A weather complaint tells you what someone hoped to do with their time.

Complaints about weather are rarely about weather. Somebody had a plan, a garden, a journey, a washing line, a day off, and the sky interfered, so the remark is a small report on what they hoped to be doing. That makes it one of the more informative things strangers say to one another. What people want shows up most easily just after something has blocked it.

Answer the next weather remark with a question about their plan. It turns a formula into a conversation and costs about four seconds.