January is the coldest, because it is in the middle of winter, naturally. March in the windiest, probably because the seasons are changing, and hot air meets the cold.
But why is April the rainiest? What weather phenomenon accounts for this?
It’s nursury rhyme, not a meteorological forecast. Where I live it mostly rains in March, April, May and June, but that wouldn’t make a very good rhyme.
I think the old children’s rhyme just has a nice meter to it. I have just checked a couple of cities off the top of my head (Washington, D.C.; Kansas City, Kan.; and Ann Arbor, Mich.) and none have April as having peak annual rainfall.
The only rationale is that the flowers come in May, and showers rhymes with flowers, and April comes before May.
It may or may not be related to the nursery rhyme, but the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales begins with a similar idea.
Obviously an old English nursery rhyme isn’t going to be referring to the weather in Seattle or Kansas City, etc. Perhaps the weather in England is more predictably rainy in April.
There’s nothing in the nursery rhyme that indicates that April is the rainiest month, or that an abundance of rain is what is causing the mayflowers. It only states that rain encourages the flower growth.
The “poem” is a reminder that there’s a bigger picture and the unpleasantness of rainy days in one month leads to the joy of days filled with flowers in the next. Good things can come from bad. Simple as that.
If you think this poem is about meteorology, I’m afraid you’ve missed the point.
The idea may come from Thomas Tusser who in 1557 compiled a collection of writings he called Five Hundred Good Points of Husbandry. In it is this line:
“Sweet April showers, Do spring May flowers.”
I can barely read this book and I’m not sure if it’s because it’s in Ye Olde English or it’s full of typos from some sort of scanning to text process. The actual quote is “Sweete April showers, Doc spring Male flowers”. Here are the other months:
A kindly good Janiueere,
Freeseth pot by the feere.
D’oh, I didn’t even see that. It’s not really a poem though, although the way I posted it might appear that way. It’s a very confusing thing to read but the only relevant section is “Sweet April showers, Do spring May flowers.” I just went through the text and collected the other months to put some perspective on what he said about them too. I was mainly curious what he said about their weather and how accurate it was.
Here are summaries of the months he mentioned weather in those little blurbs.
April - showers that bring flowers in May
May - cold and windy (really? May?)
June - calm weather
August - dry and warm
September - gentle winds
October - stronger winds
November - bad wind or weather, unfit for sailing
I don’t really understand May, but I’d say that’s probably a fair but very very simplified and general summary of the months.