Perhaps, among contemporaries it is impossible to find a person who would never have heard of Epiphany frosts. According to the calendar, they coincide with January 19 - the Orthodox holiday of the Epiphany, which is equal in value to Easter and is considered one of the most important and oldest.
Traditions and Signs
Moreover, believers, despite a sharp and significant cooling, accompany the festivities with mass bathing in the consecrated Jordanian ice holes.
This atmospheric phenomenon has spawned many folk signs. According to the observations of ancestors, the thaw, fog and hoarfrost at Epiphany were interpreted as favorable signs of a crop of bread and peas, and when it snows in Epiphany frosts in the winter, it was believed that buckwheat will also freak. They also believed that if frosts at Epiphany are much stronger than Christmas ones and last all week, then after them they will surely be replaced by a week of thaw, and then again there will be frosts, even more severe, but already last this winter.
Causes and effects
From a scientific point of view, the term "Epiphany frosts" is questioned, because, according to many years of observations by meteorologists, cooling does not always fall on January 19. Sometimes frosty weather is set much earlier than the indicated date, and sometimes much later. These terms have a significant โbacklashโ of up to two weeks.
But still, most people believe that this cooling is connected with Baptism. This is clearly a psychological factor. Several cases were recorded when the thaw began on the appointed date, and
the temperature decreased much later. But people all the same claimed that in the courtyard baptismal frosts rage. It is easier for the population to blame everything on mysticism, since the townsfolk crave to see the inexplicable and mysterious where it is often absent. This weather phenomenon is tied to a religious concept, which had long been firmly assimilated.
Hydrometeorologists are authorized to declare
Scientists who have reliable information about the average annual temperature statistics provide a completely scientific explanation for this atmospheric phenomenon. The fact is that in most of Eurasia, the weather in the second half of January is determined by the Asian anticyclone, which dominates for a period of two weeks and leads to a sharp drop in temperature.
It is impossible to say unequivocally when the cold takes off in winter with full force, from a scientific point of view there is no lowering of the temperature, which falls precisely on January 19th. Moreover, if the weather rages a little earlier, starting on January 13, then people say that this year Epiphany frosts are early, and if after 25 they say that they are late this year. Science does not support such a popular notion, because in connection with the variability of the movement of air mass flows in the Earthโs atmosphere, which generates turbulence, the weather is positioned as a random process. Therefore, any forecast is possible only with a small degree of probability. Neither the decrease in temperature, nor the duration of the frosty period can be the same in different years. The spread is more than a week.
What frosts after Epiphany?
So, these weather vagaries are a purely psychological and artificially created folk reference to an outstanding religious date, since they are far from the only ones. Indeed, in addition to the above, there are Christmas, and Timofeevsky, and Nikopol, and Sretensky frosts. Moreover, religious holidays and weather events may not coincide also because between the well-known winter celebrations, such as Christmas, Epiphany, Timothy, there is approximately the same time period of 2 weeks. And cyclones and anticyclones run amok only a week, because it is precisely these atmospheric phenomena, and not the date on the calendar, that indicate the time of a decrease in temperature. Here they are - Epiphany frosts!