph. He is a published author and an entertaining lecturer on all things Scottish. Dr. Morton delivered the GHS's 2011 Kirking address.

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