The Devil’s Dictionary tells us that weather is:

A permanent topic of conversation among persons whom it does not interest, but who have inherited the tendency to chatter about it from naked arboreal ancestors whom it keenly concerned.

In fact weather is of great concern to us since if it’s good we can enjoy it, and if it’s bad it not only keeps us from getting outside, but can cost billions in insurance payouts and government emergency expenditures.

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Weather the noun is as old as can be, appearing in English pretty much as soon as the language could be called English, in this case 725.

Until the 15th century the word was pronounced “weder” with a “d” instead of a “th.”

In Russian a related word vedro means “good weather” while in Lithuanian vydra means “bad weather.”

The thinking is that the root of the word comes from an Indo-European root we meaning “to blow.” In that sense a day without wind might be a day without weather.

The expression “to weather the storm” means to sit it out, hopefully in a safe place.

According to the OED the expression comes from nautical origins.

The scenario goes like this.  Sailing requires wind.  Storms or sunshine are brought by the wind and so among sailors the words wind and weather became synonyms of a kind.  So when sailing, to weather an obstruction meant to sail to the windward side of it.  When passing along a coast, this usually was the only alternative to crashing into the shore, so that to weather a rocky point meant to get safely by it.

From there it was only a short leap from meaning “to get safely through” that part of the journey, to meaning get safely through other ordeals.

Have you ever noticed how many weather vanes are roosters?

According to Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, the reason for this is that in the 9th century the pope—and I couldn’t find out which pope—decreed that all churches should mount a rooster on their spire as a symbol of St. Peter who upon the day of Christ’s arrest denied being a disciple not once, not twice, but three times before the rooster crowed.