hot and dry weather (Was: Rewriting OoP; some gender & SHIP replies

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pennylin" <pennylin at s...> 
wrote:
<<  Jim, the "dark and stormy night" opening belongs in Book 6 
according to John Granger.  For those of you who didn't see his talk 
at Nimbus on Alchemy & Doppelgangers, the hot, dry weather in the 
opening of OoP was in keeping with the alchemical stage of the 5th 
book, the "black stage" IIRC.  Granger says to look for it to be cool 
and wet (rainy) on Privet Drive in the opening pages of Book 6 (as we 
move into the "white stage"). >> 

What was the weather of the sumner of 1996 in Surrey, England? A 
couple of people on Main List have presented quotes about the summer 
of 1995 being a heat wave and drought season with a hosepipe ban in 
RL UK, leaving me to ask whether the summer of OoP was hot and 
droughty because of the nigredo stage that John Granger mentioned, 
or because it was commenting on RL summer of 1995.