Forty days of rain in Prague? If St. Medard has anything to say about it, yes

If you’re a gardener or an avid reader of Čapek, you might already know about this Czech weather-predicting tradition—if you’re more accustomed to, say, Groundhog Day you could be left scratching your head this coming Monday.

St. Medard’s Day, which falls on June 8, is the feast day for Medardus, a French bishop said to have once been sheltered from the rain as a child by a protective eagle hovering over him. He is associated with weather and protecting those who work outside or in vineyards and breweries.

According to its findings, the most days of consecutive rain following a rainy St. Medard’s took place at the Churáňov meteorological station which saw rain on 35 days out of 40, making it the highest recorded rainfall from among selected stations.

In Prague, the maximum consecutive rainy days occurring across a period of three years observed by the institute, was 24 days with it raining just once on St. Medard’s Day.

Meteorologist Miloš Dvořák says of the phenomenon, often referred to as the European monsoon season: “In the spring and early summer, the air pressure drops over the rapidly warming land and over the colder ocean increases. And this imbalance must then gradually be offset by the ingress of colder and wetter air from the sea.”

Get out your umbrellas: rain showers are predicted for June 8 this year according to meteorologists, which means we could be looking at 40 straight days of rain starting Monday.