Feared by hobby gardeners: Ice Saints: When they are and what the farmer’s rule says

The Ice Saints are commemorative days on which a farmer’s rule predicts the weather. We’ll show you who the Ice Saints are and what weather you can expect.

At the beginning of May the temperatures in Central Europe are already relatively high again. However, the land mass is warming much faster than the oceans, leading to a strange weather phenomenon.

The temperature differences create low pressure areas that push cold air from the polar regions to us. If the sky is quite cloudless at night, this can even lead to frost.

Since this weather phenomenon repeats itself every year, several commemorative days have been developed from the farmers’ rule. The rule is: “Until Pankratius, Servatius and Boniface pass by, May is not safe from the cold.”

The Ice Saints take place at the same time every year. May 11th is the memorial day of Mamertus, the 12th of Pankratius, the 13th of Servatius, the 14th of Boniface, and the 15th of Sophia.

These are always bishops or martyrs from the 5th century. At this point the Julian calendar was also still used. According to today’s Gregorian calendar, the Ice Saints should take place around 10 days later, but the dates were left as they are.

The weather phenomenon is no longer quite as pronounced today. There are always a few days of ground frost in May, but not everywhere and not reliably to the ice saints. This is probably mainly because the Ice Saints were invented in a cold period and the climate has changed somewhat in the last 1,500 years.

On day three, several hundred emergency services are also looking for the missing Arian from the Bremervörde district of Elm. According to police, the six-year-old was reported missing by his parents on Monday evening. Since then there has been no trace. All news about searching in the live ticker.

Even elementary school causes a lot of trouble for children in Ludwigshafen. In the second largest city in Rhineland-Palatinate, 44 of 147 first graders will probably have to repeat the year. The case is making headlines across the country. Now the school director speaks out.