Saint Swithins Day Calendar (2025-2040)
| Year | Date | Day | Days Left |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | July 15 | Wed | 102 days |
| 2027 | July 15 | Thu | 467 days |
| 2028 | July 15 | Sat | 833 days |
| 2029 | July 15 | Sun | 1198 days |
| 2030 | July 15 | Mon | 1563 days |
| 2031 | July 15 | Tue | 1928 days |
| 2032 | July 15 | Thu | 2294 days |
| 2033 | July 15 | Fri | 2659 days |
| 2034 | July 15 | Sat | 3024 days |
| 2035 | July 15 | Sun | 3389 days |
| 2036 | July 15 | Tue | 3755 days |
| 2037 | July 15 | Wed | 4120 days |
| 2038 | July 15 | Thu | 4485 days |
| 2039 | July 15 | Fri | 4850 days |
| 2040 | July 15 | Sun | 5216 days |
St. Swithin’s Day lands on July 15, and for one odd little corner of English tradition it acts like a weather “switch.” If that date turns out wet, the old saying claims the sky will keep up the same mood for forty days. If it’s bright, expect a long dry spell. Simple, catchy, and slightly daft (in a lovable way).
Date
Always July 15 on the calendar.
Place Link
Best known around Winchester and southern England.
The Saying
One day’s weather “sets” the next 40 days.
| What It Is | A midsummer tradition tied to rainfall and local memory. |
| Who It’s About | St Swithun, a 9th-century Bishop of Winchester (often spelled “Swithin”). |
| Why July 15 | The date later linked to the moving of his remains into the cathedral in 971. |
| What People Do With It | Mostly: notice the sky, have a chat about it, and quietly hope for nice weather. |
What It Is
The tradition boils down to a quick question: what’s the weather doing on July 15? If it’s raining, people repeat the classic claim—forty days more of the same. If it’s fair, then settled skies should stick around. It isn’t a formal holiday for most households. It’s more like a familiar line you hear in passing, the sort of thing someone says while looking out the kitchen window.
There’s a practical reason it lasted: midsummer weather in the UK can flip fast, and a neat rule helps the brain file the chaos away. Not magic. Just habit. Still, the name St Swithun keeps turning up whenever July feels a bit unsettled.
Where The Saying Came From
St Swithun served as Bishop of Winchester in the 9th century, and tradition says he asked for an outdoor burial so that rain could fall on his grave. Later stories connect July 15, 971 with the moving of his remains into the cathedral—followed, in the legend, by a long stretch of wet weather. Is that exactly how it happened? The tidy version came later, shaped by retelling (and retelling again).
If July 15 is wet, expect the pattern to hang on; if it’s bright, you might get a long run of dry days.
The rhyme version exists too, and it’s been around in some form for centuries. What’s fun is how far the reference travels: even The Simpsons slipped a mention into a 1994–95 season opener. That’s the thing with quirky traditions—once a line is catchy, it wanders. Quietly. Everywhere.
What The Weather Data Shows
Here’s the awkward bit for the forty-day promise: modern records don’t back up runs of 40 straight wet days (or 40 straight dry ones) right after July 15. The UK’s national weather service has pointed out that, in records going back to 1861, that perfect streak simply hasn’t happened. So if you’ve ever felt the proverb “worked,” chances are you noticed a spell of similar weather—then your memory did the rest. Happens to all of us.
Even a back-of-the-napkin probability check makes the point. Suppose a July day has a 40% chance of being “wet” (meaning measurable rain). The odds of forty wet days in a row would be 0.4 raised to the 40th power—about one in 8 quadrillion. Wildly unlikely. And yes, “wet” can mean anything from a brief spit of rain to a proper downpour, which is part of why the saying feels slippery in real life.
July Averages Near Winchester
To keep it grounded, here are long-term July averages from a nearby southern Hampshire climate station area (Solent). It’s not “Winchester city centre” exactly, but it gives a realistic feel for the region’s midsummer baseline—warm afternoons, some rain days, and a decent amount of sunshine.
| July Metric (1991–2020) | Typical Value |
|---|---|
| Average daily maximum | 22.28°C |
| Average daily minimum | 12.38°C |
| Total rainfall | 53.67 mm |
| Days with ≥1 mm rain | 8.51 days |
| Sunshine total | 218.56 hours |
| Mean wind at 10 m | 11.36 kn |
Notice the scale: around 8–9 rain days in a typical July, not forty. That doesn’t mean July is “dry,” it just means the rain is often patchy—a shower here, a drizzly morning there, then sun again. Tricky, that’s July.
A Recent Real-World Example
Modern Julys also swing around more than people expect. For instance, the UK’s July 2025 ended up as the fifth warmest July in the national series that runs from 1884, with a UK mean temperature of 16.8°C. Rainfall for the month totalled 74.2 mm across the UK (about 90% of the long-term July average), and sunshine came in above the long-term mark too at 183.4 hours (106%). A warm month, but not uniformly dry—more like bursts of heavy rain mixed with fine spells. Classic.
Why People Still Bring It Up
Because it’s a good line. Because everyone talks about the weather in July. And because mid-July sits right in the middle of school breaks, travel plans, garden hopes, and those days when the house feels muggy even with the windows open. St. Swithin’s Day becomes a conversational shortcut—a shared reference that lets people say “looks like one of those summers” without spelling it out.
There’s also the timing. Around mid-July, the atmosphere can settle into a pattern for a while, then break, then settle again. So you can get a run of similar days and think, “Well, there you go.” Memory loves patterns, even when the sky doesn’t. It’s like a weather mood ring—one glance, one story, and suddenly the day feels loaded with meaning.
And yes, people still mention it with a straight face, especially when it’s spitting and everyone’s debating whether it counts as rain. (It always counts when you’ve just washed the car. Always.)
How To Read The Day Without Overthinking It
If you want to play along, treat July 15 as a day for noticing, not predicting. Start with the simplest signal: is there measurable rain, or is it just that annoying mist that makes your glasses spotty? Write it down if you like (phone notes are fine), then watch what happens over the next few weeks. Sometimes the pattern holds for a bit. Then it doesn’t. That’s normal.
- If clouds sit low and grey all morning, it often feels like a “stuck” day—the sort that turns into drizzle by lunchtime.
- If the air feels warm but heavy, keep an eye out for short sharp showers later (that “it might kick off” feeling).
- If you get bright sun early and a steady breeze, the day can stay decent even if forecasts look a bit dodgy.
- If you use a weather app, look at the pressure trend, not just the icon—rising often hints at calmer spells.
One small detail that helps: many climate summaries define a “rain day” as at least 1 mm in 24 hours. That’s not a puddle-maker every time, but it’s real precipitation. So when you hear “it rained,” you can quietly ask, “Rained how?” Not out loud though—don’t be that person at the barbecue.
Small Details That Make The Tradition Feel Real
St. Swithin’s Day sticks best when you connect it to place. Winchester is the name that keeps showing up because the saint is tied to the cathedral there, and the story of the burial and later moving of remains lives in that setting. Walkable streets, old stone, the kind of city where you can imagine someone centuries ago muttering about drip lines from the roof and calling it a sign. Oddly believable, even if you don’t buy the forecast part.
It also helps that the saying is easy to test. You don’t need special gear, you don’t need to be “into” weather. Just look out. And listen: people still use words like “chucking it down” or “it’s only a bit of drizzle,” and those phrases carry more detail than a simple rain icon. Local language does that. Sneaky, but handy.
If you end up remembering one thing, make it this: St. Swithin’s Day is best treated as a prompt to pay attention, not a promise. Look up, take the day as it comes, and if the weather turns out different next week—well, fair play. That’s July for you.