As well as concerns over the weather in Qatar, there are also worries about how the tiny country will cope with the thousands of spectators that will travel to the 2022 tournament.
According to older pilots, this useless statistic came into favour at the time of conversion to jet aeroplanes when the impact of flying over the weather, rather than through it, was novel.
Relatively mild weather over the festive period has helped boost passenger numbers at airports in the Highlands and Islands.
Scotland will bear the brunt of the poor weather over the next few days, the Met Office has warned.
The Conservative-led council has blamed the icy weather over Christmas and the recession.
Councillor Jim Fullarton said problems with bridges were becoming more common due to severe weather over the last two winters.
The National Farmers Union (NFU) said severe weather over the past year had "knocked the stuffing out of the industry".
During the stormy weather over the weekend and on Monday, BBC Scotland news website readers have been sending pictures of funnel clouds.
Nationally Mr Oates said UK wildlife either "did spectacularly well or incredibly badly" during the unsettled weather over the past 12 months.
The Met Office has warned many areas are likely to experience a period of very wet and windy weather over the weekend.
The bad weather over the winter made training difficult for many of the Cornish gig clubs with some crews switching to indoor rowing sessions.
As well as the recall, Britvic said that the cold, wet weather over the summer had also "weighed heavily on the soft drinks market".
Newark, for example, routinely landed 45 planes an hour in 2005 but slid to 40 an hour in good weather over the past few years.
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But this year the gates will remain closed, with the long periods of freezing weather over the winter blamed for damage to the drains and pump house.
It's been a wintry April for Denver, which has been hit by a wave of snowy weather over the past nine days that forced postponements of games three times.
Tory rural affairs spokesman Alex Fergusson said that the "cumulative impact of market prices, rising costs, exchange rates and the truly appalling weather over the last year has taken its toll" on farmers.
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"You - as the industry's leaders - must also understand that many other parts of the economy within Wales (and indeed other parts of agriculture) have suffered from the effects of the weather over the last 12 months, and more generally in the global downturn of recent years, " he wrote.
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The general climatic and weather conditions over Libya are similar to those described for coastal and interior Egypt and Algeria.
Joel, a chef, was last seen at 11, 000ft (3, 350m) heading into a cloud as the weather changed over the mountains.
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Councillor Pieter Montyn said the authority was dealing with "havoc caused by some of the worst wet weather for over a century".
But the aircraft encountered atrocious weather conditions over Greenland and, with fuel running low, the crews attempted a difficult landing on to a glacier.
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The rapid meltback this year is probably due to anomalous weather patterns over the Arctic which have brought temperatures one to three degrees above the decadal averages for 1981-2010.
Whether a gigantic storm or series of storms is involved or not, there is going to be a cascade of climatic change accompanied by extraordinary weather violence over the next few years.
It is extremely difficult to measure weather consistently over decades and centuries, but the presence of sites reporting cooling is a symptom of the local variations that can creep in, according to researchers.
Over 200 schools closed on Friday, and there have been several weather-related road crashes over the last few days.
The coldest weather so far this winter is creeping over the northern United States this week, the National Weather Service said , sending the temperature plunging below zero in Chicago for the first time in 711 days.
Squally weather may continue over North Bay and coastal regions of Bangladesh, it said.
Our correspondent says no let up in the wet weather is expected over the next two days.
Wichita saw its second-highest storm snowfall total on record with 14.2 inches over two days, the weather service said.
Its trading was hit over the summer by poor weather and a recall of Fruit Shoot due to faulty caps.
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