Weather Eye

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BY PAUL SIMONS

“NE’ER cast a clout till May be out” goes the old saying, meaning: “May can be surprisingly nippy, so don’t take off your woolly clothes until the end of the month”.

The strange thing is that the daylight hours in May are long and the sun climbs high in the sky, so you might imagine it should feel like summer. But the seas around the UK are still very cold, northerly winds can whistle down from the Arctic, and at night the land rapidly loses heat under cloudless skies and lets frost take hold.

Perhaps the best region in the UK to enjoy May weather is the West Coast of Scotland. There this is the driest and sunniest month on average, with the bonus that the midge season has not begun yet.

The westerly airflows that sweep off the Atlantic and often drench this region tend to be slack in May; instead, the region is sheltered by the Highlands from cold easterlies blowing off the Continent. The air also tends to be very dry, although that carries the threat of wildfires; last week fire took hold in the Loch Ard Forest in the Trossachs.

Last May was even more spectacular: western Scotland was roasted in a heatwave with temperatures soaring to 22C (72F) in Glasgow, leaving many Mediterranean holiday resorts in the shade.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

ON THIS day in 1965 Britain took an early step towards going metric. Long before we joined the Common Market, and under pressure from British industry, the president of the Board of Trade, Douglas Jay, told Parliament that we should adopt the metric system. But 40 years later we are still in a mess, juggling metric and imperial units in shopping, sport, weather forecasts and almost everything else in daily life.

In fact, the first proposal to make Britain metric was advanced by a select committee in 1862. But Britain was suspicious of metrication — it was, after all, born out of the French Revolution.

Temperature scales, though, were different because fahrenheit and celsius were invented long before the metric system. Daniel Fahrenheit — who was born on this day in 1686 — developed his temperature scale in 1709 and based it on the temperature of a healthy man, a reading recognised today as 98.6 degrees. He then made 180 degrees between the freezing and boiling points of waters. But when the simpler 100-degree scale of Anders Celsius was invented in 1742, it rapidly gained popularity throughout Europe.

Fahrenheit still clings on in Britain, however, even though converting between the two temperature scales is clumsy and makes our weather page more complicated.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

YOU may be fortunate over the next several weeks to see something quite magical after sunset — threads of glowing silvery-blue clouds stretched across the night sky.

These are rare “night-shining” or noctilucent clouds. They are the highest clouds in the world, about 80km (50 miles) high in the layer of atmosphere called the mesosphere. This is the coldest place on Earth, where temperatures can plunge to minus 130C (-200F), and where it is about a million times drier than the Sahara.

So how do noctilucent clouds form in such a dry environment? The tiny amount of water vapour that is floating about in the mesosphere is turned into ice crystals by the incredible cold.

The ice crystals also need to form around specks of dust, which might come from the smoke particles left by meteors (shooting stars) burning up in the mesosphere.

Strangely, the first sightings of noctilucent clouds were made only in the 1880s, and largely occurred in polar regions. But in the past 20 years they have become more frequent, spread further from the poles and turned noticeably brighter. These may be telltale signs of global warming, because, paradoxically, the mesosphere is turning colder as the lower atmosphere heats up.

The best time to see noctilucent clouds is after the Sun has dipped well below the horizon; they are seen mostly in the northern sky and in very clear conditions.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

THE monsoon has arrived in the Andaman Islands of the Indian Ocean, slightly later than normal, and is due to hit India early next month.

The Indian monsoon is the largest and most regular weather system in the world, and its driving force was figured out more than 300 years ago by Edmund Halley, best known for his comet studies.

In 1676, when Halley was 20 years old, he quit Oxford University for a voyage to the South Atlantic to study the stars of the Southern Hemisphere. During the voyage Halley wondered why the strong trade winds of the tropics seemed to die away around the Equator, a region that sailors called the doldrums.

Halley realised that the Sun heated the Earth’s surface more at the Equator, making warm air rise and creating the doldrum’s slack winds. Eventually that air from the Equator fell to Earth far away and returned as the trade winds.

The Sun also heats the Indian subcontinent in summer, making hot air rise up over the land. But the surrounding sea takes much longer to heat up, and its cooler, moister air is sucked inland as a monsoon wind that sets off huge rainfalls.

A small-scale version of that wind also happens at the seaside. As the coast heats up during the day it sucks in cool air off the sea and creates a refreshing sea breeze.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

BRITAIN is one of the windiest places on Earth. In a global survey of wind speeds, some of the highest average wind speeds, over 33kph (21mph), were found in parts of north and west Scotland, northwest and southwest England. These areas are regularly battered by depressions sweeping off the Atlantic and have enormous potential for generating electricity by wind power.

Researchers at Stanford University took data from around the world and calculated average wind speeds at 80m (262ft) above the ground, the height needed for wind turbines to work.

They found that there are enough windy places to make five times the entire world energy needs from wind power alone. Of course, it would be uneconomic or highly contentious to site wind turbines at every suitable location, especially in areas of natural beauty. Nonetheless, the potential for wind power remains enormous.

Apart from the UK, the world’s other windiest regions are sited along the European coast of the North Sea, the southern tip of South America and Tasmania. But the strongest winds of all are found in North America, around the Great Lakes and along the coastlines of the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. The US has the windiest location at Mount Washington, New Hampshire, which also holds the world record for the highest wind speed: 372kph (231mph) logged during a storm on April 13, 1934.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

ON THIS date 30 years ago, the weather delivered a shock — it snowed across a large part of Scotland and England.

Conditions had been miserably cold through much of May 1975, and when June arrived a northerly blast of Arctic air brought a biting frost across Scotland. Early on June 2 the thermometer at Gleneagles, Perthshire, sank to –3.3C (26F) — a temperature more likely in the depths of winter than early summer. The cold air swept into England and snow fell as far south as East Anglia and London, with sleet reaching Portsmouth.

Although the snow quickly melted in the South, it settled on the ground further north.

Famously, snow stopped play at a county cricket match between Derbyshire and Lancashire in Buxton, where snow reached an inch deep. It did not help Derbyshire — after the snow thawed they suffered one of their biggest defeats.

Snow also delayed play between Essex and Kent at Colchester, accompanied by midday temperatures of 2C (36F), and John Arlott reported snow at a cricket match at Lord’s.

The cold snap lasted a while, with snow lying on the ground for four days in parts of Scotland. But on June 6 the British weather lived up to its fickle reputation, when a heatwave sent temperatures soaring in northeast Scotland to 25C (77F).

A gloriously hot summer across Britain followed.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

JUNE has got off to a rather soggy start for much of the country, which may be no bad thing, as the old folklore saying goes: “June damp and warm/ Does the farmer no harm”.

The outlook is for more wet weather, at least in the next week or so, which will be welcome for both farmers and gardeners in southern Britain. May was yet another relatively dry month in southern England, where many areas have had a run of seven months of below-average rainfall.

However, the threat of drought eased slightly for much of East Anglia after a full month’s rains, while flooding posed more of a threat in northwest England and most of Scotland, where May, like the rest of spring, were thoroughly wet.

Most long-range forecasts for the next few weeks predict a further divide in rainfall across the country — the North West takes the brunt of showers while the South has more sporadic outbursts of wet weather.

The good news is that it should be relatively warm, with temperatures slightly above average and a hint of heatwaves towards the end of June and early July, with the South East basking in the highest temperatures.

One clear picture emerging is that the Mediterranean is growing much warmer than normal, pointing to another very hot summer there.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

CONDITIONS for the Epsom Derby today promise to be mild and fine, but the race has had some extraordinary weather over its long history.

The race was run in a snowstorm in 1839 and flurries of sleet and snow returned in 1867. Charles Dickens was a frequent visitor to the race, and in 1863 described torrential rain turning Epsom into a sea of mud.

But Derby Day in 1911 was truly terrifying. The day had been very hot and muggy before a ferocious thunderstorm broke out in the late afternoon as racegoers were leaving the course. Cascades of rain and hail crashed down as the sky erupted with a barrage of lightning and ear-splitting thunder. One of the racecourse marquees was hit by lightning, felling eight people inside; outside, a group of twelve trying to shelter by a wall were thrown to the ground and two killed when they were struck by another bolt of lightning. In one bizarre incident, a ball of fire was seen inside a horse-drawn carriage just before the passengers were hurled out, leaving one person dead.

Thunderstorms raged all across London and the suburbs for much of the evening, causing landslides on railways and flooding streets; 15 people were killed and dozens injured, many of them sheltering under trees. It was one of the worst thunderstorms known in London and the Home Counties.

Link to Weather Eye source

[SteveB]

That is an amazing snippet of info Highcliffe.

[highcliffe2]

Yes Steve it is very interesting, it's good that the Times have an article like this which is interesting to read

[SteveB]

Yes indeed, I shall be paying closer attention to weather eye in the future

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

A WEIRD event happened during a village cricket match at Davington near Faversham, Kent, on May 22. It was a warm, sunny afternoon — indeed, Gravesend nearby recorded 18C (64F), the highest UK temperature of the day.

But at about 6.30pm, the players were astonished when a huge piece of ice suddenly fell from the sky on to the pitch. The Davington cricket club member and groundsman Graham Owen said that the ice exploded on the ground.

“There was an enormous ‘whoosh’, like a slushy snowball had exploded, and then slush just spread across the ground about 10ft square,” he said. “We looked around in amazement but couldn’t see any aircraft or anything else it could have come from.”

No one was hurt by the impact, although it missed the umpire by only about 10ft, and the shattered remains of the ice quickly melted away.

The falling object was no hailstone because it was far too large and there were no thunderclouds in the sky. It could have been explained by a leaking pipe or a build-up of ice on an aircraft, had any been seen at the time.

Several similar strange incidents of falling ice plagued Italy and Spain a few years ago, when balls of ice weighing up to 750g (1lb 10oz) fell out of the sky. Analysis of these missiles ruled out aircraft, hailstones or even comets, and their origin still remains a mystery.

Link to Weather Eye source

[Methuselah]

It's off the exhaust systems on UFOs...Asgard scoutships I'd imagine?

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

THERE has been a big change in the weather. After several weeks of unsettled, often wet and windy, conditions, a block of high pressure has anchored itself directly over the UK and brought tranquillity, at least for the next few days.

In fact, the anticyclone this week is remarkably regular. Around June 5 each year, high pressure often arrives in the UK, but quite why this weather pattern is so regular is difficult to say. Perhaps it is connected in some way to the Indian monsoon, an exquisitely timed event that usually arrives at the southern tip of southern India this week.

However, there is a tinge of disappointment with the arrival of the anticyclone. You might imagine that high pressure in June would bring glorious sunshine and warm weather. But this particular anticyclone has trapped a sizeable amount of moisture and produced a thick blanket of dreary low-level cloud. As the airflow in an anticyclone is fairly stagnant, we can expect the cloud to hang around for some time. However, as the weather system shifts position, sunshine will break through, especially in the south of the country, and temperatures will rise.

There is a danger, though, that if the anticyclone shifts too far towards Ireland it will allow a northerly air flow to be dragged down the east side of the UK, bringing cooler temperatures.

Link to Weather Eye source

[SteveB]

Nicely explained away there Pete. B)

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

GARDENERS had a rude shock on Monday night when frosts appeared in many places across the UK. A northerly air flow, light winds and clear skies produced a chilly night and the frost: Benson, near Oxford, recorded -0.3C (31.5F), its coldest June temperature since 1962.

However, this was far from being the UK’s coldest temperature in June. On June 9, 1955, a record low of -5.6C (21.9F) was logged at Dalwhinnie, Scottish Highlands, in what was a thoroughly chilly, cloudy month.

The record low June temperature was equalled twice more, on June 1 and 3, 1962, at Santon Downham, Norfolk. That first week of June had some very sharp frosts in many places, but the weather perked up and a week later a small heatwave was under way.

It is easy to forget that June often springs some surprisingly cool spells. Only four years ago, in 2001, June began on a frosty note: Redhill Airfield recorded -1.8C on the 9th, and snow fell on the mountains of Scotland as Arctic air swept south.

Places such as Benson, Santon Downham and Redhill Airfield are particularly prone to frost because they lie in sheltered ground where pools of cold air collect on calm, clear nights. These are known as frost hollows, and can be so cold that they can set back the plant-growing season by many weeks.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

SOMETHING quite dramatic happened over Britain this week. The sea-level pressure rose to 1039mb on Wednesday, a very high reading, although not the highest — the UK record for June is 1043mb, in 1959. The high reading came from a strong anticyclone over Britain, which gave glorious sunshine in clear blue skies.

However, high pressure is causing nervousness in southern England. After the exceptionally dry winter and spring, reservoirs in this region are uncomfortably low, and groundwater levels in some areas are at their lowest June level since 1976. The problem now is that any rains will not soak deep enough into the ground to fill the aquifers. Heavy summer rains tend to wash straight off the ground, with the danger of flashfloods, such as the Boscastle disaster last August.

Another concern is that a dry ground helps to heat the air above and encourage heatwaves. The record temperatures of August 2003 came from hot air drifting over from Europe and being re-heated on the very dry ground on this side of the Channel.

With France, Spain and Portugal now growing hot and very dry, a long spell of anticyclones this summer could set off another heatwave.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

SKIERS might be interested in a trip to the Alps this weekend after some unusual recent snowfalls.

Nearly 40cm (16in) fell over parts of the Austrian and German Alps last week, leaving motorists stranded on blocked roads before snowploughs could reach them. A fresh snowfall on Germany’s high point, Zugspitze, raised the snow pack to 310cm (122in); some high-altitude ski resorts, especially on glaciers, are open and enjoying the snowfalls.

The cold winds that brought snow to the mountains were felt also in the lowlands, with temperatures in Vienna plummeting to a chilly 7C (44F). In fact, the cold blast sent shivers across much of Eastern Europe. In Croatia, a few inches of snow fell on the southern mountain of Biokovo, where temperatures fell to -3C (27F), and fresh snow blanketed the mountains of southern Serbia.

Even Italy caught the rough weather. Heavy rain and strong winds flooded some of Rome’s streets, uprooting trees and forcing several roads to be closed.

This wintry outbreak was linked to our fine weather last week. A stubborn block of high pressure bathed the UK in glorious sunshine, but a few miles high in the sky, the jet stream wind was forced around the anti-cyclone like a river flowing around a boulder. After passing the UK, it plunged south over the eastern Mediterranean, opening the way for bitterly cold air to flood down from the north.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

A REMARKABLE eyewitness account of a whirlwind was posted on the website www.ukweatherworld.co.uk on Thursday.

“Quite suddenly the wind picked up . . . then a quite deafening roar/deep whistle was apparent,” wrote the respondent from the Brecon area in Wales. “The vortex stretched up about 30m (100ft) towards blue sky, and lifted up masses of dirt.”

This type of whirlwind is called, fittingly, a dust devil. Although they are common in hot deserts, dust devils can be seen also in Britain on a hot summer’s day. They are created by warm air rising from a hot ground — unlike tornados, which come down from clouds. As the warm air rushes upwards, it corkscrews into a vortex and, as this tightens, the whirling air spins faster, rather like the way ice-skaters pull their arms in next to their bodies to spin faster. A dust devil can reach wind speeds of 90mph — comparable to a fair-sized tornado — charging along the ground haphazardly, sucking up loose objects and sometimes causing considerable damage.

At Royal Ascot three years ago, a dust devil tore through the racecourse, throwing a gazebo, chairs, picnics and ladies’ hats some 100ft high into the air as people ran for cover. In 1999 a dust devil smashed through an antiques fair in Sussex. No one was injured, but many of the antiques were damaged.

Link to Weather Eye source

[Weather-history]

And here's Uksys' account that Paul Simon looked at

http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/foru...=21608&posts=17

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

TODAY is the start of the Royal Ascot meeting, to be held in York this year, and traditionally a day of warm weather and big hats. But 50 years ago the first day of Ascot, on July 14, 1955, was devastated by the weather.

For days beforehand the South East had sweltered in a heatwave, and several big thunderstorms broke out. The first day at Ascot was stiflingly hot and muggy before the sky turned menacing with ink-black clouds. Suddenly, the heavens opened and torrential rain sent the crowds running for cover. As the rain crashed down, a bolt of lightning shot over the grandstand and struck a metal fence close to a crowd packed inside a tea tent. The Times reported that people were knocked over and some were even lifted off their feet by the lightning strike.

Afterwards, the scene looked like a battlefield, with people unconscious on the ground and others wandering around dazed. “It was like being stabbed,” one man said; another felt a shock tear through his arm as he was thrown down.

Dozens of casualties were taken to the local hospital, which was rapidly overwhelmed. Two people died and forty-four suffered burns and shock. That same day, seven people were killed by lightning across England — it was one of the highest numbers of thunderstorm casualties recorded on a single day in the UK.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

THE transfer of Royal Ascot to York has highlighted a striking North-South divide in Britain’s weather. While the South faces a drought this summer, the North has been soaked for many months. And June is following a similar pattern: Northeast England has had more than its average rainfall, while the South East continues to be drier than normal.

For race officials at York this is a nerve-racking time. Unlike the well-drained gravels at Ascot, the course at York sits on muddy silt and can change rapidly into a sticky mess if there is heavy rain. On the other hand, if the track turns too brown it may need to be watered — possibly compounding the effect of any downpour afterwards.

The first omens were not good, as a depression north of Scotland dragged rains across Yorkshire. After a brief respite, another depression is sweeping in today, this time from the south west. It promises to drench the whole country and the rain may arrive at York in time for the races.

But despite the risks of rain, when the sunshine does break through, the temperature at York will rise sharply. The racecourse lies in the Vale of York, which is particularly warm in the summer, and by the end of the week it should feel decidedly hot.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

“A GREAT and terrible flood of water came with such vehemence that it drove to the ground eight houses”. This description of flash flooding in Helmsley, Yorkshire, came not from last Sunday’s disaster, but a similar incident there on October 20, 1754.

That flood demolished several houses and bridges, washed away cattle and killed 13 people. “James Holdforth, he and his whole family drowned, except his wife, who being sick in her bed, was carried down the stream half a mile, and at last washed off into a field, where she was found the next morning very little hurt,” ran another account of the event.

The Yorkshire hills have a long history of flash floods. On July 23, 1777, a thunderstorm at Holmfirth, near Huddersfield, sent raging waters down through the town, sweeping away bridges, mills and houses, and killing several people. Holmfirth was hit again on February 5, 1852, when, after a fortnight of heavy rain, the banks of a dam broke and water surged down, killing 81 people.

Some people have blamed the recent Helmsley floods on climate change, but these parts were disaster-struck long before global warming became an issue.

The high ground of Yorkshire encourages thunderstorms by giving an added lift to humid air, often leading to big rainfalls that drain into steep river valleys, turning rivers into dangerous torrents.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

WITH so much mayhem from yesterday’s weather it might be hard to imagine any good things to say about lightning and thunderstorms. But, surprisingly, they are crucial for the wellbeing of the planet.

The Earth is like a battery with two terminals — its surface and the ionosphere about 80km (50 miles) up, with a voltage of around 300,000 volts between them. Thunderstorms drive electrical current upwards and charge the lower reaches of the ionosphere.

That charge then spreads around the globe in the ionosphere and eventually leaks back to the Earth’s surface where the weather is fair, helping to maintain the global electric circuit.

Lightning helps to fertilise soil. The air we breathe is mostly nitrogen gas, which plants cannot use. But the tremendous heat of lightning — it can reach 30,000C (54,000F), five times hotter than the surface of the Sun — breaks down the air and makes nitrogen oxides.

This natural fertiliser washes down with rain into the ground, and lightning is estimated to produce up to 15 million tonnes of the nitrogen fertiliser worldwide each year.

Lightning also sets fire to enormous swaths of forests and grassland each year, and even although this appears to be disastrous, the fires turn vegetation into mineral-rich ash which also fertilises the soil.

In dense forests the fires also open up the ground for new vegetation to sprout up and regenerate the woodland.

Link to Weather Eye source

[highcliffe2]

BY PAUL SIMONS

WHAT would June be like without a mudbath at the Glastonbury Festival and a washout at Wimbledon?

Friday’s downpours were nothing new. Ever since Marc Bolan arrived in a velvet-covered Mini at the first Glastonbury shindig in 1970, rain has been a frequent visitor there, with spectacular downpours in 1982, 1985, 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2003. However, Southwest England averages 12 wet days in June, so the chances of escaping with a dry run are pretty slim.

The same is true of Wimbledon, although Southeast England averages just 11 days of rain in June. A whole day’s play has been washed out 30 times since Wimbledon moved to its present site in 1922. Or, put more bleakly, a completely dry championship happens only about once every twenty years.

We can expect more violent downpours as our climate grows warmer, but then heavy summer rains are not a new phenomenon.

As the medieval historian Matthew of Paris wrote in 1248 of medieval fairs: “For owing to the changeable gusts of wind assailing them, as is usual at that time of the year, they were cold and wet, and also suffered from hunger and thirst; their feet were soiled by the mud, and their goods rotted by the showers of rain.”

Link to Weather Eye source