Is there any scientific basis for the expression "under the weather"?
414258
Some scientists believe that the weather affects humans much more than we realise in much the same way as it does animals. We already know about S.A.D. ( Seasonal affected disorder) which makes a sufferer feel depressed when not receiving enough sunlight which helps the body to produce vitamin D. Symptoms include lethargy , lack of appetite and generally feeling low and disinterested. Some people are particularly susceptible to magnetism and static caused by storms and suffer from a wide range of symptoms such as feeling nervous and jumpy before a storm and headaches and nausea.\nThis expression has been around for a number of years so I imagine that because people lived closer to nature years ago they had a greater understanding of this phenomenon and that's probably where the saying emerged.
836667
Here goes- take your pick:\n\n1.It comes from mythology. Witches, who often took the form of their familiars - cats, are supposed to have ridden the wind. Dogs and wolves were attendants to Odin, the god of storms and sailors associated them with rain. Well, some evidence would be nice. There doesn't appear to be any to support this notion.\n\n\n2.Cats and dogs were supposed to be washed from roofs during heavy weather. This is a widely repeated tale. It got a lease of life with the message "Life in the 1500s", which began circulating on the Internet in 1999. Here's the relevant part of that:\n\nI'll describe their houses a little. You've heard of thatch roofs, well that's all they were. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. They were the only place for the little animals to get warm. So all the pets; dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs, all lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery so sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Thus the saying, "it's raining cats and dogs."\n\nThis is nonsense of course. It hardly needs debunking, but, lest there be any doubt... \n\nDogs lived in thatched roofs? No, of course they didn't. Even accepting that mad idea, for them to have slipped off when it rained they would have needed to be on the outside - hardly the place an animal would head for to shelter from bad weather.\n\n\n3.The phrase is supposed to have originated in England in the 17th century when city streets were filthy and heavy rain would occasionally carry along dead animals. \n\nThe idea that seeing dead cats and dogs floating by in storms would cause people to coin this phrase is just about believable. People may not have actually thought the animals had come from the sky, but might have made up the phrase to suit the occasion. \n\n\n4.Another suggestion is that it comes from a version of the French word, catadoupe, meaning waterfall. \n\nWell, again. No evidence. If the phrase were 'raining cats' or if there also existed a French word, dogadoupe we might be going somewhere with this one. As there isn't let's pass this by.
853193
well, I can speak for "cold"  \n\nIt comes from the root of the word, which is actually "cold condition."\n\nOne catches a "cold condition" rather than "catches cold condition"
630328
A lot of Science and Maths goes behind such predictions. Data collected from satellites, weather balloons, planes and land based instruments is analysed for numerical patterns. These patterns are then processed and compared with findings of a particular time span when a certain amount of known rainfall occurred. In the end a forecast is issued.\n\nNowadays, the job is done by Super Computers but there still remains a large room for errors.
43641
It depends buddy - if it is a rainy day things are not going to be exactly as scientific!
184033
theres a whole bunch of conspiracy theorys on this if you search around.  I found this one article though that was kind of interesting http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WEATHER/05/27/bugs.weather/index.html\n\nif we can use microbes to make medicine why not control the weather with them... really both concepts are pretty crazy but the medicine one is already done.
723049
The Earth is, approximately, covered under water;  (approximately 3/4ths of its \n            surface). \n            The Sun and moon --- having Attracting Power on our Planet, while our Planet \n            --- making the terrific speed of 1,037 1/3 miles on its way around the Sun. \n            The Sun draws this water up into the Earth's rotation, which is called \n            gravitation, in a fine mist that the naked eye can hardly detect.  But as this \n            mist ascends higher , and increasing with other mists of water in different \n            currents of the atmosphere, until when she becomes heavier than gravitation. \n            Then she distills back to the Earth in the form of drops of water or drops of ice, \n            which depends on how heavy the mist was, in the current of the air it was in. \n            There are some layers or currents of air --- real cold and warm, and some very \n            swift and changeable.  So when the water strikes one of these cold currents, it \n            becomes solid ice in small, round drops in form or in a light, fluffy form which is \n            called snow.  But this water is not ever drawn above six miles from the Earth's \n            surface by the Sun and moon.  The reason it rains back on our planet is \n            because it cannot get out of the earth's sphere.  With its high speed of rotating \n            around the Sun --- makes it impossible. \n            Earthquakes are caused by the Son of man by experimenting on high \n            explosion.  In fact, that all the above is caused by the Son of man.
920554
That would be a cold (or at least cool), dry mass of air that originated over a large region of land near the north pole.  (Not over an ocean, unless it was the Arctic Ocean, which is covered by ice.)
1017010
It is more complicated than that.  So I'll just explain it all.  \n    What Makes Weather: "Weather" is caused by uneven heating of the earth's surface. Warm air is lighter than cold air, so it rises. Rising air would create a vacuum, but nature won't permit that, so surrounding air rushes in to fill the void that rising air is trying to create. The result is "wind". Also, its the warm air, rising air in one area, and the cold, descending air in a different area that creates differences in air pressure, i.e. barometric pressure, and at any given spot in the world this pressure is constantly changing. We humans seem a bit out of tune with barometric pressure changes, as they don't seem to affect us as much, at least outwardly. Do these pressure changes affect other land animals? Probably so. Some of this we can maybe document, but a lot of this is still open to further study. Most anglers agree that fish react considerably to changes in air pressure. Why? To understand the answer to that question, we should think of the "air" above as pushing down on a lake or river because of the air's weight. We now know that the weight of that air is constantly changing through air pressure changes. One key to why fish are so affected by air pressure changes is that when air pushes on the water there's no place for it to go, or at least there's very little water compression. Further, when air compresses down against a body of water, the pressure in the water itself is more (water pressure) than the difference than the air pressure has experienced because air will compress so much more. The "standard" for barometric pressure is 29.92 inches of mercury at sea level. This means "standard" air pressure will hold up 29.92 inches of mercury (if it's inverted just so). If air pressure increases, i.e. there's more weight on it, the pressure goes up, maybe to 29.99, 30.13, something like that. If air pressure goes down, there's less weight pressing down on it, so the numbers might read 29.85, 29.79, something like that. The thing to remember is that while you might imagine these fluctuation to be small (maybe because we can't feel them), fish like bass do feel these changes, perhaps dramatically because the air above is pressing down on the water where they live and the changes in the water pressure are much more dramatic than in the air.\n\nHow Pressure Affect Bass: Sorry for that lengthy explanation, but maybe this is the first time you've been able to better understand what barometric pressure is, as well as why fish are maybe more affected by these changes in their watery environment. One of the reasons bass are so challenging is that they seem more influenced by environmental changes like barometric pressure. These atmospheric pressure changes affect shallow water bass more than they do the deeper dwellers. It is thought that fish are able to monitor pressure changes via their swim bladder. We can assume that when barometric pressure goes up (higher), bass feel increased pressure on their swim bladder. The swim bladder might even compress. Does this make them feel lethargic, uncomfortable, less inclined to feed? Might high pressure even affect their equilibrium or sense of balance? Probably so on all counts, or at least that's what many people are theorizing at this moment. Recall how a bass reacts when it is kept out of the water longer than it normally take to release it? They turn on their side when you turn them loose. One plausible reason this might occur is that by being out of the watery environment for a while, their swim bladder expands considerably, fouling up their equilibrium. It probably takes a bass quite a long time to recover from this. Same deal with a marked air pressure change (up or down) which in turn affects the pressure in the water.\n\nHow To Check Your Local Pressure: What about the barometers you keep in your house? Are
935828
Water deep under ground is essentially at a constant temperature year round.  If it is at, say, 9 C, it will be colder that warm summer day of 30 C, and warmer than a cold winter night of -10 C.\nSo, it is not that water than change temperature, it is the perception based on the fact the weather changes.
253562
Got to be honest. I became more and more confused about a topic that I used to understand so well with that first response. Although a lot of that is facts, it is overcomplicated at some parts and tough to get a hold on what is actually being described. No disrespect to rizzo though, I realise that everything he wrote is correct so he knows what he's talking about, I just think it would be hard for anyone else to.\n\nMaybe this description will be slightly less dizzying:\n\nAll heat is from the sun. Most of what comes from the sun is short-wave radiation, from 400nm down. Air is not heated very much from the sun, but the ground is. This is because the ground can absorb the short-wave incoming radiation, air cannot (well, only a little bit). The air is mostly heated by the longer-wave radiation that comes from the ground when it gets heated up, which heats the water molecules in the air (that's why humid regions get hotter than dry regions). \n\n*Note: Extremely dry air can be heated too, but that requires continuous exposer to sunlight. As soon as the sun is gone, it gets cold fast. Also it gets colder faster with altitude in dry regions.*\n\nAnyways. Up high, on top of being farther away from the ground, there is also less water molecules to absorb heat (and less molecules total to be heated up at all. So it absorbs less radiation. That is why it is colder. Simple. \n\nNo "adiabatic" mumbo jumbo. But adiabatic cooling is also simple. When air rises, the pressure on it decreases and it expands. The heat will be spread out over more volume, so the air will cool. This is the more complicated reason why the farther away from the ground you get, the colder the air is.\n\nAlso, there is something called an inversion. In this case, the air actually gets hotter as you go up. This happens when a warm air mass is forced up over a denser cold air mass because it is lighter. When this happens, the air is stable (it won't rise). This can result in people getting to choke on their own pollution for a couple of days because the crap they spew up in the air won't rise anymore. It's poetic.
1051740
Another thing to remember about fronts are that.... not all "cold fronts" have cooler air behind it.  Sometimes, its nothing more than drier air.\nSame goes for warm fronts.  Could just be a surge of moisture.... displayed as a warm front.\nAnother common misconception about fronts is "thunderstorms, and severe weather only happen at COLD FRONTS."\nNOT TRUE.  Warm fronts are a common trigger of storms, as they are a source of lift..... though not as much as you would see with a cold front.\nThen again, that's not to say.... that severe weather will always occur at at either.  Thermodynamics, and upper-air conditions play the big role in it all.  In fact, not ALL fronts (be them cold or warm) are associated with precipitation.\n\n\nHope this helps.\nTake care...\nWeather_Wise911
605807
Yes,it is a fact that it is cold at the poles where it practically snows all the time,but in the US temperatures don't drop that low.\nPeople say that-"it is too cold to snow" , because in this case the temperature is too low(for our geographical positioning) to "hold" water in the air which prevents it from snowing.\nHope that my answer has been useful!
770959
some days were sunny.  \nsome days were cold\nsome days were hot\nsome days were rainy
1106348
"There are basically four elements of weather that can help describe weather. The four elements include  wind, temperature, air pressure and moisture." (From the ref.) These may seem an arbitrary choice until you realize that they are all easily measurable and independent of each other, whereas dew point and cloud cover can be said to derive from humidity, temperature and pressure.
78286
"It's raining cats and dogs" \nHowever, this one does have a meaning:\n\nBack in the olden days, the roofs were covered in hay, and the cats, dogs, and other animals would sleep in the hay to keep warm. Now, when it rained, they hay would become slippery, causing the animals (mostly cats and dogs) to fall of the roof. Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs"
295086
http://www.weather.gov/