ABSTRACT
Knowledge about the weather gets distilled into folk sayings, or proverbs. "Red sky at night, shepherd's delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning". These sayings are heuristics – they give us fast and easy access to knowledge about the weather without having to run a massive computer simulation every time we see a beautiful red sunset. The most reported reason for being keen on the weather is an obsession and fascination with extremes. Hobbyists like records, particularly local, regional, and national extremes of temperature and rainfall. The British isles and other parts of Northern Europe fall within the broad temperate climate zone, with the more specific classification of temperature as oceanic, without a dry season, and warm but not hot summers. There is considerable evidence that humanity has been gradually changing the climate, particularly since the industrial revolution, and especially during the second half of the twentieth century.
