Does anything shock you anymore?
Does it?
share> Does anything shock you anymore?
Only when I find out some fact that's totally contrary to my expectations. For example, a while back (several months? a year?) we had a bad spell of tornadoes in this area. I had always thought tornadoes were a heat related thing -- we get a lot of them in the US, Canada gets much fewer, and Alaska gets about one per year. Knowing that we've got so many in the UK here, I became curious as to how many tornadoes the British get -- London is about on the same latitude as Calgary, and when I vacationed there in June several years ago it seemed that every day's weather forecast could have been "low 50 F, high 65 F, 30% chance of light rain." To my complete astonishment I found out that the UK gets more tornadoes per unit ot land area than any other place on Earth. But because of the way the weather patterns play out, the UK gets kinder, gentler tornadoes than we do; IIRC about 95% are in the mildest two categories, compared to 75% worldwide.
That "shocked" me because it was completely unexpected and the opposite of what I assumed to be true. And I was utterly flabbergasted. It was as if I had found out that undomesticated, feral cats normally walk upright like humans on their hind legs. But if by "shocked" you mean anything like "suprised and upset," very little does. There are things people do that upset and disgust me, but it's rare that I'm surprised by the things my fellow humans do.
I only learned in the last few years that London is not the wettest place in Europe. I guest I'd just assumed because of the umbrellas, the London Fogs, and the native natives has like zero pigment. I'd visited there in spring once. Wet wet wet.
I think I read that Bordeaux is the wettest place in Europe.
According to this web page: https://www.thoughtco.com/wettest-cities-usa-vs-rainy-london-3975248
Perhaps the reason London is considered to be an overcast, damp city is that rainfall totals stay consistent throughout the year, with each month seeing between 13 and 19 days of precipitation, totaling between 1.3 and 2.8 inches (35 and 71 millimeters) monthly.
Now that I think about it, I should revise my "forecast" I made above. I shoulf have said, "30% chance of getting caught in the rain" instead of "30% chance of rain." As a tourist I was spending about an equal amount of time outdoors and indoors, so there had to have been some showers I wasn't aware of.
I'm not surprised that it's not the wettest place in Europe. I can only speak about London in June, but while rain is frequent, every time it happened while I was there it was a light shower that lasted just a few minutes. share
Birmingham is far wetter and grey, which was a key factor in producing bands like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest.
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