Why does it always rain on me?

Sunday, 5 January 2025

Kevin Norquay is a senior writer and columnist for the Sunday Star-Times.

OPINION: I am no fair weather friend: to hang out with me is to expect to be doused in rain, even in places where rain is unexpected.

When it comes to weather, if it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. I don’t like rain, but it likes me, and I have buckets of evidence to prove it.

A one and only visit to Los Angeles coincided with 242mm of rain in a month, with daily stories in the LA Times about the record downpouring (Wellington gets 147mm in an average mid-winter July).

There were floods, rides at Disneyland leaked and were closed.

Walking on Hollywood Boulevard we were almost flattened by a wave thrown up from a monster puddle by a car. It never rains in southern California? Give me a break.

Another summer we opted to tramp the Abel Tasman track up the coast from sunny Nelson for a 25th wedding anniversary treat.

Result: drenched for two days, then the river flooded so we had to be shipped out by boat. Golden Bay? Not when I’m there it ain't.

A Northland holiday coincided with Cyclone Gabrielle (floods, gales). Taranaki? Three visits and I’ve never seen the mountain, just grey mist encircling a few morose-looking cows.

Yes, I’ve tried sunbaked Australia thanks, guess when and where? Here’s a hint: “One of the wettest summers on record for the Gold Coast occurred during the La Niña event of 2010–2011, characterised by heavy rainfall and widespread flooding.”

Wet'n'wild amusement park, the surf beaches and swimming (and vomiting) with turtles in the sea off Tweed Heads proved relatively dry, compared to that monsoon.

It rained on our wedding day (in a December), which Alanis Morissette would no doubt have considered ironic. Not me, I got married in a waterproof suit. Be prepared is my motto.

It’s become a joke among my friends. One who lived in Nelson when we were nearly washed off the Abel Tasman has now shifted to oft-parched south Wairarapa.

After I broke a summer drought one Waitangi weekend he now texts, “Were you over here for the weekend?' whenever the weather there turns ugly.

We spent that holiday weekend cowering in a Greytown motel, instead of staring down a platter in the sunshine.

All the while, friends who live in Greytown and Martinborough quietly cursed me as they contemplated the great wet ending their endless summer.

I’m now banned from so much as talking about the weather, after once dubbing myself Nostradamus Norquay, then predicting on the 18th tee, “it looks like we are going to get through without getting wet”.

Within 10 minutes, the course was awash and unplayable, and I was a sodden persona non grata with three drowned-rat former friends.

So am I a cursed Rain Man, or is it all in my mind?

Disappointingly, Victoria University professor Marc Wilson douses that theory, expressing doubt that I have the power to influence the weather.

“So why, do you think that you're causing bad weather?,” he asks, and when he sees the long list of whys, responds.

“One possibility is 'magical thinking' a component of schizotypy - a syndrome of odd and eccentric ways of seeing and moving through the world,” he says.

It involves making connections between things that most other people mightn't make, he says.

“I was thinking about Beyonce and then one of her songs came on the radio, or traffic lights went red three times in a row just as I turned up, when I think about the weather it starts to rain!

“If we're over-attentive we see things as connected that really are just coincidental. Magical thinking, and schizotypy are also risk factors for full-blown schizophrenia - full-blown delusions and hallucinations that the world is different from how it really is.”

Uh, oh. I will settle for simply having rotten luck then. Explain that, I say to Wilson. He’s not convinced there either.

“We often hear about people who are unlucky, accident prone, or perhaps 'lightning rods' in this case,” he says.

“There are two parts to this - whether people really are unlucky, and how they perceive themselves.”

Whether the genuinely accident-prone exist has long been researched, with insurance companies wanting to know if those unfortunates should have their premiums increased.

While a small number have more accidents than you’d expect by chance, statisticians argue that if you have three accidents in one year, the odds are good you'll be accident-free the next.

People who have clusters of accidents seem psychologically different from those who don't, Wilson says.

“They're less conscientious, they're more impulsive, and they're more introverted,” he says.

“It's unsurprising that less conscientious people have more accidents because, well, they're less conscientious, attentive, responsible. If you're impulsive, you're more likely to run that red light.”

It transpires Wilson has surveyed more than 6000 New Zealanders, finding about a third describe themselves as lucky, while about a quarter describe themselves as unlucky.

People who feel lucky tend to be more extroverted, behaving in ways that create their luck such as striking up conversations with random people, that might benefit them.

“They're more likely to put themselves into new situations that might have unanticipated pay-offs,” Wilson says.

Nope, that doesn’t explain why it rains wherever I go.

Wilson sighs, and gives it another crack, raising what is called 'state-dependent memory'.

We tend to remember events that are congruent with our moods, he says.

“If we're generally happy, we tend to remember the good things, but if you're a miserable bugger - and I'm not saying you're a miserable bugger - you'll remember the times it rained when you played golf, but ignore the times when it didn't.”

“Well that’s bloody annoying,” I tell him, formulating a new weather outlook - using reverse psychology - even as I clamber off his couch.

Perhaps by predicting rain ('It looks like rain'), could I jinx the weather into staying dry, regaining all the friends washed away over the years?

Might the weather 'curse' work in reverse? If I predict rain, will the universe feel compelled to prove me wrong for once?

Failing that, there's the prospect of a holiday in Belgium, where it seems the weather will likely live up to (my) expectations.

That thought is based on my solitary encounter with a Belgian, in which I asked him whether I'd enjoy holidaying in his homeland.

'If you like rain,' he said.

Probably I’ll get sunburnt there, knowing my luck.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Kevin Norquay will spend these summer holidays in the lower North Island.