How did the ancient people in China predict the weather?

In the absence of scientific instruments, the working people in ancient China mastered many laws about weather changes by observing the sky for a long time and predicting the weather changes with wisdom.

In China's ancient books, there are records that specifically forecast the weather, such as: "Before it snows, it often rains first." That is, "if it rains and snows, gather together first." In the Han Dynasty's Jiao's Yilin, it was said: "The ants seal the cave households, and the heavy rain is coming." It is recorded in "On Han Heng's Essays": "There is frost early and light late." That is, "there will be more frost in the morning and more stars at night." In the fourth volume of Qi Yao Min's Book in the late Wei Dynasty, it was also written: "It's rainy and sunny, the north wind is cold, and the night will be frosty." If it's just a sunny day after rain, if you see the cold north wind coming, then there must be frost that night.

With the accumulation of weather experience of working people in ancient China, there are more and more proverbs about the weather, and specialized books are also integrated. In the Tang Dynasty, among the ancient folk books about weather experience in China, the most famous one was Xiang written by Huang Zifa. This book collects most weather proverbs before the Tang Dynasty. As the book says, "When black or red clouds appear in the sky, it will hail." This experience is still an important basis for judging hail clouds until now. With the continuous development of agriculture in China, people have more and more experience in observing the weather. People change the original weather proverb into short verse to express it, which is convenient for memory and application. Tian Wu Jia Xing in Yuan Dynasty is a book dedicated to collecting weather experience, which concentrated a large number of popular rhymes at that time. As soon as the book was published, it was snapped up by people, especially in rural areas, which made it a household name and passed down from generation to generation. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Xu Guangqi wrote "The Complete Book of Agriculture Administration, Zhan Hou", which further sorted out and supplemented the weather experience of Tian Wu Jia Xing, deleted a lot of superstitious sayings, and played a certain role in correcting and purifying the weather proverbs at that time.

During the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, there were also works on marine weather forecast in China. For example, there was a weather proverb about the ocean in the book "An Examination of the East and the West". For example, "when the dark clouds see the sun, the fish will fall"; "The clouds are popular, and the wind and rain turn to hours"; "See you later when the rainbow breaks, and the sky will change; If the rainbow is broken, it will hang early, and the wind will not be afraid. "

In ancient China, there was also a book called Gu Yun Atlas, which painted clouds in various weather. There is an explanation for this cloud. First, explain the characteristics of this cloud, and then explain when and how strong the storm or other bad weather will come when this cloud appears.

The working people in ancient China made a very valuable exploration of weather observation. Today, many proverbs to predict the weather are still popular and used all over the world, and combined with modern scientific and technological means, we can predict the weather changes more accurately.