Wednesday 18 June 2014

michigan j. frog

I had often heard the phrase Wetterfrosch (Weather Frog) used as a segue to the weather forecast—I, however, assumed it was a gimmick, mascot or inside-joke and never imagined that term referred, at least figuratively, to an actual prognosticating frog.

Similar to the principle that the rise in temperature can be heard in the tempo of the chirping of crickets and locusts (though there is some scientific truth to this method), the frog was not the actual barometer, but it was the key part of a closed-environment, kept in a terrarium of a weather-station with a branch or ladder to scale and a supply of flies. People constructed these little biospheres in the belief that the flies responded in a predicable manner to up-coming changes in temperature and conditions waxing fair to rainy by either hovering higher or lower, and the resident frog would position itself accordingly to catch its prey. There is also a folk-belief that certain birds are also pretty good forecasters—for the keen-observer—by flying lower to the ground when the air pressure falls. The idea of harnessing the predictive powers of the Wetterfrosch (and all of Nature, by extension) may certainly have something to it but it does remind me of the Warner Brothers' cartoon character: the singing frog that can belt out rag-time numbers, but who proves quite taxing for the individual and his visions of fame who discovered this amazing creature, since the frog will only perform in front of him, alone. Ehi, Figaro! Son qua.