Everyone has experienced a time when the weather was perfect in their area all week while they were stuck at school or work, but then as soon as the weekend hit, it started raining, snowing, or having some other unwanted weather.

Most people dismiss this as being untrue and just assume that the bad ‘weekend weather’ effect is a myth and only comes up because people happen to notice it more when the weather is unpleasant on the weekend. According to some research, however, that might not be the case. There have been studies that indicate that Saturdays and Sundays may actually have statistically worse weather than the rest of the week.

If that is accurate, the big question is why and what can be done about it?

The days of the week are a purely human invention and have nothing to do with nature as a whole, so it makes sense to assume that weather patterns would not follow a weekly calendar in any way. If there is a pattern that shows that the weather is worse on weekends, one might think that a simple solution would be to just adjust the days of the week by moving the weekend forward or back, and then statistically, the good weather would fall on Saturdays and Sundays.

The problem is, however, that the bad weather on the weekend phenomenon may actually be caused by human activity.

According to a study performed in 1998 and published in the journal Nature, there are observable weekly cycles in air pollution, rainfall, and tropical cyclones. The study looked at the coastal Atlantic region in the United States specifically, but the findings could likely apply almost anywhere with a significant population.

The study found that pollution levels in the air are at their lowest point at the beginning of the week and reach their maximum just as the weekend is starting. This makes sense because during the week, people are driving to work, businesses are in full swing using energy, and lots of things are happening that produce pollution. When the weekend hits, that level of activity drops significantly, allowing the pollution in the air to work its way out.

So, the study suggests, it is this pollution in the air that builds up throughout the week that is causing the weather on the weekend to be worse (from most people’s perspective). It is well-known that some types of particles in the air can increase the odds of rain, snow, hail, and other weather events, so it is not surprising that a buildup of pollution can have this effect.

Of course, the weather is also a remarkably complex system that is impacted by an unknowable number of things. Some scientists are unconvinced that the levels of pollution that humans put into the air could have such an immediate effect on things like rain in this way.

If it can be proven that it is human-generated pollutants in the air that cause the weekends to have unpleasant weather, that would be just one more reason for people to work on becoming more environmentally friendly.

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