Author name: SMETO

State of the UK Climate 2023

I notice that the report State of the UK Climate 2023 that has just issued by the UKMO says that ‘Climate change may be causing dramatic changes’, but eight to twelve days with temperatures >=28°C across Ross-shire in 2023 is NOT one of them. I recorded one such day here in 2023 in StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469., Easter Ross. I realise that the statistics are from a number of stations across the whole county, but there’s absolutely no way that there were as many as eight of them in 2023, even if you include results from Kinlochewe in Wester Ross. Back to the printers!

Climate, Royal Met Society, Scotland, UKMO

State of the UK Climate 2023 Read More »

Was the cool unsettled start to July anticipated?

16-30 day 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 text forecast

Was the cold and unsettled start to July in anyway expected by the UKMO in their long range (16-30 day) forecast? As far as colder than average temperatures are concerned that’s a definite no, with mean anomalies for the period from 29 June to the 12th of July between one and three degrees below the LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. There was no mention of such a dull start to the month either, with sunshine widely only 60% or less of the LTA. Sunshine may have been in short supply but rainfall totals were widely above average in the 14 day period, with large areas seeing totals 200% or more of the LTA. So the short answer to the question, as measured by mean temperature, total sunshine and rainfall, is a most definite no, the cool, dull and wet start to July was not anticipated.😜

Double click to show enlarged slide show

Long Range Forecast, UKMO

Was the cool unsettled start to July anticipated? Read More »

May warmer than June in 2024

In Central England, May 2024 ended up being warmer than it was in June. The mean temperature for May was 14.1°C, whilst the mean for June was just 14.0°C. This is only the third time this has occurred since the series began in 1659.
In Stornoway, June 2024 was an unprecedented -1.4°C colder than May 2024. The climatological records there go back 151 years. June itself was the second coldest on record, and just 0.3°C warmer than the record cold June of 1952. June was also the dullest on record in a 95 year long series.
In StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469. the mean temperatures in June was -1.1ºC lower than May, but my record only started in 2022. So much for 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 saying that temperatures in the first part of the month were nothing unusual. 🤨

CET, June, May

May warmer than June in 2024 Read More »

June 2024 – Global Temperatures – 13th consecutive record month

Monthly June Anomaly

June 2024 was the 13th consecutive record warm month globally, in the ERA5ERA ERA stands for 'ECMWF Re-Analysis' and refers to a series of research projects at ECMWF which produced various datasets (ERA-Interim, ERA-40, etcetera). series that started in 1979. It was well above the record anomaly that it set in June 2023, but having said that global temperatures are now starting to slide as El NinoEl Niño El Niño 'The Boy' is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific starts to kick in in the central Pacific. Daily anomalies have already fallen below the magic +1.5°C mark, and 2024 might have well have a job keeping up with records set up only last summer. I would like to confidently predict that June 2024 will be the last record breaking month, but I’ve done that before, and have already lost any street cred that I may have had. 😉

Daily Anomalies

A rolling 365 day moving average of anomalies since pre-industrial times have been above 1.5ºC for all of this year. It’s currently at +1.64ºC and in its third peak since 2015. A 30 year linear trend shows that the average could reach the 1.5°C mark by late 2030.

365 Day Moving Average
ECMWF, Global Temperatures, Global Warming

June 2024 – Global Temperatures – 13th consecutive record month Read More »

June 2024 – Objective LWT

A mobile, and at times a quite cyclonic month for June 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. started anticyclonic enough, but the flow steadily veered more northwesterly up until the 11th, when a low tracked slowly eastward from the 14th to the 18th leaving a northerly behind it. The circulation gradually became more southwesterly until the 24th, when a brief anticyclonic couple of days gave way to a low that tracked northeastward across the northwest of 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. on 27th & 28th, with winds veering more northwesterly, as high pressure built in from the southwest.

Circulation, June, LWT

June 2024 – Objective LWT Read More »

June 2024 – Mean Pressure and anomalies

Much lower than average pressure to the north (-8 hPahPa A Hectopascal is the SI unit of pressure and identical to the Millibar), and higher than average pressure in the central Atlantic (+5 hPa), produced a W’NW flow and lower than average temperatures 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..

Anomalies, June, MSLP

June 2024 – Mean Pressure and anomalies Read More »

June 2024 – Mean Temperature anomalies

Mean temperatures were close to or a little below average 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.. A cold trough extended SSE from central Greenland, through Iceland and on into Iberia and southern France. Warmer than average air dominated the central Atlantic, and in a band running from northern Scandinavia, down into eastern Russia, Turkey and on into north Africa.

Anomalies, Global Temperatures, June

June 2024 – Mean Temperature anomalies Read More »

21st century summers in Central England

I’ve never added any animation to my Daily Central England temperature application up until now, so I thought as the weather today is still pretty dreich, I would put that right today. It’s amazing how the simple animated GIF is still going after all these years, it was declared dead many years ago at the same time as Javascript, but it’s simple and produces compact files, and there’s still not anything out there to replace it.

CET, Software, Summer

21st century summers in Central England Read More »

Earliest 20°C day in Central England

Apologies for the late arrival of this article. I wrote the code to identify the earliest and latest date a temperature in Central England achieved a given threshold way back in March, but I must have got fed up with it happening in 2024, so forgot all about it! In this case it was a maximum of 20°C that I was interested in, and it finally managed it this year on the 10th of May, which by coincidence is the average date it’s done this since 1878. Having said that, because this date is getting earlier, if you use a linear trend the first 20°C should happen by the 28th of April these days, so it’s really 12 days late this year. Not a lot of people know that. 😉

CET, Software

Earliest 20°C day in Central England Read More »

Fact Check : Are UV levels higher on a mountain?

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 going overboard at the moment about high UVUV Ultraviolet (UV) light is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths of 10–400 nanometers, shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. levels and the dangers of getting sunburnt. It’s a bit ironic, because so far (June 14th) 2024 has seen the coolest and cloudiest start to a meteorological summer in at least 23 years. What’s puzzling is that they never mention in their forecast that UV levels can be considerably higher on a mountain than on lower ground. I used AIAI Artificial intelligence is intelligence - perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information - demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. in the form of ChatGPT to confirm what I already suspected. I well remember two colleagues at RAF Kinloss coming to work for a night shift, both as red as a beetroots, after a days hillwalking on Ben Wyvis on a sunny day. Back in the 1980’s people weren’t so concerned about the risk of skin cancer from getting sunburnt, but today skin cancer are much more common.😮

Forecasts, UKMO, UV

Fact Check : Are UV levels higher on a mountain? Read More »

New Windy feature

Forgive me if you already have seen this, but I’ve just noticed a rather clever new feature on Windy.com concerning weather radar. You can now extrapolate forward the latest weather radar imagery by up to an hour to see just how quickly rain or snow from a shower or frontal system is moving, and when it will reach you. Perhaps they must use the 850 hPahPa A Hectopascal is the SI unit of pressure and identical to the Millibar wind speeds and direction to steer the pixels. 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 do a similar thing with actual and NWPNWP Numerical weather prediction uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to predict the weather based on current weather conditions. forecast data, but it’s rather jerky at T+0, and just underlines the disconnect between the two at times. I’ve also noticed that you can now overlay isobars and show SFERICs which is also very useful.
I’ve been involved with developing new and innovative ways to visualise weather information ation for nearly 30 years now, and I’ve never seen anything as obvious and useful as this functionality. I’ve always been a fan of Windy.com, and one day I’ll pluck up the courage to subscribe, the only thing that prevents this is that I’m a tight fisted Yorkshire man.
Use the slider in the above image to see what I mean or try it out live at Windy.com.

Weather Radar, Windy.com

New Windy feature Read More »

The warm and cold spell of spring 2024

Spring 2024 saw a very warm spell from approximately the 8th to the 20th of May with anomalies across northern Scotland of +7°C, followed quickly by a cold spell, from the 4th to 12th of June with anomalies of -5°C. 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 thought little of both spells, despite May ending up the warmest since records began in 1883. They argued that the cold spell wasn’t that unusual, or as cold as the temperatures in many recent years, despite the fact that snow fell on ground above 800 M in Scotland for at least five consecutive days. They didn’t seem to want to factor in that the cold spell had occurred at a time when global temperatures were 1.54°C above the pre-industrial age or that North Atlantic SSTSST Sea Surface Temperatures are at record levels. What a strange attitude to take. 😮

Cold, Spring, Warm

The warm and cold spell of spring 2024 Read More »

The cold spell of 5-11th June 2024 in Central England

Of all months, June in Central England is the slowest to catch on to the fact that global temperatures have increased by close to, if not more than 1.5°C since the start of pre-industrial times. This is certainly true for the seven day period between the 5th and 11th of June in 2024, which was 17th coldest in the daily series that started in 1772. The mean temperature of 11.34°C was 2.31°C below the 1961-1990 LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. which made it the coldest period since 2001.

CET, Cold, June

The cold spell of 5-11th June 2024 in Central England Read More »

Davis Vantage Pro2

Anyone who is fortunate to have a Davis Vantage Pro2 AWSAWS Automatic Weather Station as I do, know only too well, that the software it comes with doesn’t present the climate data it collects at all well. I’ve made a new unit in my VP DelphiDelphi Delphi is a general-purpose programming language and a software product that uses the Delphi dialect of the Object Pascal programming language and provides an integrated development environment for rapid application development of desktop, mobile, web, and console software. application, to graph temperature data a little more clearly. I recently came across some LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. data for StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469., I don’t think it’s been calculated from real weather data but probably derived from gridded monthly climate data 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 make available. I mention this LTA data because it enables me to calculate anomalies, something dear to my heart. Anomalies let you gauge how the climates been performing, whether a day has been hot or cold, or a month or season wet or dry, in your own back garden.

The lower chart shows mean anomalies for the last 90 days for Strathpeffer, and clearly shows why May 2024 was a record warm month in northern Scotland. The top chart shows temperatures for the last year, and by dragging the yellow coloured box you can replot the lower graph to show the anomalies for the period you are interested. The width of the yellow box can also be adjusted with the mouse as well.

Next unit precipitation.😉

AWS, Climate, Software, Strathpeffer

Davis Vantage Pro2 Read More »

Media backlash to warmest May on record

You may have noticed the media backlash to this weeks news that May 2024 was the warmest in 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. since at least 1883. I think the ferocity of the backlash surprised most people at the BBCBBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national broadcaster of the United Kingdom, based at Broadcasting House in London. It is the world's oldest national broadcaster, and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, employing over 22,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 19,000 are in public-sector broadcasting. and 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.
For the first half of May, the warmest of the weather occurred across northern Scotland, and because 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 and BBC have a seemingly inbuilt reluctance to report extremes for places other than in the south of England, news of +6°C anomalies didn’t get much of a mention, either on Twitter/X, in YouTube videos or in TV forecasts.
Here are just a few of my Tweets from the middle of May to try and highlight the exceptional early warmth across the Highlands:

I believe one of the main reasons for the backlash is the inability of the UKMO and BBC to monitor evolving climate stories across the UK. If the UKMO had incorporated climate news, similar to some of my Tweets, at the start of their ‘Deep Dives’, ’10 Day Trends’ or video forecasts, and the BBC had done the same in ‘Weather For The Week Ahead’, then news of a record warm May might not have come as such a big surprise!

BBC, Climate, UKMO

Media backlash to warmest May on record Read More »

Spring [MAM] 2024 – UK Correlations

According to gridded climate data from 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, 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. was warmer and wetter than average, as well as being warmer and duller than average in Spring [MAMMAM Meteorological Spring comprising the months of March, April & May] of 2024.

Climate, Correlations, Spring

Spring [MAM] 2024 – UK Correlations Read More »

May 2024 – Mean Pressure & anomalies

Mean pressure 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. in May was around 3 hPahPa A Hectopascal is the SI unit of pressure and identical to the Millibar below the LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. In fact lower than average pressure was strung out westward across the central Atlantic all the way to the United States. Mean higher than average pressure persisted across Scandinavia (+6 hPa) resulting in a very slack pressure pattern across the country.

Circulation, MSLP

May 2024 – Mean Pressure & anomalies Read More »

1 June 2024 – Latest daily global temperature anomalies

Latest 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. global temperatures are still at record levels as of the 1st of June at +1.69°C above the pre-industrial LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. levels. I mistakenly thought that the demise of El NinoEl Niño El Niño 'The Boy' is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific this spring into the neutral zone might cool things down globally, but I was wrong again. We are now one year on from when this unprecedented surge in global temperatures began, and there’s little doubt that will mean 12 months of consecutive records.

ECMWF, Global Temperatures

1 June 2024 – Latest daily global temperature anomalies Read More »

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