December 3, 2008 Rain Abu Dhabi

It rained again today. Heavily. Unlike the last time that I played with the raindrops, I’ve been extra cautious this time. It’s too early to get colds and flu again. Especially not now, that I’m few days away from my vacation. I am no longer amazed with the change in weather in the Gulf. It’s been winter since November. It’s getting tolerably cold to really cold. But I’m sure it’s not gonna get freaking cold as I have experienced the weather pattern since late part of January.

I find the frequent (relatively called that way for a Gulf resident) raining good and bad. It’s good for people like me who was raised in a tropical country. On the other hand, it’s not really bad, but it’s not so good if I will seriously consider the cause of its unusual occurrence. Global warming.

Anyway, it’s interesting to be reminded how weather affects human behavior.

Research has shown that greater degrees of sunshine experienced directly are associated with greater amounts of compliance and tipping. Of course, we mostly feel better when the sun shines and worse when it rains.

It turns out that rainfall often has a surprisingly strong effect on violence. In a paper on the economic aftermath of the hundreds of riots in American cities during the 1960’s, William Collins and Robert Margo used rainfall as a variable to compare the cities where riots took place with cities where riots probably would have taken place had it not rained. Few things can dampen a rioter’s spirit more than a soaking rain, they learned.

Personally, I love the manageable rainy days phase. It makes me a little gloomy, hungry for sleep, but I feel I’m at my most patient state in times like that. While the hot weather occasionally makes me irritable and easily tired. With a quick look, it explains why most of the people that I personally know who grew up in Baguio are fun loving and easy to deal with. Maybe, I’m just too weird to feel at my best when it rains.

The beauty of weather is that it does its own thing, and whether the weather is good or bad, you can be pretty sure that it didn’t come about in response to some human desire to fix a problem.

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