Can you smell the weather?

The Towy valley has been full of mist the past couple of days and it’s been a treat to use some of my other senses to enjoy the natural world. I try and get out for a walk with my dog Blaze before work and we both like to check out what has been happening around the village and watch how the seasons progress.

I walked down towards the track and past the school which was starting to come to life with people dropping their children off for the day. As usual, there were a few cars parked up, but unusually, as I passed each vehicle, I could smell the freshly washed occupants! Each car’s passengers had left a cloud of their own individual smell. It was as if the frosty air had frozen individual scent bubbles along the road.

Blaze and I carried on down the track and she too was fascinated by the smells she could follow. It’s no wonder that spaniels are used as detection dogs – their sense of smell is many times more sensitive than humans and they have mobile nostrils and a wet nose as well for determining the direction of the odour.

Blaze’s keen sense of smell pointed to where animals may have crossed the frosty path and gave me a clue as to potentially good sites for my trail camera. We wandered back home, me thinking about what I may be able to capture on my camera and Blaze sniffing at every leaf. By now the school was busier and the perfumed bubbles of frozen mist had turned into a sickening diesel filled fug clouding the village. It was perfectly still and there was no air flow at all – quite magical but also slightly creepy.

I got in and sorted myself out for work. My husband had been de-icing the car and came back into the kitchen. “Gosh, you smell cold” I said. The smell of the chilled air that had attached to his clothes was released into the warm kitchen. I pondered this for a while. What other types of weather can you smell?

Before rain we often smell that sharp, pungent smell of ozone – a form of oxygen. The Greek word ozein means ‘to smell’. And lots of people love petrichor, the smell you experience after rainfall. I like the post storm aroma but a friend dislikes it and my son describes it as the worst smell in the world! When you realise what it is then it kind of makes sense why they’re not keen. Petrichor was first described in 1964 by mineralogists Isabel Joy Bear and R. G. Thomas of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. It occurs when airborne molecules from decomposing plant or animal matter become attached to mineral or clay surfaces. During a dry spell, these molecules chemically recombine with other elements on a rock’s surface. Then when it rains, the combination of fatty acids, alcohols and hydrocarbons is released.

Is this aroma of any use to creatures or is it only something us humans are particularly sentimental about? Studies with indigenous aboriginal people in the Australia’s Western Desert have found they experience what is referred to as cultural synaesthesia. The smell of the approaching rain that arrives at the start of the wet months of the year is hugely important to them for turning the arid, red desert into a lush, green landscape with increased sources of readily available food. These people experience the smell of approaching rain as the colour green and it is important to them as a connection with their ancestors as well as being protective and cleansing. Freshwater fish are thought to recognise petrichor when the rains wash into the rivers signalling spawning time and a similar process takes place that helps camels find oases.

I can smell cold, heat and rain and I have always been able to predict the weather by using my senses. What types of weather can you smell?