Crazy Weather Patterns: Germany's Wet Weekends
April 3rd 2008 21:13
Do you ever get the feeling that it rains more on the weekends? Yes, you know what I’m talking about. You’re locked up in the office all week staring out at the beautiful, warm and sunny world that beckons outside just centimeters beyond the impenetrable glass barrier that is your window. It gets to about 4:30pm on a Friday afternoon and the sun’s shining, the sky is a clear brilliant blue and the beach is calling your name. Then the clouds start rolling in, marching toward you like a foreign invasion force, casting a shroud of darkness over your weekend’s plans.
So you look to the skies and ask the obvious question, “Why? Why now, of all times? Why does it always rain on the weekends?”
Well, if it’s any consolation, you’re not alone.
Many Germans also suspect that weekends have worse weather than weekdays. So many, in fact, that this common perception prompted a detailed analysis of Germany’s long-term weather patterns. And even more astonishingly, according to Der Spiegel, an analysis of 15 years of weather data from different parts of Germany may actual prove their suspicions true.
The study found that Wednesday – the middle of the working week – is statistically the hottest day and Saturday is statistically the coldest day of the week. It even rains more on Saturdays – 15 per cent more rain falls and it rains 10 per cent more often on Saturdays than on Mondays. There’s even more bad news in the sunlight department. On average, Tuesdays have 15 minutes more sun than Saturdays.
But is it all some kind of conspiracy, or could there be a scientific explanation for all that weekend cloud and rain?
A popular hypothesis from researchers is that man-made (primarily industrial) emissions during the working week accumulate toward the weekend, reflecting sunlight and helping to form clouds by providing nuclei for condensation.
Skeptics dismiss these kinds of studies as a combination of coincidence, statistical manipulation and creative guesswork. In light of our emerging understanding of the link between excessive greenhouse gas emissions and global climatic changes, however, perhaps this explanation is not so far-fetched.
So you look to the skies and ask the obvious question, “Why? Why now, of all times? Why does it always rain on the weekends?”
Well, if it’s any consolation, you’re not alone.
Many Germans also suspect that weekends have worse weather than weekdays. So many, in fact, that this common perception prompted a detailed analysis of Germany’s long-term weather patterns. And even more astonishingly, according to Der Spiegel, an analysis of 15 years of weather data from different parts of Germany may actual prove their suspicions true.
The study found that Wednesday – the middle of the working week – is statistically the hottest day and Saturday is statistically the coldest day of the week. It even rains more on Saturdays – 15 per cent more rain falls and it rains 10 per cent more often on Saturdays than on Mondays. There’s even more bad news in the sunlight department. On average, Tuesdays have 15 minutes more sun than Saturdays.
But is it all some kind of conspiracy, or could there be a scientific explanation for all that weekend cloud and rain?
A popular hypothesis from researchers is that man-made (primarily industrial) emissions during the working week accumulate toward the weekend, reflecting sunlight and helping to form clouds by providing nuclei for condensation.
Skeptics dismiss these kinds of studies as a combination of coincidence, statistical manipulation and creative guesswork. In light of our emerging understanding of the link between excessive greenhouse gas emissions and global climatic changes, however, perhaps this explanation is not so far-fetched.
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