WX-MAN's Musings

I have to give a hat tip to my good friend Dr. Rus Jeffrey for this nugget of information. 174 mils almost due south from where I used to live in Erie, PA is the town of Waynesburg, PA. This town in Southwestern Pennsylvania celebrates the fact that it receives rain about 82% of the time (110 out of 133 years) on July 29th and they call this day well Rain Day. Here is how this special day got started from the Waynesburg Rain Day Festival website:

Story by John Owen, Waynesburg’s Chairman Special Events Commission, (1979-2005)

Rain Day got its beginning in the Daly & Spraggs Drug Store, located in the center of Waynesburg. Legend has it that one day a farmer was in the drugstore and mentioned to Byron Daly that it would rain the next day, July 29. Mr. Daly asked him how he knew and he replied that it was his birthday and that it always rained on his birthday. He had a journal for several years in which he recorded the weather and always had noted rain on July 29th. Mr. Daly thought this was too sure a thing to let pass, so he started betting salesmen who came into his drugstore that it would rain in Waynesburg on July 29. The bet was usually a new hat, which of course he would win.

In later years, Byron Daly’s son, John, continued the tradition of wagering a hat on Rain Day. John was an attorney in Waynesburg, a very gentlemanly individual, who always tipped his hat to the ladies he passed on the street, and spoke with a kind soft voice. Although he had fun with Rain Day, he also took it very seriously. He liked the idea of keeping it as a local phenomenon.

John Daly was the Rain Day Prophet, who kept the tradition alive that was started by his father Byron, when he bet a hat that it would rain on Rain Day. In keeping up the night vigil (usually in a yellow slicker, hat & umbrella) sitting on the courthouse wall waiting for the first drop of rain to fall. He was almost always rewarded for his efforts and would give a gentle smile, put up his umbrella and head for home after the first drips fell.

John Daly had won hats from such notables as Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Johnny Carson, Cassius Clay and Arnold Palmer just to name a few. He also would bet local TV personalities from the Pittsburgh Area. In 1967, he bet Del Miller, who owned the Meadows Race Track in Washington, PA. That year, not only did Mr. Miller give John Daly a hat, he gave him a complete set of racing silks.

Click here for the rest of the story.

As of 4 p.m. EDT there hadn’t been any rain nor does it looks like it will happen. High pressure that brought some very nice weather to parts of the Ohio Valley and Eastern Great Lakes seems to make it rainless for the 24th time.

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