The Weatherstick

A weather stick is a traditional means of weather prediction used by some Native Americans. It consists of a balsam fir or birch rod mounted outdoors which twists upwards in low humidity and downwards in high-humidity environments. These sticks were first used by the Native Americans of the American north-east and the Canadian east and south-east, who noted the behaviour of dry branches prior to the arrival of weather changes. The weather stick is a rare example of a weather prediction tool which pre-dates the mercury barometer.

This was a present from Steve and, as you can see, it is predicting bad weather!