The possibility that supernatural influences may be at work is always a welcome prospect for the weatherperson who finds that, now and then, the elements do not behave as planned.
It was common enough in bygone times, by all accounts. There was a popular superstition that strange unnatural happenings preceded great events, and they were seen
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on.
Before Julius Caesar was assassinated, for example, some versions of the story have it that thunder and lightning lashed the city of Rome; gales were fierce, St Elmo's fire was seen, and there was even an eclipse of the sun.
Indeed it was even worse than that: "The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets".
Such was the mayhem that Casca decided
Either there is civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction.
And the fall of Richard II was also clear for all to see:
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth And lean-look'd prophets whis per fearful change.
Tomorrow night, however, other forces may be at work. Witches, as we know, are rife at Hallowe'en, and their meteorological talents are documented in authoritative detail in Malleus Maleficarum - "The Hammer of the Witches" - a magnum opus published in 1486 by two Dominican friars called Sprenger and Kramer.
It was compiled using a methodology little used nowadays in the scientific world: suspected witches were put to the rack, and careful note was made of any meteorological or other data they might divulge.
Witches, we are told, can raise hailstorms, conjure up tempests, and command the thunder and lightning with the merest wave of a magic broomstick.
In days gone by, indeed, they plied this trade commercially, selling favourable winds to sailors willing to part with the appropriate amount of silver.
On being paid, it seems, the witch would knit three magical knots in a length of string. When he untied the first knot, the buyer was assured of a strong favourable wind, with the second a good gale, and with the third a gentle breeze to bring him safely into harbour.
The 17th-century poet Michael Drayton describes the process in his poem Moon Calf; the witch, it seems,
. . . could sell winds to any one that would
Buy them for money, forcing them to hold
What time she listed, tie them in a thread
Which ever as the seafarer undid
They rose or scantled as his sails would drive
To the same port whereat he would arrive.