Like most people on the northern hemisphere these days, Hungarians are big time guessing whether we will have a white Christmas or not this year. Of course, we have a special way to predict the weather for the end of the year. Here is how:
In Hungary, winter festivities used to commence in November, on Saint Catherine’s Day (25 November).
In the folk calendar this was the first day of winter. This day is mostly associated with prohibitions on women working and with predictions for the weather, the best known among them being the idiomatic forecast:
Ha Katalin kopog, karácsony locsog.
meaning: “Frosty Catherine is followed by mild Christmas.”
The idiom says that if it is freezing on Catherine’s day then the Christmas will be warm, over 0 °C and rainy.
In turn: “Ha Katalin locsog, karácsony kopog.” = “Mild Catherine is followed by frosty Christmas.” If it is mild, rainy on Catherine’s day then we can expect freezing temperatures around Christmas.
So, if Catherine got it right this year, we can expect a frosty, maybe white Christmas in 2019. We’ll see 🙂
