It's official: It rains more at weekends

Everyone complains that it's always raining at weekends, and scientists in Karlsruhe have now proved this phenomenon to be true. They found that, no matter where in Germany you are, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are the coldest, cloudiest, wettest and least-sunny days. The best days to be out and about are Monday and Tuesday.

Researchers from the Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research at Karlsruhe University analysed weather records from twelve weather stations spread throughout Germany, from Helgoland and Rostock in the north to Zugspitze and Constance in the south. They found differences throughout the week in variables such as temperature, daily temperature range, sunshine duration, cloud amount, precipitation, and precipitation frequency. The main differences are as follows:

• Temperature: Average temperatures are highest on Wednesdays and lowest on Saturdays. The difference is 0.2 degrees C.
• Precipitation: Monday is the driest day of the week. Saturday is the wettest day of the week with 8 percent more rain than the seven-day average.
• Cloud cover: Tuesday sees the least cloud cover and Saturday the most. Tuesdays have, on average, 15 minutes more sunshine than Saturdays.

Worse still, this tendency is stronger in the summer than in the winter.

The researchers believe that this phenomenon must be linked to human activity. "How is the weather to know that it's Wednesday today?", asks one of the researchers. It is thought that there is an anthropogenic weekly emission cycle: as fumes and particulates build up during the course of the week, they have an impact on the weather. With emissions substantially lower at weekends, the weather improves on Sundays and is at its best early in the week, before emissions start to build up again. However, the researchers do not believe that local pollution effects or local heat emissions can fully explain these weekly periodicities. Their conclusion is that "the anthropogenic weekly emission cycle and the subsequent aerosol cycle interact with the atmospheric dynamics on a larger scale which leads to a forcing of a naturally existing 7-day period among the spectrum of atmospheric periods."

The irony is that if we suddenly all took our "weekend" on Monday and Tuesday in order to enjoy the better weather, emission patterns would change accordingly and the weather would soon catch up with us. For now, the best bet for avoiding weather like that in the picture is to call in sick on Tuesday - and hope that not too many other people are doing the same.

• Spiegel Online article - in German, includes graphs
• Research paper (abstract)

Originally posted by tom_a, but I thought it warranted its own thread.

I knew it, I knew it!!

Gives you a good reason to stay home and stay cozy and do indoor activities.

...like cleaning, you mean?

No, I mean activities which increase the endorphin production in the body.

Ah, sit-ups. Now I understand.

Incidentally, I think this post bears repeating:

oh you mean 'playing' the stock market.

It's just God's way of telling us sinners to go to church, innit.

The stock market is closed on the weekends, you can only trade oil on the Dubai Exchange on Saturdays or trade currencies late night Sunday.

This was proven many years ago and I was taught it at university in the 90's.