Rainy Pentecost 2024: Century-Old Calendar Predicts Weather

The spring weather has been quite eventful thus far. Surprisingly, in the merry month of May, a storm accompanied by heavy rain seems to be brewing. Does this spell the cancellation of Pentecost 2024? Perhaps it's time to consult the weather forecast according to the century-old calendar.

This year, Pentecost 2024 falls relatively early on May 19th (Whitsun Sunday) and May 20th (Whitsun Monday). For comparison, last year Pentecost Sunday was on May 28, 2023, while in 2025, the public holidays are on June 8th and 9th.

The "Central Calendar" presents a specific weather outlook for Pentecost 2024. According to the 100-year calendar, it foresees a "typical April." The weather forecast for May 2024 indicates a mix of conditions in the first half, with predominantly warm weather, as stated on the website 100-jaehriger-kalender.com. Towards the end of May, temperatures are expected to cool down, with occasional frosty spells.

However, the centenary calendar doesn't cover the extended Pentecost weekend in May. The period from May 4th to 15th, 2024, is described as "already warmer," with varied weather, including rain and occasional thunderstorms. Nonetheless, the forecast suggests a "frosty cold" morning on May 24th.

According to the 100-year calendar's prediction, the extended Pentecost weekend precedes the described frosty phase. If one puts faith in these records, there's hope for warmer weather, albeit with occasional rain and thunderstorms.

But caution is warranted! According to the German Weather Service (DWD), while the predictions of the 100-year calendar may occasionally align with reality, such coincidences are merely happenstance and lack scientific justification. Meteorologists regard these forecasts as of limited utility. Nevertheless, many find these weather predictions based on the century-old calendar intriguing, along with the tale of their origins.

Abbot Moritz Knauer meticulously documented the weather in the Langheim monastery near Lichtenfels (Upper Franconia) for seven years, from 1652 to 1652. Erroneously, Knauer believed that weather patterns repeated in a fixed seven-year cycle due to the influence of the then-known "planets" - the Sun, Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury.

Based on this notion, the abbot devised daily "forecasts" within a seven-year cycle to aid farmers in the region and the monastery's agriculture with sowing and harvesting. The refined "Calendarium" was published around 1720 under the title "Hundred-Year Calendar."

Regarding Corpus Christi weather according to the "Centenary Calendar," while it remains somewhat vague about Pentecost, the forecast for May 30th is "Frosty and cold all day." This might offer some solace to those in federal states where Corpus Christi isn't a public holiday, such as Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland, and parts of Saxony-Anhalt and Hesse. By the way, summer isn't too far off.