Author name: SMETO

Highland temperatures

Dear Diary
I don’t know how we managed to avoid a frost last night but we did with a minimum of 0.3°C at 0017 UTCUTC Coordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently used prime meridian) and is not adjusted for daylight saving time. It is effectively a successor to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).. After that I imagine the cloud must have increased because the wind remained very light from the W’SW. The unusual thing is that although you would expect the minima to occur at around sunrise (0831 this morning) it didn’t. Instead the overnight cloud quickly dispersed and we were left with blue skies, but temperatures continued to fall back from 3.9°C at 0700 UTC to just 1.2°C at 1100 UTC. This is because as the name suggests StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469. is in a strath and from about the end of November the sun never gets over the Cats Back (a long ridge to the south of the village). The sun eventually struggle over the ridge but it takes till mid morning to do it. The Highlands are full of glens and straths like this, many of them won’t see direct sunshine again until the end of February.

Scotland, Strathpeffer, Temperature

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No Beast from the East

Dear Diary,
The UKMOUKMO The Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy are trying their very hardest to dissuade people from thinking that they’re not looking down the jaws of another Beast from the East in the coming few days, temperatures they say will only fall slightly below the seasonal average. It might come as news to them that temperatures have today been lower than the 5°C they promise for this coming Saturday. Today the minimum in the dip here in StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469., and despite a mainly sunny day, was just 3.9°C so it’s already cold. It may well warm up of course once the easterly gets going and maybe brings some milder air up off the Cromarty Firth.

Temperature, UKMO

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Back edge of front casting shadow

Dear Diary
I missed this lovely satellite image today whilst clearing leaves out of the gutters and chopping sticks for the fire. The sharp back edge to the frontal cloud is casting a shadow northward across the Lake District and NENE North East England. Meanwhile troughs within the colder air, containing CBCB Cumulonimbus cloud. Well-developed cumulonimbus clouds are characterized by a flat, anvil-like top and thunderstorms, are running into western Scotland and Ireland from the west. Meanwhile in StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469., and much of southern and eastern Scotland, it’s remained dry with long sunny spells

Satellite, Scotland

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It’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be grey, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life

You may remember that quote from the weatherman Bill Murray played in one of my favourite films Groundhog Day and which I was thinking might nicely sum up the first couple of weeks in December 2022 if the GFSGFS The Global Forecast System is a global numerical weather prediction system containing a global computer model and variational analysis run by the United States National Weather Service. model is right, and that’s a big if. They’ve finally come into line with the ECMWFECMWF The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts is an independent intergovernmental organisation supported by most of the nations of Europe. It is based at three sites: Shinfield Park, Reading, United Kingdom; Bologna, Italy; and Bonn, Germany. It operates one of the largest supercomputer complexes in Europe and the world's largest archive of numerical weather prediction data. model, at least up to T+240, in the latest midnight run. What does strike me about this sequence, is that despite pressure being high across IONAIONA Islands Of North Atlantic. Yes I know there's an island called Iona, but this is so I don't have to use the term 'British Isles' when referring to the whole of Ireland and the UK., we seem to still find ourselves in the middle of a battleground, with no shortage of showers or frontal systems managing to inveigle themselves into the flow. The one thing which we do have, and which we’ve had for sometime in all reality, is blocking, that has managed to retrogress itself westward from Finland towards the meridian in the last few weeks.

Meanwhile down at Exeter the medium and long range team are just as befuddled as their boss Professor Adam Scaife is about the position of the dominant high pressure will position itself for at least the next 10 days. In AEAE Anticyclonic Easterly situations like this, the one place that is likely to get clobbered is the south or southwest of the country and not the northwest. The only reason that I regularly read the long range forecast from the Met OfficeUKMO The Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is to see just what the Twilight Zone feels like to a true believer. I wonder how long it will be before they catch onto the fact that there’s a easterly on the way instead of spinning a catch all line “the potential for high pressure to be located close to the UKUK The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.“.

GFS, Long Range Forecast

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Circulation | 4 Aug – 23 Nov 2022

The chart shows the mean MSLPMSLP Mean sea level pressure is the pressure at sea level, or, when measured at a given elevation on land, the station pressure reduced to sea level assuming an isothermal layer at the station temperature. over the last 16 weeks across IONAIONA Islands Of North Atlantic. Yes I know there's an island called Iona, but this is so I don't have to use the term 'British Isles' when referring to the whole of Ireland and the UK. and the corresponding objective LWTLWT Lamb Weather Types are often used in UK-based analyses, with individual weather patterns based on the eight primary cardinal directions (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) plus cyclonic (C), anticyclonic (A) and unclassified (U) types. for each of those weeks. It’s evident that the last anticyclonic spell occurred in the third week of September and since then the circulation has been mobile and usually from the W or SW.

Circulation, LWT

Circulation | 4 Aug – 23 Nov 2022 Read More »

They’re in trouble when Berry Head and the Needles are in the list

It’s certainly been, and still is across the west of Wales, a very windy day with coastal gales and some strong gusts on the cold front, but nothing very exceptional for a late November day. There were gale or severe gale force winds and comparable gusts for several consecutive days last week in the Northern Isles without any warning at all. You know the Met Office are trying to justify their warning when they roll out gusts from non-standard exposure, cliff top sites like Berry Head and the NeedlesNeedles A non-standard WMO class 3 anemograph site, stuck on top of a near 300 foot limestone cliff, on the Isle of Wight. Old battery. What tickles me is the UKMOUKMO The Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy are loathed to mention wind speeds from mountain sites such as CairngormCairn Gorm Cairn Gorm (Scottish Gaelic: An Càrn Gorm) is a mountain in the Scottish Highlands. It is part of the Cairngorms range and wider Grampian Mountains. With a summit elevation of 1,245 m (4,085 ft) above sea level, Cairn Gorm is classed as a Munro and is the seventh-highest mountain in the British Isles. but have no qualms at all using readings made atop a 300 foot chalk cliff.

As for today’s rainfall totals [06-18] nothing that excessive either, even if most of it was on the front itself. The warning mentioned 10 to 15 mm in 1 to 2 hours and 20 to 25 mm in a few places, both too excessive. There was just 0.2 mm here in the NENE North East of Scotland.
If the UKMO can take a hard line with the issuing of warnings in Scotland why can’t they do the same for everywhere else?
It seems we’re fast becoming a Nanny State even with regard to weather.

Rain, UKMO, Warnings, Wind

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12 UTC analysis

Intense squall line across the SW of Wales

There may well have been a mini-tornado in Wales this morning, but the highest guts from the stations in the SYNOPSYNOP SYNOP (surface synoptic observations) is a numerical code (called FM-12 by WMO) used for reporting weather observations made by manned and automated weather stations. SYNOP reports are typically mad hourly and consist of groups of numbers (and slashes where data is not available) describing general weather information, such as the temperature, barometric pressure and visibility at a weather station. network are rather underwhelming, and none of them higher than the 76 mph gust at the Mumbles yesterday when there was no yellow warning in force. Line convection on a cold front like we’ve seen today is not an uncommon occurrence across IONAIONA Islands Of North Atlantic. Yes I know there's an island called Iona, but this is so I don't have to use the term 'British Isles' when referring to the whole of Ireland and the UK. at any time of the year, but does that mean from now on we’ll see the Met OfficeUKMO The Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy issue a combined Yellow warning for heavy rain and strong winds each time that they do?

Analysis, Rain, UKMO, Warnings, Wind

12 UTC analysis Read More »

It’s a funny old game

As Greavsie once said “It’s a funny old game Saint” and the same is true of weather as it is of football. We had to wait all Autumn till Sunday night before we saw our first air frostair frost An air frost occurs when the temperature of the air falls below 0.0°C, and now we’re looking at getting four frosts in a row here in StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469.. It’s just the luck of the draw with the timing of these frontal systems this week being early morning rather than in the early hours I suppose. Three cold days in the Highlands. The mean temperature in my AWSAWS Automatic Weather Station on Monday [00-00] was just -0.6°C. Temperatures never exceeded 5.2°C today and they are already falling as skies clear late this afternoon. Here’s hoping for a frost tonight anyway!

Frost

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Surprising North American anomalies

A rather surprising chart of temperature anomalies for North American for the first 20 days of November 2022. Well it was at least for me. The cold air and mountains of snow at Buffalo gave me the impression that the whole of November had been very cold but not so. For the first two weeks of November eastern America was extremely mild with anomalies as high as +8°C. The third week saw the opposite conditions and it was much colder, which reduced the magnitude of the warm high that you can see in the anomaly chart close to New York (+4°C). It’s just how climate is with extremes of temperature cancelling each other out within the space of a year or less.

Anomalies, N America, Temperature

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Overnight minimums

Not quite as cold as the Met OfficeUKMO The Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy expected across large parts of central and eastern England overnight. If you’re not sure what the minimum temperatures will be over the highlands of Scotland, simply don’t add a temperature for Inverness, Braemar or Aviemore and then you can’t be wrong.

Temperature, UKMO

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Fog persists across Easter Ross

Looking east to Knockfarrel from the Cat’s back
Line of distant CBCB Cumulonimbus cloud. Well-developed cumulonimbus clouds are characterized by a flat, anvil-like top across the NENE North East of Aberdeenshire

The overnight fog has been persistent across the Cromarty Firth and Straths and glens of Easter Ross this morning. In fact temperatures are still subzero after a moderate overnight frost. Here in StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469. temperatures fell to -3.5°C in the first frost of the Autumn. The fog looks to be around 300 feet thick or so and is blowing up the strath from the east. Higher up above the inversion at around 750 feet there’s a 5 to 10 knots wind blowing from the south. So as well as fog blowing up the strath from the east some is blowing up and over the ridge of the Cat’s back from the south. You can barely see what all the fuss is about in the lunchtime satellite image.

The view north from Knockfarrel towards Ben Wyvis
My shadow cast a faint gloryGlory A glory is an optical phenomenon, resembling an iconic saint's halo around the shadow of the observer's head, caused by sunlight or (more rarely) moonlight interacting with the tiny water droplets that comprise mist or clouds. The glory consists of one or more concentric, successively dimmer rings, each of which is red on the outside and bluish towards the centre. Due to its appearance, the phenomenon is sometimes mistaken for a circular rainbow, but the latter has a much larger diameter and is caused by different physical processes. as I walked along the ridge.

Fog, Frost, Scotland

Fog persists across Easter Ross Read More »

Mild November in Iceland

Undoubtedly the last couple of weeks in November have been very mild across Iceland, but don’t forget the cold weather back in October that brought the red warning for heavy snow from the IMOIMO Icelandic Meteorological Office (Icelandic: Veðurstofa Íslands) is Iceland's national weather service and as such a government agency under the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. It is also active in volcano monitoring, volcano seismology, and together with other institutions, responsible for civil protection in Iceland. This is climate in action, some weeks are warmer than average and some are colder. I reckon the 7 to 8 degrees are the result of foehnFoehn A foehn, is a type of dry, relatively warm, downslope wind that occurs in the lee (downwind side) of a mountain range. It is a rain shadow wind that results from the subsequent adiabatic warming of air that has dropped most of its moisture on windward slopes (see orographic lift). As a consequence of the different adiabatic lapse rates of moist and dry air, the air on the leeward slopes becomes warmer than equivalent elevations on the windward slopes. winds at stations in the north of the island like we saw in Snowdonia in the last week. I would like to have produced a thermograph with anomalies for Reykjavik but they don’t publish daily extremes so this will have to do a town on the south coast.

Climate, Iceland, IMO, Temperature

Mild November in Iceland Read More »

Recent temperatures in Qatar

The town of Umm Said in Qatar lies around 60 km to the south of Doha the capital of Qatar where the 2022 World Cup is being held this year.

Umm Saʿīd, also called Musayʿīd or Mesaieed, town and port situated in Qatar, on the east coast of the Qatar Peninsula, in the Persian Gulf. It was established in 1949 as a tanker terminal by the Qatar Petroleum Company on an inhospitable, previously uninhabited site, along the sabkhah (salt flat) terrain characteristic of the coast.

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Presumably because it is a busy and important oil terminal hourly SYNOPSYNOP SYNOP (surface synoptic observations) is a numerical code (called FM-12 by WMO) used for reporting weather observations made by manned and automated weather stations. SYNOP reports are typically mad hourly and consist of groups of numbers (and slashes where data is not available) describing general weather information, such as the temperature, barometric pressure and visibility at a weather station. observations are reported from Umm Said, whereas the international airport only reports three hourly. This is a thermograph for the last 48 hours from Umm Said.

Latest Thermo-hygro graph

That weather in Qatar doesn’t look too severe at the moment for playing football, that’s if you can keep out of the sun which is easier said than done. Humidities are certainly higher because coming off the Persian Gulf but football beats coal mining and these are getting mighty well paid for running around kicking a ball for 90 minutes.

Courtesy of Wikipedia

I hadn’t realised that the final wasn’t till the 18th of December – so we’ll never hear the end of it on TV for the next four week!!. As for the weather that looks set fair for the start of the completion.

Humidity, Temperature

Recent temperatures in Qatar Read More »

18-19 November – Buffalo lake effect snow

Spot Buffalo (-5.0°C)

Benny loves the snow almost as much as me!
#Buffalo #BuffaloStorm2022 #Buffalolakeeffect #Buffalosnow

Originally tweeted by BuffaloWeather (@weather_buffalo) on November 18, 2022.

Look at these snow drifts on my roof!!
#LakeEffectSnow #LakeEffect #buffaloStorm2022 #buffalosnow #buffalo #buffalolakeeffect

Originally tweeted by BuffaloWeather (@weather_buffalo) on November 19, 2022.

I’ve never witnessed the #LakeEffect wall move like that.

This was around 11:30pm Friday as the band shifted into #Buffalo.

This was absolutely unreal to witness. @WGRZ

Originally tweeted by Nate Benson (@natebenson) on November 19, 2022.

Approaching 6 feet of snow here in Hamburg!

#BuffaloStorm2022 #BuffaloNY #Buffalo #Buffalosnow #Buffalolakeeffect #LakeEffectSnow

Originally tweeted by BuffaloWeather (@weather_buffalo) on November 19, 2022.

Snow

18-19 November – Buffalo lake effect snow Read More »

Warming of 1.5°C in Central England

With regard to global temperature the IPCCIPCC The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations responsible for advancing knowledge on human-induced climate change. It was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme, and later endorsed by United Nations General Assembly. uses the reference period 1850 to 1900 to represent pre-industrial temperature to measure the degree of global warming that has occurred. They say about this reference period in their 2018 report:-

In principle, ‘pre-industrial levels’ could refer to any period of time before the start of the industrial revolution. But the number of direct temperature measurements decreases as we go back in time. Defining a ‘pre-industrial’ reference period is, therefore, a compromise between the reliability of the temperature information and how representative it is of truly pre-industrial conditions. Some pre-industrial periods are cooler than others for purely natural reasons. This could be because of spontaneous climate variability or the response of the climate to natural perturbations, such as volcanic eruptions and variations in the sun’s activity. This IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C uses the reference period 1850–1900 to represent pre-industrial temperature. This is the earliest period with near-global observations and is the reference period used as an approximation of pre-industrial temperatures in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report.

Global Warming of 1.5°C – IPCC Report

I thought I would look and see how the CETCET Central England Temperature series was doing and see if it was getting close to the magic +1.5°C. The daily mean maximum and minimum only began in 1878 so it’s not possible to calculate mean values using this data, but daily mean temperatures are available back to 1772, and so it’s possible to calculate a mean for 1850-1900. It’s also possible to go back further and calculate a mean from 1772-1900, or better still calculate a mean for the period 1772-1850, which in my opinion is a better start for the dawn of the industrial era or the industrial revolution.

The anomalies in the bar chart are larger than you would normally see because I’ve based them on a long-term average for the period 1851-2000. Annual mean anomalies nearly exceeded 1.5°C back n 1949, and in recent years the 1.5°C barrier has been breached at least six times including this year (2022) which looks likely to become the warmest year on record. So we’ve not quite reached the +1.5°C mark globally but we are not far off in central England. I wonder what Gordon Manley would make of it all?

What caused the cooling between 1950 and 1980 in global as well as temperatures in central England? Maybe it was the airborne testing of thermonuclear weapons that followed the second world war and which continued till around 1976 according to Wikipedia. Natural variability or man made? My money’s on the latter in this case.

CET, Global Temperatures

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Frost free Autumn for many

So far Autumn 2022 has been relatively frost free across IONAIONA Islands Of North Atlantic. Yes I know there's an island called Iona, but this is so I don't have to use the term 'British Isles' when referring to the whole of Ireland and the UK.. It’s now the 19th of November, and although we’ve dropped down to 0.0°C here in StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469., like in many other places, we still await the first air frostair frost An air frost occurs when the temperature of the air falls below 0.0°C of the season.

Frost

Frost free Autumn for many Read More »

Bridge of Dee

I make the wettest place in Aberdeenshire, using estimates from weather radar, the bridge of Dee with 143.6 mm of rain since the start of Wednesday (16 November) till now. That’s the wettest residential site but there are some deep purple pixles and a couple of white ones indication totals above 225 mm. Here’s a league table of wettest residential places, and as you can see there are other sites outwith Aberdeenshire.

Flooding, Rain, Scotland, Weather Radar

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