22:47
Faizan
It is often said in England; business what would we have to talk about if we did not have the weather. We are a nation addicted to small talk, and it seems that apart from anything else we love to talk about the weather. How we feel about the weather, why it's always raining, it's been too hot and so on!
Our seasons come every year, with spring offering April showers, summer offering, well possibly sunshine and definitely some showers. Autumn brings colder days and probably more showers and winter, well brings frost, snow and definitely a lot of heavy rain. Each year we are all shocked about the amount of rain we seem to be experiencing, all convinced it's much worse than the previous year!
Why do we get so much rain? It's all about the jet stream. Great Britain is perfectly situated between two extremes of jet streams. We receive the back end of most of the weather from across the globe. We have our friends in Europe sending their weather, as well as our American and Canadian friends feeling the need to share their weather.
For example if Canada and North America have been in an icy grip of weather and this cold air meets the warm air from the tropics, a large temperature gradient is created and you will have the perfect storm.
The storms feed off the increase in temperature and as the storm continues to grow they also push momentum into the jet stream and of course sitting downstream at the end of that jet stream path is England; sat patiently waiting for the next round of bad weather.
Jet streams are mostly accountable for creating our weird and wonderful seasons and are ultimately responsible for the amount of rain we receive too. Apparently we also have to be thankful to a little known factor called the QBO.
The QBO also known as the quasi-biennial oscillation and is where a band of fast-moving wind that blows consistently around the equator suddenly changes direction. Typically every 14 months the winds reverse and instead of blowing form the east towards the west they flip and the blow from west to east. Got that!
When the QBO is blowing from the west then this also strengthens the jet stream over the Atlantic and increases the amount of strong winds and with these winds you will have rain and other extreme cases of stormy weather, all ready to hit us as we sit nicely in its jet stream path.
When it comes to the weather and especially rain, how do we look to deal with it? Well did you know the average British person own 2.5 umbrella's with most of those being given as presents from a loved one or received free as a promotional gift. Our preferred colour in the UK is black and interestingly we lose an average 5 umbrella's throughout one year!
Surprisingly the Japanese own the most umbrellas at 3.9 per person, they also prefer plastic umbrella's rather than the standard nylon fabric. In Japan one can set you back as much as $22, promotional umbrella's are big business in Japan as they are so expensive to buy.
Promotional umbrella's are big business globally, many taking the opportunity to brand the product with their logo and ultimately waiting for the next rainy day to promote their name; in England the next rainy day is never far away!
Originally called parasols, thank you to the Egyptians eye for design and necessity they started their lives almost 3000 years ago where our ancestors used to use large leaves to shield themselves from the sun. In the 11th century the Chinese stumbled over the design and the umbrella as we know it was born and introduced into the mainstream.
As we look to stay dry and continue to complain about the weather, take a thought for the humble umbrella who not only keeps us dry but safe from the sun too.
Our seasons come every year, with spring offering April showers, summer offering, well possibly sunshine and definitely some showers. Autumn brings colder days and probably more showers and winter, well brings frost, snow and definitely a lot of heavy rain. Each year we are all shocked about the amount of rain we seem to be experiencing, all convinced it's much worse than the previous year!
Why do we get so much rain? It's all about the jet stream. Great Britain is perfectly situated between two extremes of jet streams. We receive the back end of most of the weather from across the globe. We have our friends in Europe sending their weather, as well as our American and Canadian friends feeling the need to share their weather.
For example if Canada and North America have been in an icy grip of weather and this cold air meets the warm air from the tropics, a large temperature gradient is created and you will have the perfect storm.
The storms feed off the increase in temperature and as the storm continues to grow they also push momentum into the jet stream and of course sitting downstream at the end of that jet stream path is England; sat patiently waiting for the next round of bad weather.
Jet streams are mostly accountable for creating our weird and wonderful seasons and are ultimately responsible for the amount of rain we receive too. Apparently we also have to be thankful to a little known factor called the QBO.
The QBO also known as the quasi-biennial oscillation and is where a band of fast-moving wind that blows consistently around the equator suddenly changes direction. Typically every 14 months the winds reverse and instead of blowing form the east towards the west they flip and the blow from west to east. Got that!
When the QBO is blowing from the west then this also strengthens the jet stream over the Atlantic and increases the amount of strong winds and with these winds you will have rain and other extreme cases of stormy weather, all ready to hit us as we sit nicely in its jet stream path.
When it comes to the weather and especially rain, how do we look to deal with it? Well did you know the average British person own 2.5 umbrella's with most of those being given as presents from a loved one or received free as a promotional gift. Our preferred colour in the UK is black and interestingly we lose an average 5 umbrella's throughout one year!
Surprisingly the Japanese own the most umbrellas at 3.9 per person, they also prefer plastic umbrella's rather than the standard nylon fabric. In Japan one can set you back as much as $22, promotional umbrella's are big business in Japan as they are so expensive to buy.
Promotional umbrella's are big business globally, many taking the opportunity to brand the product with their logo and ultimately waiting for the next rainy day to promote their name; in England the next rainy day is never far away!
Originally called parasols, thank you to the Egyptians eye for design and necessity they started their lives almost 3000 years ago where our ancestors used to use large leaves to shield themselves from the sun. In the 11th century the Chinese stumbled over the design and the umbrella as we know it was born and introduced into the mainstream.
As we look to stay dry and continue to complain about the weather, take a thought for the humble umbrella who not only keeps us dry but safe from the sun too.
Posted in: business
