When:
🗓️ July 29
Where:
Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, USA
Since:
1874
Caleb Ely was a farmer in Waynesburg born on July 29, 1829.
He liked to tell people that he was sure that he NEVER had a single birthday that was without rain.
When Caleb told the local pharmacist William Allison how every year his birthday was guaranteed to be rainy, William decided to put this seemingly tall tale to the test...
From 1874 on William Allison recorded the weather on July 29 in Waynesburg every year and would make a little ceremony about it on the Courthouse steps.
Many decades later the then rain-recorder John Daily would add the “hat bet” to this ceremony because he was so sure it would rain on July 29th that he would bet his hat on it!
In 1979, the Waynesburg Borough Special Events Commission was created to expand Rain Day to an actual annual street festival.
Since the recording began in 1874, the first sunny day occurred 47 years later in 1921.
Still to the date of 2020, the rainy days have been 115 out of 147 years.
From 2018 till 2020 there have been 3 sunny days in a row!
Will global warming finally dry up Waynesburg?
If it does, it will be recorded each and every year!
#RainDay #RainDayFestival