Topic: Weather-related hum?

[Transporterman]

Bit of a long story,

I know this sounds a bit weird but I wouldn't be posting it if it didn't have at least a possible weather connection.  Sometime around 30 years ago (when I was 35) I noticed a kind of slight droning noise in my ears.  I heard it most clearly at night but during the day also.  At first I thought it must be the new (ish) M25 Motorway which was a couple of miles away from where I lived near London at the time, or perhaps some aspect of the construction of the house reverberating.   I soon found that I could hear the same thing in Spain and also in the Canary Islands (just off Africa) so all thoughts of local conditions were eliminated. 

Over the years I have just become used to it coming and going and it doesn't really bother me.  My wife does yoga and (jokingly) suggests I may be blessed because it must be some kind of yogic 'Omm'!   Tinnitus has been suggested many times by friends but it just doesn't quite seem to fit the symptoms.

I have tried opening windows (because I never hear it outside) and blocking my ears one at a time but the direction or almost everything else about the sound alludes me.  It only occurred to me recently and especially since getting the weather station that I think I hear the sound more during in high pressure conditions.  I'd noticed before that I heard it in more in Summer than Winter but I thought that must be just the lack of our usual almost permanent external wind noise on this headland.  Anyway, recently I have been waiting for the transition from our current (seemingly endless heat wave/high pressure conditions here in the UK to see if the noise became less.  I woke up today at 01.59am (UTC+1) to complete silence.  Were I live the daytime noise is mostly just seabirds so night time is quiet.  I checked the pressure and the absolute pressure was 1006.1.  I am only about 30m /100ft above sea level.  It's not exactly low pressure but I'll be interested to see if the silence continues.  Does anyone else hear the 'Omm'?           

[worachj]

You're not alone! I first heard about it on a silly TV show about paranormal activity and find it interesting. I do not have the problem but others do. I did a quick google search today and came across the following article. Its a fun read.

"Up to 4% of people around the world are thought to hear the strange, low-pitched noise."
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/16/can-you-hear-the-mysterious-global-hum-apparently-many-of-you-do

[box]

Another good article here

https://www.kalw.org/news/2021-11-01/the-hum-a-worldwide-mystery-sound-explained

As it's low frequency it could be from a long way away but I like the idea of it being caused by wind flowing across or through constrictions

Our chimney sounds like someone blowing across a bottle top when the wind is at certain speeds and directions! Not a hum though

I suspect there are some resonance effects at work

[RIKIAWS]

Very interesting!!  My background is as a research psychologist and usually when I encounter a phenomenon as you describe it, I want to see empirical evidence.  So I would suggest the following:  keep a log of when it occurs and at the same time you experience it take down the weather metrics you think might be related, e.g.: barometric pressure you mention.  Do this over a sufficient time period so that you have a good deal of variance in the data.  Record the barometric pressure as you read it and record the "Omm" as the following:  1 = present; 0 = not present.  I would suggest keeping the data in an Excel spreadsheet.  Once you feel confident that you have sufficient data, if you would like, I would be very interested in analyzing the data for you via SPSS: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.  All you would need to do is send the Excel spreadsheet at a CSV file and I could run analyses on the data.  We could see if there is a statistically significant relationship or not.

[Transporterman]

Interesting articles.    I rather debunked my own theory because on waking up a couple of hours later the noise was back although it did sound a little subdued.  I looked at the pressure data and it had actually dropped by a couple of millibars yet the sound had returned.  I hear the sound on most nice days in Summer and most evenings and sometimes during the day too.  I can't say it bothers me much the way tinitus would. 

Lower pressure and thunderstorms are on the way so I will try and record when the sound is there and when not and get a snapshot of the relevant weather data at the time as RJ suggests.     

[box]

Interesting articles.    I rather debunked my own theory because on waking up a couple of hours later the noise was back although it did sound a little subdued.  I looked at the pressure data and it had actually dropped by a couple of millibars yet the sound had returned.  I hear the sound on most nice days in Summer and most evenings and sometimes during the day too.  I can't say it bothers me much the way tinitus would. 

Lower pressure and thunderstorms are on the way so I will try and record when the sound is there and when not and get a snapshot of the relevant weather data at the time as RJ suggests.     

the places you mentioned earlier are all on the coast maybe it's something offshore like drilling

[92merc]

I live in North Dakota.  So no oceans near by.  But a few years after moving into my new house, I started noticing the same hum.  Wife has good hearing and could never hear it.  When I built my house, I sound proofed the hell out of it.  I wanted quiet!

For the longest time, I thought it was my anemometer.  But then I could hear it with no wind.  I started going all through my house trying to guess what it was.  At one point, I turned off the main breaker to my house, and my gas line.  When the wife was out of town of course.  Made no difference!

So I concluded the sound isn't the house.  I'm not near any kind of industrial sources.  I'm almost a mile away from the highway.

But what told my wife it sounds like is someone with a Bobcat off in the distance.  The sound wains in and out.  What I found interesing in the article, is it mentioned diesel engines.  And that's exactly what i hear!

The other part for me personally, is I am deaf from birth.  But the frequency is above 5k that I lose signal.  This sound is much deeper than that.  And I have tinnitus from birth.  But again in the high frequencies.  So reading this article fits so well with what I'm hearing.  I did not know about it.

[Transporterman]

Yes, the same for me.  The sound is like a large diesel engine pulling steadily up a large hill.  My wife can't hear it either.  I wonder if more males are affected than females?  The noise is identical even if I am 2000 miles away.  When I lived near London I was 50 miles or so from the nearest coast so it can't be sea-related. 

[worachj]

The paranormal/conspiracy show I was watching was blaming the HAARP program.

The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) was initiated as an ionospheric research program jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The hum sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHDgaChCpkw

Trying to explain the “Hum”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqoDC01ErDw

This is the TV show I was watching. Their calm is that its Hyperacusis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ntHLo8j-UQ

Hyperacusis is a rare hearing disorder that causes sounds which would otherwise seem normal to most people to sound unbearably loud. People who suffer from hyperacusis may even find normal environmental sounds to be too loud.

[davidmc36]

Not the hummmm but what seemed to be bit of some Tinitus type thing I hear these last many years has gone 10 fold since having Covid. And it seems to be High Px related too.

I need to keep track and see if it really tracks Px.

I don't envy the hummmmmm.

[Transporterman]

I can't say for anyone else but my version of the hum is nothing like that video.  I have a little 8 track digital recorder (Zoom R8) and that doesn't capture it.  So perhaps it is some kind of tinnitus.  It's quite loud this morning and I just noticed for the first time that if I turn my head quickly to the side it momentarily disappears then immediately reestablishes itself.  So perhaps it really is just something to do with my hearing after all.  I never heard of tinnitus coming and going apparently by weather or season though!

[92merc]

Yeah, mine are nothing like those videos either.  Only in the house.  Not nearly as loud.

Told my wife the story about this thread.  She still couldn't hear the sound.  For me, it was almost as loud as my refrigerator.  Which isn't really that loud.  It's just that I can hear it when I think about it.

And I don't hear the sound in my office.  Really quiet at work.

My wife brought up that we are about 300 yards from a high tension power line.  It's possible I'm hearing that through the ground.  Still happens with no wind.  So it could be electrically based somehow. 

[Garth Bock]

Does the hum change according to changes in solar weather.. ie CME's etc ? There have been reports of people being sensitive to the Earth's electromagnetic field.

https://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhiv/2014/08/10/humming-the-new-earth/

[BaseLine]

It's just that I can hear it when I think about it.

Psychosomatic? (and some mild ear damage)