A weather house is a

folk art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative art, decorative. The makers of folk art a ...

device in the shape of a small German or Alpine chalet that indicates the

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloud cover, cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmo ...

. A typical weather house has two doors side by side. The left side has a girl or woman, the right side a boy or man. The female figure comes out of the house when the weather is sunny and dry, while the male (often carrying an umbrella) comes out to indicate

rain Rain is a form of precipitation where water drop (liquid), droplets that have condensation, condensed from Water vapor#In Earth's atmosphere, atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is res ...

Description

In fact, a weather house functions as a hygrometer embellished by folk art. The male and female figures ride on a balance bar, which is suspended by a piece of catgut or hair. The gut relaxes or shrinks based on the

humidity Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation (meteorology), precipitation, dew, or fog t ...

in the surrounding air, relaxing when the air is wet and tensing when the air is dry. This action swings one figure or the other out of the house depending on the humidity. Some variants function as a barometer: low pressure indicates bad (rainy) weather, high pressure good (sunny) weather.

History

The first written mention is in 1726, ''Theatrum Aerostaticum'' by Jacob Leupold, who describes a (hygrometer type) weather house he constructed many years before. An encyclopedia entry by 1735 (''Zedlersches Lexikon'') mentions weather houses as commonly available on markets.

Cultural background and influence

Weather houses are associated in the popular mind with

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, Germany or

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, and are often decorated in the style of a cuckoo clock. They are often sold as "typical German" souvenirs to travellers from other countries. Many weather houses also bear a small

thermometer A thermometer is a device that measures temperature (the hotness or coldness of an object) or temperature gradient (the rates of change of temperature in space). A thermometer has two important elements: (1) a temperature sensor (e.g. the bulb ...

on the part between the two doors that conceals the gut suspension, and many also contain a piggy bank. In contrast, the term "weather house" in the United States referred to buildings built by the U. S. Signal Service and then the U. S. Weather Bureau to house the instruments and Chief Weather Observers so that they could do their job. The National Weather Service, the successor to the U. S. Weather Bureau, now uses the term "shelter".Gonski, Ro
"Weather Instrument Shelter"
National Weather Service. Retrieved January 29, 2025. A one-act English comic opera called '' Weather or No'', about the male and female figures in a weather house falling in love, became popular when it was played as a companion piece to '' The Mikado'' in 1896-97. ''The Brollys'' is an animated television series about a boy who is magically transported every night into the weather house on the wall of his bedroom. Weather houses are mentioned in the novel '' Wintersmith'' by

Terry Pratchett Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English author, humorist, and Satire, satirist, best known for the ''Discworld'' series of 41 comic fantasy novels published between 1983 and 2015, and for the Apocalyp ...

References

Weather lore Meteorological instrumentation and equipment {{meteorology-stub