Are clear skies evidence of pollution?

Many years ago, I read an article about why our weather was poorer during the weekends than it is during weekdays.

I read the article with a pinch of salt, but it basically blamed poorer weekend weather on industry, which starts polluting our atmosphere on Mondays and reduces the pollution on weekends.

This pollution accumulates during the week and causes water droplets to stick to the pollution particles. By Friday, it is ready to drop the water and commonly does so during the weekend, causing the average bad weather to occur on Saturdays and Sundays, rather than Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays. Well that was the theory.

While I always doubted the argument, I accepted that the theory is not impossible and the average rainfall did seem to be higher on Saturdays and Sundays and lower on weekdays. This did seem to reduce over the years as Britain’s heavy industry reduced.

If this argument was (or is) really a valid one and we applied it to the coronavirus lockdown period, where the industrial atmospheric pollution has been massively reduced, we would expect the weather to be much warmer and sunnier during the industrial shut-down and we all know that it has.

My personal observations in England are that with heavy industry in decline and motoring on the increase, the ratio of rain on weekends to rain on weekdays (Tue, Wed and Thur) has got smaller over the years, so it is more likely to be industrial pollution which affected this balance.

The reduction in vehicle pollution may well contribute to the reduction in the clouds and rain during this coronavirus outbreak though.

Are the clear skies during lockdown just a pure coincidence, or is it scientific evidence that the theory is correct? What do readers of this message think?

Take care, stay safe and keep well.

Adrian Hanwell Scarborough