Crazy skittish - can he sense the weather?

Well we've had some rain today and a little bit of thunder - nothing real bad... Oliver books it under the couch or bed when there's thunder, but once it's done he always comes out and is fine... well about an hour ago he came out from under th couch for a little bit but was really skittish... I just got him out from behind the couch by offering cookies, but he's still way skittish... it's not raining and has not been thundering for awhile now... can he sense that the atmosphere is really charged? There are apparently like 2 more storm systems out west that are heading in this general direction, so I'm wondering if he senses the disturbances and that's what's got him going

I did get him up into my room though and the door is shut so we're in for the night... he always sleeps with me at night, but I won't be surprised if he stays under the bed... he's under my desk right now... I tried just cuddling him a little and speaking calmly to him and tried to "Start his motor" but he just wanted out of my arms so I know he's stressed... will try spraying some feliway spray around my room

It seems the Feliway spray helped as he calmed some after I spray a little around the room... I just gave him some cat nip too since he actually laid down in the middle of the room, so he's mellow for now lol

I'm still curious though about cat's ability to sense the weather...

Absolutely true that animals can sense weather. Our neighbor has an outside dog that shows up at our door step any time that bad weather is imminent. If we don't let her in right away, we can judge by the urgency of her movements how close and how strong the storm will be. We call her the "weather bunny", and know to start closing windows when she appears.

Many years ago, we had a feral cat bring her kittens up to our house about 2 hours before a storm hit. She must have had her kittens in the woods behind our property as that is where we saw her coming from. 2 hours after she moved the kittens, a tornado came thru and destroyed the woods. The kittens were about 3 weeks old and there had been a lot of storms that spring. We didn't even know she was back there until she showed up with a kitten in her mouth. So she rode out the normal spring rains and only took action when she sensed a really bad storm. Our Lucky Pierre is the survivor of that litter (the rest had FeLV).

Mine go extra crazy before rain, racing around even more than usual. If it's a thunderstorm I cannot get them out of the windows, they must enjoy it.

Glad Oliver has calmed down a bit

Our cats are okay with the rain (they would have to be - we are in Ireland!) but I totally agree that animals can sense weather. I grew up with dogs (we had four of them) and when we lived in Wyoming, they always went CRAZY right before a big July storm. The summer before we moved to Washington state, we had three tornado warnings a day - but we always knew before the alarms went off because our dogs would be going insane. Same thing happened when I was back in the states recently visiting my family (different dog, naturally) - Casey was acting crazy and sure enough, a few hours later we got some snow. Animals sense the changes better than we do - probably has something to do with their wild instincts, leading them to hide if bad weather is approaching.

Rescue Remedy is also good for thunderstorms (if you cat reacts to it - some don't). Rub a few drops on their head or put some in the water when you know one is coming. Helps calm them down a treat.