nature: weather

I used to think that the numbers next to the cities on the weather map we codes which described a particular weather configuration. It took me a while to realise it was actually just the temperature. I over complicated some things as a child...

When I was growing up in Hawaii I had never seen snow -- except in picture books about snowy days and folded paper cutouts of snowflakes in school. As a result I was convinced that snowflakes were each as big as your hand, and that kids on the mainand spent all their time comparing them to see if any two were ever exactly alike.

i used to believe clouds were actually made out of cotton candies and vanilla ice-cream.

I used to believe that it rained everywhere at the same time. (I came from a small country, it was mostly true.) I don't remember how I explained the fact that we never got snow.

I was brought up in England near a golf course which had a stream running through it, into which I fell one day, and it was very cold. When I was about 4 my mother told me that the "golf" stream kept England warm which I could not credit as it was so small and so cold. Not for years did i realise that she had said the "gulf" stream.

I grew in the Santa Cruz mountains of California. From our house I could see the sunset into the pacific every evening. Often it would be foggy in the mornings. I used to believe that the sun was going into the ocean and turning the water into steam, hence the fog.

I used to believe that when it would be raining the white clouds lost to the dark clouds.

When i was about 2 years old and i went shoppping with my mom,in the parking lot it would always be really windy, and i thought that the wind would blow away my hair, so i was terrified and i always would hold my hair on my head.

When i was little i used to think that the smoke coming from the mills smokestacks made the weather. Like they programmed the weather for the day and made it whatever they felt like.

When I was really small (about four), I asked my mum how the clouds stayed up in the sky. She told me that they were all hung up there on giant sky-hooks. I accepted this, in the trusting way that small children accept anything their parents say. The sad thing was that for years and years afterwards, it never occured to me to believe anything different! I suppose If I had actually taken the time to stop and think about it...?!

When I was young, I used to watch jumbo jets flying over our house, high in the sky. When the steam from the engines came spraying out the back of the planes, I thought that that is what created clouds and I always ran to my mom and told her that it was going to rain later.

one day in first grade the teacher was telling us about weather baloons. i asked how the the baloon let us know what weather was up there and she explained that the ballon had instruments in it. That baffled me for quite some time... i assumed that the ballon had musical instruments such as a drum, trumpet, guitar etc... and somehow a specific weather condition would make the instruments play different tunes. i wondered if the scientist had to hear the tune while it was still high in the air or if when they brought it back down, it was still playing the tune.

i now have a degree in climatology and am working in the insurance business... go figure!

When I was a child, I thought that when it rained, God had stationed one angel to each large bucket of water. On the count of three, he gave them the go-ahead to turn them over all at the same time.

I once thought then when it rained God was crying and when it snowed he was scratching dry skin.

When I was little, I used to think that fog was made out of cotton candy. When ever it was foggy, I used to go out and try to eat it. It always dissapointed, becuase it tasted bland. it wasn't until I was 7 that my cousin told me it was water vapor.

my mum used to say that if you made lots of noise when you saw a rainbow it would frighten it away, even now, I still have the urge to stay completely still and quiet whenever I see a rainbow - the power of nature eh!!!