The Sporadic Diary

December 28, 2010

I was at a holiday party the other night populated mostly with acquaintances but no close friends.  People repeatedly gathered in small groupings and, after a few perfunctory hellos and howya doins, there generally followed awkward silence.  Until invariably someone brought up the weather.  Sure has gotten cold someone said.  Do you think we’ll have a lot of snow this winter? asked another.  Wasn’t that ice storm unbelievable? offered a third. 

This experience confirmed for me that the weather is far and way the king of conversation filler.  Nothing else even comes close.  I don’t have empirical data to support this claim, but, well, unfounded assertions happen a lot in informal blog posts like this.  However, on this one I feel very confident. 

Of course, it is easy to see why the weather is the premier stopgap topic when the conversation well runs dry; it is because, unlike subjects like sports or home repair, the weather knows no cultural or gender boundaries.  It is the universal element in everyone’s lives.  We all can relate to it, are affected by it, and must react to it.

But my guess is it wasn’t always this way.  Think of early man.  He’s in a cave planning the approaching day.  I don’t think he worried too much if it was going to be clear or partly cloudy, humid or raining.  If he was hungry and needed to slay a mastodon, he threw on his loin cloth and got on with it.  And I can’t picture him standing around the fire chatting up the neighbors about the cold front that was threatening or the possibility of late afternoon thunderstorms.  Now the biblical flood, that was another matter.

Back in the present, we afford so much time and effort to understanding the weather, it’s mindboggling.  By demand, newspapers, websites, and tv provide enough weather data, charts, and time lapse satellite images to keep our heads spinning.  It’s also no secret that weathermen are legitimate, five-star celebrities. 

So when did we become obsessed with the weather?  I’m not sure, but I’d say it was sometime after the biblical flood and before the advent of broadcast news.