Grim weather calls for a grim face: How rain affects your mood

Not everyone can put a happy face on bad weather. Approximately one in 20 people develop seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, when faced with prolonged adverse weather. This is a type of depression that usually appears in the fall and winter. The symptoms are mild and familiar: increased appetite and carbohydrate cravings, a desire to sleep more, difficulty getting up in the morning, and a feeling of burnout at work. So if you struggle to behave like a functioning adult when the clouds roll in, remember: it’s not you, it’s the rain.

Bad weather affects us emotionally, but this influence doesn’t necessarily have serious consequences or clinical implications. A study conducted in Switzerland between 2014 and 2024 compared rainfall with hospital admissions for mental disorders. No clear relationship was found between the two phenomena.

Bad weather is depressing, but not that much, so perhaps the place to get a feeling for the prevailing mood isn’t hospitals, but social media, where people go to vent when they’re angry or sad. This is what an interdisciplinary team did in 2014, collecting thousands of messages posted on Twitter and correlating them with the weather conditions, when and where they were written. The results confirmed preexisting hypotheses: a clear relationship was established between snow and depressive states. The influence of other meteorological factors was less clear, but it was found that a higher average temperature tends to alleviate depression, while precipitation can worsen it. This was true to a certain extent, as excessive heat was associated with greater expression of anger.

In psychology, it's believed that weather somehow influences people's moods, but how these factors are correlated has been debated for decades. Some phenomena, such as extreme heat, have been shown to have a clear effect on our behavior, with an increase in suicides and assaults during heat waves. However, the effect of prolonged rain and bad weather is less obvious and has only recently begun to receive attention.

“Less exposure to sun is associated with higher levels of psychosocial stress, which can negatively affect overall health and well-being,” explains Dominic Royé, a researcher in biometeorology and health geography at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Light helps regulate the circadian rhythm, which is essential for maintaining a healthy sleep-wake cycle, and “disruption of this rhythm can lead to sleep disorders and affect overall mental health.”

Lack of sunlight also decreases the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter linked to happiness and well-being. With less light, on the other hand, the body tends to produce more melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep. Furthermore, fewer hours of daylight and more rainfall reduce people’s social activity, causing them to stay indoors, and this has a clear effect on mood.

Royé concedes that “in psychological terms, weather can influence mood,” but clarifies that this is subjective, “and varies significantly from one individual to another.” Seasonal affective disorder doesn’t affect everyone equally: It’s more common in women, among those who live in areas with fewer hours of daylight in winter, and in people with pre-existing depression or bipolar disorder. The good news is that it’s temporary by definition.

An analysis by the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics linked outdoor time and sunny weather with “better mood, improved memory, and broader cognitive style.” These effects were particularly evident in spring and faded over the weeks. The reason is that people had been deprived of the positive effects of sunny weather during the winter. In other words, rain now enhances the effects of future sunshine.

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