This may be a good book to read as the sleet and rain pelt your windows. It is a diary of weather that had affected events and people in the past. So for today, February 2nd (Candlemas or Groundhog Day) there is a blurb about how Groundhog Day came to be: "If Candlemas Day be sunny and bright, winter will have another flight; if Candlemas day be cloudy with rain, winter is gone and won't come again... British emigrants to America adapted these to create Grougndhog Day... The theory (which may have come from medieval Europeans who studied hedgehogs at this time of year) is: if an intelligent rodent emerges from his burrow and sees his shadow today, he returns underground forthwith, as winter is set to continue."This was also the day of Queen Victoria's funeral in 1901; apparently a "bitterly cold and gloomy" day which echoes a quote by Frank Skinner at the beginning of the book: "You can spend your whole life trying to be popular but, at the end of the day, the size of the crowd at your funeral will be largely dictated by the weather."
Amazon.com has a section below this book:
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