You're watching the morning news and you hear channel 8 meteorologist Kurtis Gertz say that his SuperDoppler radar predicts a seventy-five percent chance of rain. You grab your umbrella as you head out the door and forget about the weather for the rest of the day. However, weather affects our daily life far beyond taking an umbrella to work or making plans for a weekend bike trip.
Weather also can affect our psychological health.
Unlike physical conditions which are usually directly linked to weather, psychological conditions are influenced more by the local climate. Approximately 25,000 people could suffer from seasonal affective disorder as a result of Des Moines' latitude. While much of the data relating to SAD is still inconclusive, most link its cause to the hormone melatonin. Harry Hillaker, state climatologist, says that on the shortest day of the year, December 21, Des Moines receives only nine hours of sun, whereas on the longest day of the year, June 21, we receive fifteen hours of sunshine. On top of that, there is much less sunshine overall in November and December because they are the cloudiest months.