Bad weather

“ CHAPTER
16 In the morning it was raining. A fog had come over the mountains from the sea. You could not see the tops of the mountains. The plateau was dull and gloomy, and the shapes of the trees and the houses were changed. I walked out beyond the town to look at the weather. The bad weather was coming over the mountains from the sea.
The flags in the square hung wet from the white poles and the banners were wet and hung damp against the front of the houses, and in between the steady drizzle the rain came down and drove every one under the arcades and made pools of water in the square, and the streets wet and dark and deserted; ”

“ For the man sound in body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every sky has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously. ”

“ There are three things specially to be dreaded on the mountains as beyond human control and occasionally beyond human foresight: bad weather, falling stones, steep grass slopes, with herbage, either short or dry, or long and wet and frozen. I do not think it possible for any one who has not felt it to have any idea what very bad weather means in high places, even in places by no means of the highest ”

“ During the entire day this breeze increased, with frequent squalls and a gloomy, lowering sky, and the wiseacres amongst us prognosticated bad weather. Of course it is always safest to prophesy bad weather at sea, because you naturally make up your mind that it is coming and prepare yourself for any emergency ”

“ Another weather type, often noted during our winter in the central and eastern United States, and strongly contrasted with both of the preceding conditions, is that which brings us a warm, damp, southerly wind, frequently accompanied by heavy rains. As these damp winds blow over snow-covered surfaces they become foggy and the ground is said to “smoke”; the heavy rain rapidly melts the snow; slush and mud make bad walking; rivers and brooks rise rapidly, perhaps overflowing their banks; low-lying places become filled with standing water. ”

“ But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand. ”

“ But in the city where the painted stucco blisters under the smoky sun, and the sooty rain brings slush and mud, and the snow lies piled in dirty heaps, and the chill blasts whistle down dingy streets and shriek round flaring gas lit corners, no face of Nature charms us. Weather in towns is like a skylark in a counting-house—­out of place and in the way. ”

“ In winter, in summer, and in the rains, at all times alike, these masses of weak, ill-clad human beings are left exposed to all the inclemencies of the wind and weather, and suffer and contract diseases which not rarely result in death. ”

“ Our observation of the influence of climate is mostly with regard to physical infirmities. We know the effect of damp weather upon rheumatics, and of the east wind upon gouty subjects, but too little allowance is made for the influence of weather upon the spirits and the conduct of men. We know that a long period of gloomy weather leads to suicides, and we observe that long-continued clouds and rain beget "crossness" and ill-temper, and we are all familiar with the universal exhilaration of sunshine and clear air upon any company of men and women. ”

“ If one can not openly anathematize his neighbor, he may damn the weather; faint, indeed, is its praise. With a bright sun shining, a purple haze on the hills, the thermometer at 4850°, and the atmosphere exhilarating as champagne, still the lament will arise that we are not enveloped with a blanket of snow. Just the day for a walk, when one may start out dry-shod to inhale the stimulating air and bask in voluptuous sunlight! But the fickle weather-vane suddenly veers, and north wind and snow are exchanged for south wind and balm ”

“ WEATHER SALUTATIONS
To any one intent on some definite employment out-of-doors, such as fishing, sketching, botanising, geological mapping, or any pursuit where quiet air is necessary, nothing can be more exasperating than a struggle against the ceaseless driving of the blast. Mere heavy rain, if it fall straight, can be endured, for it allows one to stand, to turn round, and if an umbrella be used, to consult a map or guide-book. With a furious wind, however, you can do nothing but
Grow sick, and damn the climate—like a lord. ”

“ Yet with this dry heat sunstroke is never experienced, and the diseases of the bowels usually accompanying hot weather elsewhere are unknown. The experienced traveller who encounters unpleasant weather, heat that he does not expect, cold that he did not provide for, or dust that deprives him of his last atom of good-humor, and is told that it is "exceptional," knows exactly what that word means. ”

“ In calm Weather, during Summer, the contrary Event happens: but more particularly in hot Climates. For the Country being hotter than the Town; a Depression of the Atmosphere takes Place, and scatters the Smoke on all Sides round the Town. ”

“ A slight fall (that is, to the left) causes anxiety as to coming rain, and a big depression forebodes much rain or a violent storm of wind. In either case of “fall,” the shutters come over the eyes of the observer. Next, even before breakfast, a move is made to the self-registering thermometer (set the night before) on a stone, a couple of feet above the grass. A good reading, above the freezing-point in winter and much above it in summer, indicates the absence of killing rimes, that are generally followed by rain. ”

“ By the very poor snow is regarded as among the most terrible calamities of life. Many types of countrymen, rural publicans, postmen, outdoor labourers, and small traders, speak of snow as the worst of all possible weather, leaving the most serious after-effects. And snow means calamity to many wild things. Lucky are the robins of a garden who have a friend to stir the old hot-bed, and turn up the worms from beneath the frozen top-soil; happy the grain-feeding birds who find a rick that has been threshed. ”

“ For my own part I consider the general run of cloudy and wet weather to be a blessing of Providence. Hot weather would have caused us to have died with thirst; and probably being so constantly covered with rain or sea protected us from that dreadful calamity. ”

“ From the 15th to the 19th the weather was of the same nature,—constant gales of wind in our faces, snow-storms, and heavy drift; against which we struggled, helped by a rising temperature, that we flattered ourselves would end in summer,—a mistake for which we afterwards suffered bitterly, the men having, from the ease with which they kept themselves warm, become careless of their clothing, and heedless of those precautions against frost-bite which a winter's experience had taught them. ”

“ We now know that the forceful, dominating peoples come out of the regions where the heat is not so great as to debilitate, nor the cold so fierce as to deaden the mental and the physical faculties; but rather from the region of the thoroughfare of the great circum-polar storm tracks, where there are frequent changes of weather from sunshine to clouds, and where there is a fairly wide difference in temperature between night and day and between winter and summer. ”

“ A poor, rugged, miserable country; the trees like so many mops of wiry composition, and where the soil is not rocky it is boggy up to a man's waist." The weather is most frequently described under the appellations of rains, fogs, hurricanes. The drawings were made on board ship, with all its uneasy movements, and the cold was sometimes so intense as to render holding the pencil a difficult task. ”

“ It may be generally observed here too in our own Climate, that the most unhealthful Times are after warm Rains, and the more if the Air is then agitated but little with Winds.
249
FROM a cold and moist Air, we have little complained of, as to their occasioning these Diseases, unless such a Constitution sets in immediately upon a contrary Extream; for all sudden Changes of Weather are more or less unhealthful, as well as in other Respects of living ”

“ Our people lost courage daily after this ill success, the weather continuing thick and blustering, with increase of cold, winter drawing on, which took from them all hope of amendment, settling an assurance of worse weather to grow upon us every day. ”

“ For the purpose of avoiding this pernicious and universal influence of cold, the clothing and bed-covers should be rather warmer in those months, in middle and northern latitudes, than is agreeable, and fires should be made every morning and evening in common sitting rooms, and during the whole day, when the weather is damp or cool. ”

“ The panes streamed with rain, and the short street he looked down into lay wet and empty, as if swept clear suddenly by a great flood. It was a very trying day, choked in raw fog to begin with, and now drowned in cold rain. The flickering, blurred flames of gas-lamps seemed to be dissolving in a watery atmosphere. And the lofty pretensions of a mankind oppressed by the miserable indignities of the weather appeared as a colossal and hopeless vanity deserving of scorn, wonder, and compassion. ”

“ It would be considered by the inhabitants of a milder climate, as a great evil, to be exposed to the weather at this rigorous season of the year, but these people are inured to it, and it is necessary to describe in some measure the hardships which they undergo without a murmur, in order to convey a general notion of them. ”

“ When the rain ceases, the heat returns; the weather is very muggy, the skin is irritated by the excessive perspiration, and many suffer more than during the hot season. When the rain is abundant and frequent, the suffering is much less than when there is little rain and much sun. There is one comfort at that time: we know we are going on to the cold weather, which will make amends for all that went before.
I can hardly conceive any country to have a finer [Pg 44] climate than that of the North-West Provinces of India in the cold months. ”

“ It is in the rain’s mouth. In the left-hand side of the depression the wind will back right round from south through east to north and northwest. In the rear of the depression on the left-hand side the wind blows from the northeast and then north, when the clouds begin to break and the weather to clear. When the depression has nearly passed away the wind in the rear draws round to the northwest, and gradually abates, and the weather becomes fine. Hence the saying:
Do business with men when the wind is in the northwest. ”

“ I have written you an unconscionably long letter, but it has hardly ever stopped raining now for more than an hour or so at a time for two days and nights, and we are enveloped in thick mist, and there is nothing to do but read and write. The weather gets worse and worse, that is the rain gets more incessant. Everything is saturated with moisture, and my blankets seem quite wet when I get into them at night. ”

“ But when the Air grows thick by Degrees, and the Sun, Moon, and Stars shine dimmer and dimmer, then it is like to rain six Hours usually.
RAIN is, properly speaking, a Multitude of small watery Drops, falling from the upper Air at different Seasons. When the upper Regions become cold of a sudden, the watery Clouds are condensed and fall in hasty Showers. ”

“ In fact, it is only necessary to observe the effects which have followed the recent wet weather to recognise the fact that rain has a forcing power, the very diminished supply of which at the due season cannot fail to have seriously injurious effects. ”

“ When in the morning the dew is heavy and remains long on the grass, when the fog in the valleys is slowly dissipated and lingers on the hill-side, when the clouds seem to be taking a higher place, and when a few loose cirro-strati float gently along, serene weather may confidently be expected for the greater part of that day.
Fig. 5.—Anticyclone Prognostics.
These all refer to night radiation, mist being dispersed by the sun’s rays. Fine, light, genial weather raises the spirits and exerts an enlivening influence not only on human beings but also on animals, birds, insects, &c. ”

“ As for instance; if the air is too much impregnated with cold, moist, damp particles between the chilling showers of hazy weather, the body (particularly of invalids and valetudinarians) is much more disposed to, and susceptible of, morbidity, than in a more temperate and settled state of the atmosphere. ”

“ We were almost perpetually wrapt in thick fogs, beaten with showers of rain, sleet, hail, and snow, the temperature of the air being constantly about the point of congelation in the height of summer; surrounded by innumerable islands of ice against which we daily ran the risk of being shipwrecked, and forced to live upon salt provisions, which concurred with the cold and wet to infect the mass of our blood. ”

“ We had hoped that the tempest would have cooled the air a little, but it is clear we are to be cooked. All done up. No energy left hardly. The animals are all under what little shade there is; poor things, they feel the weather greatly. ”

“ Now, though it appears in hot weather and cold, in dry and wet, it may still depend on certain conditions of the weather, just as a person will sometimes take a cough in a warm moist day, and again in a dry east wind; and just, in fact, as we see a fog, which depends on atmospheric changes, produced under different circumstances. The brisk air of the country often gives town-people a head-cold, and country people sometimes suffer in the same way when they visit town. ”

“ That is to say, it is liable to bring every variety of weather, from the delicious, dreamy Indian summer days that linger late in the fall, to a combination of rain, hail, snow, sleet,—in short, atmospheric conditions sufficiently aggravating to develop a suicidal mania in any one the least susceptible to such influences. ”