Does bad weather alter how you feel ?

I love to walk in a soft rain, when clouds are gray and low, and always thought it had to do with the air being cleaner? Whenever I hear Elvis singing Kentucky Rain, I want to be there.

I don't know that particular song, but I do enjoy a bit of blue-grass.

There's a change in the levels of (negative,IIRC) ions in the air. That's what your body is responding to. Also, the ions that are generated glom onto dirt and pollution in the air and clean it - fresh air makes everyone feel better.

That's very much what I hear, but there are a couple of points that confuse me ; Ozone is poisonous, so why would high levels make anybody feel good - is it some distinction in the form of ozone ? It seems odd, in evolutionary terms, that people might evolve to enjoy a storm. Enjoying sunshine makes sense from the point of view of the body needing it to produce vitamin D. Perhaps it's just the excitement/adrenalin rush from all those sudden thunder cracks. Home ionizers to clear the air have the same effect. Also, a lot of people feel lousy in a storm and complain of headaches, it would be interesting to know if ionisers have a negative effect on them. Are there several factors ? possibly including ;

Less dust

Excitement from sudden flashes/noise

Reaction to ozone

Air pressure (?)

I'm running with the 3rd, on the basis that I get a frisson of excitement whenever near high voltage electrical gear. I don't think it's some personal perversion, though I do enjoy Frankenstein films !

It seems odd, in evolutionary terms, that people might evolve to enjoy a storm.

Lightning can produce fire ... which can be 'collected'.... maybe?

Or you can use it to produce stories of 'Angry Gods' to terrorise, subjugate and manipulate a gullible population...just like religion today (fancy saying that on a Sunday...I must go to confession and get absolved immediately )

Now look you've started me off...
All you God fearing folk out there It's all Kris' fault...he made me do it.

Del (oh, hush my mouth....)

storm = rain = life

storms excite wonder - wonder improves the capacity for dealing with stress and increases creativity.

negative ions and ozone are not the same thing, although they may both be created by the same event.

Interesting question, I love storms but ever pondered why before.

The late SJ Gould made the point that not everything has an direct evolutionary cause, sometimes it's just an effect of something else. So (and I'm just wildly guessing) storms make rain, lightning and ozone. The rain cools the air and lowers humidity which makes us more comfortable. But unless there is enough poisonous ozone to produce a selection pressure it's just coincidental that it's there and we feel good.

-a lot of people feel lousy in a storm and complain of headaches.

This phenomena is likely due to the change in air pressure acting on the sinus cavites.

I hate the dull dank dark drizzly days of dismal December.
A bit of sunshine really cheers me up.
I also do love a good thunderstorm...free firework show...I remember last year we had a long spell with no rain then a real torrential cloudburst...I'd just finished doing some guttering and put in a new waterbutt, so I went out in the rain and revelled in it. Then I had to go in and put my clothes back on .

It's the drama of it all dear... I mean a rainbow is sooo camp..but a good thunderstorm.

A good gale wakes people up...ever heard the expression 'got the wind in your tail' ?
Generally applied to cats.....

Mrs Cat reckons the junior school kids she used to teach would always be more exciteble when it was really windy. (You can do the 'is it windy...no it's Tuesday joke yourself )

Del

...Then I had to go in and put my clothes back on

Oh, I know the feeling well ; It's especially strong when answering the door to the postman, and a gust of wind blows the door shut. Running around the block to get in via the back fence is most invigorating !

Cats don't have adequate water-proofing for the rain. That's what we have dogs for - we need something to drag around in the rain. A very long poker stops them from waggling their rear end and spraying everyone. I'll be back later, I have to go and let the cat out of the kitchen fur-dryer. It just went 'ping', and I can detect that exciting 'burnt' smell, accompanied by some strange blue flashes.

Bad weather may chnge my plans but how I feel during bad weather is strictly a choice.

Hi,

there are many different reasons for sleeping all day long,

our cat is sleeping since very early in the morning (now 15hours) indicating bad weather coming!

My mother did feel any cold front coming from the north 12 hours before arrival: this is not the ion concentration mentioned above (that is working if the weather change is very near or the new air has become established). This is thought to be electromagnetic waves generated by cold and warm air that rub against each other in the moving system of low pressure. I feel the same in the effect of extreme tiredness around 4 hours in advance.

The effect is named "sferics", especially effective if the air is dry. First investigated by the Israeli to know better the effects of the hot winds (Shamun) coming from the deserts.

Next effects: the ions mentioned above by Bhankiil: any hitting and splitting of droplets or ice-crystals will generate charged droplets and on evaporation these are transformed to ions. This is superimposed onto the slow charge flux from the stratospheric potential (40 to 80KV) that is generated and replenished by the high rising clouds of thunderstorms. This is a very important dust removal mechanism from air.

The mechanisms of influencing human and animal behaviour is not really known, some speculation about influencing the triggering potentials of our nerves, may be ok.

So much for the short term mechanisms.

The long-term influences are others:

We have as ancestors people that lived in free air with regular light and sunshine.

So our very early ancestors had a black skin to prevent excess sunlight to reach our skin, not to protect against skin-cancer but to prevent excess vitamin D3 to be synthesized that is poisonous by setting too high calcium levels in our blood.

So the people wandering north-wards (100Kyears to 1Myears ago) slowly changed skin color to light brown near the 30th degree to "white" at 45 to 55 degrees. This is to gather as much as possible of the too dim sunlight in autumn to winter to spring.

People living in the north that do not have light skin rely on other input of D3 from their food (Inuit, Same).

Internal cancers (well documented for adenocarcinomas, speculated for other cancers) are much higher with low D3 than with high D3 level in our blood and cancer growth rate too is higher. This is a long term influence. May be not affecting colonising the north and south as the survival rate of the invaders was not important.

Then there is the expedition madness. This is mostly known from long lasting expeditions to the polar regions: After some weeks of living in limited space, with no natural light some members of the expedition went mad and destroyed necessary equipment and or killed other members.

Same effect was experienced as the first nuclear submarines could stay submerged for months. This was later shown to be triggered by the absence of ultraviolet light in the spectrum of ordinary incandescent tubes.

Thus the "True-Lite" tubes (expensive because long-life and quartz-glass tubes) came into use. These really prevent most effects of being tired and without positive drive in months with dim light. And in long term use these tubes prevent the expedition-madness.

So if you want to sleep: switch out the ultraviolet but not for longterm.

If you want to be wide awake: try to generate either positive or negative ions by putting 4 to 4.3KV on sharp points made from tungsten (commercially available as "ion generators). But be very careful not to charge any capacitors nearby with the very small ion current around these needles, this is really dangerous (high voltage high accumulated charge after some time!!!)

If you want to live healthy: go frequently to the outside and move to the region between +- 35degrees and settle at the seaside. Take some additional D3 but control for calcium level in blood.

(I would like to go immediately to the sea but no chance.)

Live with this and make the best of it and try to get a lot of sunshine and vit.D3.

RHABE

If a simple answer will do, Adrenalin fomLightning and thunder explains the alertness.

SAD in the darker months of winter (which also are when suicides peak) have been tracked to hormone changes. I believe the pineal gland is involved.

Ozone, ions, etc are often bantered about, but find someone with data that can show how lightning ten miles away puts ozone in your nostrils in a second or two of hearing the thunder.

milo

I do not have SAD, I have a different infliction: SDS. Supercell Deprivation Syndorome affects many storm chasers, storm spotters and other severe weather fans. From March to June, those with SDS will spend time poring over the Convective Outlooks from the Storm Prediction Center, output from the GFS, NAM, NGM, ECMWF and other models, and forecast threads on Stromtrack and other forums. Every time they see a cumulus cloud, they wonder if it will grow into a Cb or a TCu.

Actually SDS started as a joke on the website of Texas storm chaser Steve Miller, but many will testify that it is real. The only treatment is direct observation of a supercell with flanking line, rainfree base, anvil, mammatus, wall cloud and tornado. Alternate treatments include watching tornado videos on YouTube, or attending a Skywarn training session. No cure exists, or is desired.

O₃ may be toxic, but the quantities produced during a storm are small and quickly expend themselves oxidizing pollutants that irritate us. Besides, hot humid weather is annoying, particularly if you're living in the tropics like I am; stormy weather is cooling and pleasant to be in if you're indoors.

I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. There is a corresponding disorder "Weather Affective Disorder". An incoming storm can literally knock me unconscious.

Orpheuse

I don't think the weather gets me down, (she who must be obeyed confirms this!) I subscribe to the Big Yin's theory that theres no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing.

What does effect me is the shorter daylight hours in the winter months. Everybody I know agrees that I'm more grumpy even then normal! I personally don't see a difference. Gits.

I think the link between the quality and quantity of sunlight and personal happiness was proved definitively by Jimmy Buffett.

I remember working at a place which had plasma spray equipment. A few of us guys would sit in a booth and light up the equipment which would generate copious amounts of ozone. Right after that we would run out of the booth and huff on the local O2 bottle. To this day, nothing has compared to the rush. Lets just say I have an idea of what it feels like atop Mount Everest. Please, I do not recommend trying this unless four out of five dentist say it works. I think this might cause draim bramidge.

I dont know about anyone else, but I have very good eyesight and bright lights always give me headaches, so when its particularly sunny out I'm usually popping asprin left and right. Also, I dont tolerate temperatures over 70 degrees F very well, so the cooler the better. (40 below zero is no problem for me). As a result, I tend to be semi-nocturnal and enjoy fall and winter months. I dont know, I guess sunshine makes me more miserable.

Hi,

your situation is a good example that in living beings it is very often true:

we have a statistical truth that is told in the books and at the universities, this is most often derived from a statistical mean value,

but sometimes there is a very big departure from the mean values so:

the contrary of any "officially acknowledged" response to an excitation is true also (sometimes).

I know this from coffee in the evening.

RHABE

More typically storms produce good sleep...not only in human beings. Makes sense, too, from an evolutionary point of view.

There seems to be a lot of connections between atmospherics and physiology...so it's not just storms (and SAD is really not much more that a way for "experts" to claim expertise). Think of hibernation (in cold weather) and estivation (in hot weather). These effects of weather on human beings are no doubt seated deep within the most primitive parts of the brain. Which is probably why we (including physicians and such) have such difficulty making sense of them.