Friday, October 23, 2009

The day of the god of the sky

Daniel Finkelstein was wondering about Tuesday’s recently, about why it was that because Hugh Gaitskell reported to the Labour Party conference on a Tuesday, Gordon Brown also spoke on a Tuesday.

About that time I was also wondering about Tuesday – in my case, about the weather. We had just had another awful one – so bad that the bridge was flooded when I was going home. Not too badly, but badly enough. Just as I was making my way gingerly across, up against the wall on the few inches of pavement which were not under water, I heard the young madman coming down the other side of the hill in front of me. I turned & tried to get back out of range, to no avail. Although I was several feet beyond the shore of the mini lake, his bow wave drenched me from head to foot. At least I had my back to him.

But a hedgehog hypothesis began to form. We know that the weather is different at weekends – something to do with people being at home rather than at work, pumping out their pollution in the suburbs rather than the city centre. But why Tuesdays? Something to do with a lagged adjustment to the fact that they all go back to heat up the city again on Monday morning?

Now I find that it is an official scientific fact – Tuesday is the wettest day of the week (in Manchester at least)


Link