WEIRD FACTS ABOUT
WEATHER
In the UK the weather forecast 'It'll be much the same as yesterday' is right three days out of four.
According to Petronius, writing in AD65: 'No living man has the right to cut his nails or hair on a ship; that is, unless the wind is blowing a hurricane.'
If there is a hurricane at sea, however, an observation by Charles Darwin may help establish its cause. In 1831, he recorded that the sailors on HMS Beagle believed that strong winds were caused by someone on shore keeping a cat shut up. Since there are, at any moment, about 2,000 thunderstorms going on somewhere on earth, those who shut cats up may have a good deal to answer for.
Research published in 1990 showed that most violent crime rates increase in hot weather, while property crimes are unaffected.
Useful weather verb: to driffle, which means 'to rain fitfully or in sparse drops'.
Britain's worst ever storm was on 26 November 1703, when high winds and torrential rain killed an estimated eight thousand people in southern England.
'When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather' - Samuel Johnson (1758).
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