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Of British-English origin, the colloquial expression Liverpool weather designates a cold, windy, unpleasant weather.
This expression refers to Liverpool, a port-city in Merseyside—historically in Lancashire, a county of northwestern England, on the Irish Sea.
The British maritime journalist and writer Frank Charles Bowen (1894-1957) defined this expression as follows in Sea Slang: A Dictionary of the Old-timers’ Expressions and Epithets (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., Ltd., [1929]) [page 84]:
Liverpool Weather. In the Merchant Service, a special brand of dirty weather.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the expression Liverpool weather that I have found:
1-: From The Weather and the Crops, published in The Liverpool Mercury, and Lancashire, Cheshire, and General Advertiser (Liverpool, Lancashire, England) of Friday 18th August 1848 [page 2, column 3]—Kendal is a market town in Westmorland, in northwestern England:
A friend writing from Kendal on Tuesday evening last, the 16th inst. says,—“You will, perhaps, be surprised to hear that, with the exception of a thunder shower on Thursday or Friday last, there has not been a drop of rain in this neighbourhood for nine or ten days—the weather has been most beautiful. Potatoes of the finest sort were sold on Saturday in the Kendal market at 3½d and 4d. per stone of 14lb. Disease has scarcely, as yet, shown itself in this most valuable esculent. The wheat crop promises to be a most abundant one in this district, which, however, as you are probably aware, is not extensively corn-growing. Merchants will see from this that Liverpool weather must not be taken as a standard by which to judge of the weather generally.”
2-: From American News and Gossip, dated New York, Saturday 8th October 1853, published in The Illustrated London News (London, England) of Saturday 29th October 1853 [page 367, column 1]:
The immense amount of international traffic would seem to have brought about a meteorological influence as well as commercial, for recently we have had the most positive Liverpool weather in the American metropolis—even to mist and fogs! We can afford to dis-dispense [sic] with this importation, as blue skies and bright stars are far more conducive to happiness and health than evening damps and a gloomy horizon.
3-: From Sporting Intelligence, dated Monday 17th July 1854, by ‘Argus’, published in The Morning Post (London, England) of Tuesday 18th July 1854 [page 5, column 5]—the following is from an account of horseraces that were run at Aintree, near Liverpool:
The weather was Liverpool weather—that is, very bad and unseasonable—and beyond Lord Derby’s friends, who always stay with him, there was a very shy lot of fashionables.
4-: From an account of the visit that the Scottish politician Cunninghame Graham (1852-1936) made to the 1890 Trade-Union Congress, held in Liverpool—account published in The Star (London, England) of Wednesday 10th September 1890 [page 1, column 7]:
Mrs. Graham, who takes as much interest in labor questions as her husband, was unable to be present, as she could not stand the villainous Liverpool weather.
5-: From Sporting Chat, by ‘Captain Coe’, published in The Star (London, England) of Saturday 8th November 1890 [page 3, column 6]:
It was originally intended that Tom Cannon should ride Theophilus in the Great Lancashire Handicap, but the “Hampshire horseman” has apparently had enough of Liverpool weather, for he returned home yesterday to Stockbridge, so that a fresh jockey will have to be found for Captain Jones’s horse.
6-: From Latest Gallops of the Grand National Candidates, published in The Daily Express (Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland) of Friday 25th March 1892 [page 2, column 3]:
Contrary to what was the case at Lincoln on Tuesday, no end of Grand National horses had arrived at Aintree yesterday morning, and this being generally known by the information furnished by several papers, a lot of people put in an appearance to witness the work done, and this proved of a highly interesting character. If anything, when proceedings commenced, it was somewhat on the hazy side overhead, but this gradually began to clear off, and throughout the atmosphere was anything but cold, in fact it was not at all like Liverpool weather in March.
—Cf. also: Liverpool pantile and Liverpool gentleman.
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