Come rain or shine, we think about weather for 8 hours every week

SHOULD you find yourself in a queue chatting to the person next to you about the weather, you probably wouldn’t think a great deal about it.

But you would, in fact, be simultaneously taking part in two of the three most common British activities, a survey suggests.

Discussing the weather is the nation’s most typical occupation, with about 42 per cent of people surveyed admitting they chat about this. Indeed, the average Briton, according to the research, spends the equivalent of a typical working day – nearly eight hours – thinking about the weather each week.

Queuing was the third most common activity (35 per cent), behind drinking tea (39 per cent), but ahead of apologising unnecessarily (20 per cent). Other common pastimes included drinking too much, using sarcasm, watching TV soaps and keeping a stiff upper lip.

The survey – commissioned by the British Science Association – shows we use weather as a common source of small talk with everyone from members of the family to the hairdresser. A third of respondents check the conditions or forecast before they leave the house, and two-fifths (40 per cent) said the weather affects their mood in their daily lives.

The 2,000 respondents to the survey carried out by Censuswide were asked to estimate how much time they devoted to the weather.

It found we spend an average of 4.02 hours a week checking the weather, and 3.72 hours talking about it. A third of us ensure that we look at the forecast before we leave the house.

While the research may confirm what many may have suspected for years, the findings have a serious purpose – to encourage thouasking sands of people to enlist in a citizen science project during British Science Week, which runs from today until March 17.

Operation Weather Rescue is Britons to spare some time to help decipher millions of handwritten weather records – and upload the results online so scientists can gain an insight into historical weather patterns.

These records could help build a more accurate picture of how the weather has already changed and the implications for climate change, experts said.

The BSA and Operation Weather Rescue have identified two decades of historically significant data from 1860 to 1880, with 2.5million pieces of information that would take researchers years to collate by themselves.

Katherine Mathieson of the BSA, said: ‘We hope to inspire a nation of sofa scientists – igniting that spark that encourages people to take action and make a real difference.’

Ed Hawkins, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading who is leading the Operation Weather Rescue, said: ‘The data will provide a baseline to help us monitor climate change, which will have impacts for people and environments across the world.’

‘A nation of sofa scientists’