17-18 Sep 2023 | Heavy Rainfall
17-18 Sep 2023 | Heavy Rainfall Read More »
Weather
Heatwaves in Central England 1878-2023
It’s slightly difficult to gauge the number of heatwaves in Central England. One of the reasons for that is the CETCET Central England Temperature series is made up of a composite temperature from three separate sites, the other is that the series extend back so far, 1878 in this case, that choosing a fixed value for the whole of the last 145 years is problematic because of increases due to global warming. My DCET application allows the user to define which threshold to use and it’s length. In the example above the application displays all heatwaves of three consecutive days or longer, with maximum daily temperatures of 25°C or higher. 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 current criteria for heatwaves is 25°C for a large part 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.. Of the three sites that are used to calculate a composite temperature for central England at the moment, one of them Stonyhurst is in the 25°C region, the main one Rothamsted, is in the 28°C region, and the other Pershore, is in the 27°C region. So you could argue I should use the weighted average of the three 27°C but what the hell.
The longest heatwave in Central England lasted for 16 days, from the 23rd of June to the 8th of July 1976. That’s one day longer than the 15 days of 2018 for similar dates. The earliest heatwave in the series back to 1878 if I’ve done my programming correctly was from the three days from the 28th to the 30th of May 1944. The latest heatwave was the three days that started on the 29th of September and lasted to the 1st of October 2011.
I’ve catalogued 145 individual heatwaves in 145 years which is a bit of a coincidence and not a lot of people know that.
The recent record breaking heatwave for September (2023) that’s just finished (and here I’m assuming it finished on the 10th) lasted for seven days from the 4th to the 10th of September, which makes it the joint fifth longest heatwave in the series to date, in fact it equals the seven day heatwave that occurred earlier in the year in June.
Are heatwaves getting more common?
Yes, of course heatwaves are getting more common, CET temperatures have been rising at the rate of 0.254°C per decade for the last 50 years, so they are bound to get more frequent and longer lasting. The chart below gives you an idea of the increase, it displays a bar chart of the annual number of days when daily maximum CET exceeds 25°C. I have added a 10 year centred average to the chart, and also a linear trend from 1878 to 2023. A shorter trend would show a much larger rise than the 0.4 days/decade increase than this trend shows but I am starting to flag and it’s getting near to dinner.
Heatwaves in Central England 1878-2023 Read More »
August 2023 – Circulation
It’s easy to see why August 2023 was such an unsettled month across Ireland and 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. with temperatures just below the average when you study the 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. anomalies.
August 2023 – Circulation Read More »
10 August 2023 – New record maximum at Valencia
The maximum temperature of 46.8°C at Valencia Airport on the 10th of August 2023 was an amazing 15.8°C above the LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. Anomalies in other parts of Spain where ~6°C above the LTA. It was slightly cooler in the city of Valencia itself with a maximum of 45.1°C and anomaly of 14.4°C. The blisteringly high temperatures were in no doubt helped along by a strong 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. wind blowing down from the mountains to the west. At 13 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). they lifted the temperature from 40.5°C to 46.0°C (RH ~10%). By 15 UTC the sea breeze arrived with winds backing into the ENE and dropping temperatures to 34.0°C. Unusual, but you would have thought this must have happened countless other times in the past.
10 August 2023 – New record maximum at Valencia Read More »
Slow start to Atlantic Hurricane season
I reworked a graph in my Tropical Cyclone Program to help visualise the state of the hurricane season in the North Atlantic. More tricky than I anticipated but it does show that I was correct in thinking it was indeed a slow start despite the record SSTSST Sea Surface Temperatures in the Atlantic this year. If things follow the climatology, activity will gradually increase during August, reaching a peak in early September.
Slow start to Atlantic Hurricane season Read More »
July 2023 – Mean Pressure & anomalies
As always the mean pressure chart can reveal a lot about the weather, and in July 2023 it showed why it was so wet and changeable, with near average temperatures across the British Isles. It’s also apparent from it why Iceland was so cold due to the squeeze in the pressure gradient between higher than average pressure across Greenland, and lower than average pressure across NW Europe, resulting in a persistent and strong N or NENE North East flow of air across the island. It’s not so revealing about the causes of the heatwave across North Africa, which happened in a very slack pressure field in a ridge of high pressure that extended eastward into the Mediterranean from the Azores high.
July 2023 – Mean Pressure & anomalies Read More »
2 August 2023 – Storm Patricia
Another Meteo FranceMeteo France Météo-France is the official service of meteorology and climatology in France. named storm, Patricia, the center of which ran fairly and squarely across 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. during Wednesday. Gusts of 40 to 50 knots are good going for early August across northern France, and I notice one as high as 56 knots at Meaulte to the NENE North East of Paris. The main feature wasn’t the wind across the UK so much but the heavy rain, particularly across the North and East of Yorkshire.
2 August 2023 – Storm Patricia Read More »
July 2023 – Mean temperature anomalies
What surprised me about temperatures in July 2023 was how the media went on a frenzy and adopted what was a North African heatwave and described it as an whole encompassing European affair, when mean temperatures across a large part of the continent for much of the month were below average.🤔
July 2023 – Mean temperature anomalies Read More »
2 August 2023 – How unseasonable is Wednesday’s low?
Well the first thing to say is that low’s are not at all unusual in August. Remember the Fasnet storm of 13 August 1979? Tomorrow’s low has a forecast central pressure of 983 hPahPa A Hectopascal is the SI unit of pressure and identical to the Millibar for midday and is situated close to Birmingham. Below is a graphic of charts drawn using reanalysis data from 1948 so you can make your own minds up. The one that immediately stands out to me is the chart for the 2nd of August 1986, with a GIGI Gale Index of 38. Remember this chart uses reanalysis data in a coarse 2.5°x2.5° grid of 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. values so contours may well be lower.
It just so happens that I have this chart, but as you can see the low close to Tiree is already a filling feature, with a minimum central pressure of 988 hPa at 06 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)., and can’t match the forecast depth of tomorrow’s low. So tomorrow’s low looks very unusual, and is likely the deepest low to affect 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 this date in over 75 years!
2 August 2023 – How unseasonable is Wednesday’s low? Read More »
The heatwave of July 2023 across the Mediterranean
Just a quick look back at the heatwave of July 2023 across the Mediterranean. There was a great deal of interest in this taken by the media 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., particularly 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.. As far as I can see it was in my opinion, and that’s what this blog is all about, was sparked off initially by some overzealous reporting by the new (to me) Rome correspondent who was interviewing a selection of British tourists in the centre of Rome in the middle of a hot sunny day. I think this was in reaction to a warning from METEOAMMeteoAM The Italian Meteorological Service is an organizational unit of the Italian Air Force (Servizio Meteorologico dell'Aeronautica Militare) and the national meteorological service in Italy. The weather forecasts and other services serve both the armed forces and the general public. of a severe heatwave dubbed Cerberus on the 13th. If you’ve ever been to Italy or abroad you’ll realise it’s usually a good idea to hide from the sun at this time of the day😉
As far as I can ascertain from observational data there was a short 3 day heatwave (see thermograph below) at Rome’s airport. The trouble with observational data from Italy, as is the case in the UK, you can only access a subset of it, and unfortunately Rome has only one 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. station situated at the airport on the coast. Because of the HIEUHI Urban Heat Island (UHI) is an urban area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities. The temperature difference is usually larger at night than during the day, and is most apparent when winds are weak. UHI is most noticeable during the summer and winter. The main cause of the UHI effect is from the modification of land surfaces I’m sure it was much warmer in the centre of Rome. Not only is there a shortage of observational data for many countries, I challenge you to find any up to date LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. climate data for any of them either. What I mean here by up to date is the LTA for 1991-2020 and not that for 1971-2000 that I have for many stations. You would have thought in these days of “global boiling” the latest climate station for all member countries would be available on the WMOWMO The World Meteorological Organisation is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. website – no it isn’t – and if it wasn’t for Wikipedia, and some nifty parsing, I wouldn’t have collected over 800 LTA records across the world as I have.
I’ve been watching and examining heatwaves closely across the UK and Europe since I retired 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 in 2011. There are no rules as to what constitutes a heatwave, and therein lies the problem. The UK have one set of rules and every other country has another, and that’s why I argued, mainly to myself because few people read what my views are or give a damn about them either, that instead of a rigid threshold for summer months of X°C for a region, as 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 do, a “heatwave day” should be defined on the anomaly of the maximum temperature for each individual station. Over the years I’ve developed software and I usually default to an anomaly of 6°C above the LTA. Personally I think this is much too low for a severe heatwave, and probably should be ~+10°C. The thermograph for Seville shows the extent of the heatwave there using this 6°C rule. Three distinct heatwave days up to the 28th. These anomalies are calculated using the 1981-2010 LTA and not the much colder LTA of 1971-2000.
These thermographs for Rome, Decimomannu and Palermo use the 1971-2000 LTA. and because they anomalies calculated using this slightly colder LTA, the anomalies are much warmer than if I had the ones for 1991-2020. I’ve emailed METEOAM to see if I can obtain them, but am not hopeful I will be able to source the latest climate data. I shouldn’t need to do this, or rely on Wikipedia to supply them, this basic climatological data should be available from the WMO.
That aside the three thermographs do highlight a series of heatwave days, with many as 15 at Decimomannu in Sardinia with an extreme maximum of 46.8°C.
I hope I’ve explained the importance of using the latest LTA for all stations to get an unbiased picture of July’s heatwave. The map below of total heatwave days shows the number of days with a maximum temperature anomaly of 6°C or higher. There’s no doubt that it was hot across a large of southeastern Europe using the +6°C threshold, particularly across parts of northern Algeria and Tunisia. There are what looks like spuriously high anomalies scattered around these are probably caused by out-of-date LTA.
If you look at the next chart this shows the total number of days with anomalies of +10°C or more, and what I maintain are severe heatwave days. Heatwaves in the UK must last at least three consecutive days or more before they can be officially labelled a heatwave, many of the sites in the chart below away from North Africa have one or two, and even if they have more they may not be consecutive.
Looking at reanalysis gridded temperatures and anomalies up to the 26th reveal what I think was really going on. The core of the heat was across the north of Algeria and Tunisia, occasionally some of that very hot air escaped transferring northwards from Africa to affect parts of Sardinia, Sicily, southern Italy, western Greece and the Balkans, and because SSTSST Sea Surface Temperatures temperatures in the Mediterranean were at record levels during July, the sea didn’t cool the air at the surface as much as it could.
The other thing is the media got a hold of this story and ran with it, this was easy to do, because they already had stories about heatwaves in the southern states of America and China, and as the month went on wildfires broke out, and it was also announced that July was very likely to be the record hottest month – a perfect combination for catastrophising the whole thing🥵. For the record heatwaves don’t cause wildfires people do.
The heatwave of July 2023 across the Mediterranean Read More »
5 July 2023 | Storm Poly
After bringing storm force winds overnight to the Netherlands here’s a loop of satellite images showing Storm Poly, as it’s now been called by DWD, exiting stage right. So NMI don’t name it even though it brought storm force winds and gusts of 80 knots but the DWD do? What a crazy system. It could only happen in Europe. It’s been reported that the next name on the DWD list is going to be Storm Roly.
5 July 2023 | Storm Poly Read More »
May extremes in Scotland
Courtesy of anomaly charts for 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. 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, here are the warmest and coldest May’s since 1910 across Scotland. Not a huge variation in temperature, ranging from the warmest in 2018 of 2.32°C above to 2.18°C below the 1961-1990 LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. in 1923. The yellow box at the bottom right-hand corner is the predominant Lamb Weather type for the month. The wettest May in Scotland since 1910 was in 2011 when over 223% of the average rain for the month fell. The driest May was in 1984 when just over 27% of the average fell.
May extremes in Scotland Read More »
The strange record drought in France this winter
There was a strange record drought that occurred in France this winter in which Meteo FranceMeteo France Météo-France is the official service of meteorology and climatology in France. claim that there was no rain in France from the 21st of January 2023 to the 20th of February. I say strange because although it was dry at some sites across France, notably in the south, many other places did record some rain during that period as you can see from the chart below.
Meteo France goes onto explain “we speak of a day without rain when the total aggregate precipitation over France is less than 1 mm”. All that you can assume from what they say, is that they like 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, they have some kind of gridded data series in which the average precipitation for the whole of France for that particular period was less than 1 mm. I’m not going to tot up all the rainfalls totals from WMOWMO The World Meteorological Organisation is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. block #07, but I’d wager without allowing for extent the average would be higher than 1 mm.
The strange record drought in France this winter Read More »
Surge in Iberian temperatures in recent years
It seems to me that even allowing for the rise in temperature due to global warming, there’s been an additional surge in temperatures across Iberia and northwest Africa in recent years. That’s particularly noticeable in summer, but can also be seen in the rest of the year too. The latest plume event is ongoing at the moment (27 April 2023), but has had a limited northward extent so far. I decided to look back at the last 40 years of daily maximum temperatures at Cordoba to see what I could find by plotting a scatter graph and adding a trend line.
As you can see I’m using the 1981-2010 LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO., which is courtesy of Wikipedia, and not the latest, but the linear trend at Cordoba does show a warming trend of well over a degree a decade. I can’t say if these results are just local to Cordoba, or if they’re occurring more widely across the rest of Iberia and Northwest Africa, but it does go a long way to explain the media hype about the present heatwave. I’m sure some more detailed research would find that there’s been an increase in Spanish plumes events in all seasons of the year, and that their effects aren’t just limited to the Iberian peninsula.
Surge in Iberian temperatures in recent years Read More »
15-21 April 2023: A beautiful week of weather
It’s been a beautiful sunny week of weather in StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469.. Mornings have been cold with a touch of frost in more sheltered spots in the Highlands, but days have been clear and sunny with sunshine from dawn till dusk, that sunshine giving warm afternoons. The easterly wind on Wednesday and Thursday did pick up to moderate occasionally fresh during the mornings to take the edge of things out of the sun. There was a short spell of haar on both Thursday and Friday but it quickly burnt off.
15-21 April 2023: A beautiful week of weather Read More »
Winter [DJF] 2022-23 Frost
A map of air frosts, ground frosts and ice days in the meteorological winter of 2022-23. Remarkably there were more air frosts at Benson in Oxfordshire than there were at Aviemore in the Highlands. I should make an effort to compare these results with a 30 year average but I don’t have the time to compile the stats for each station at the moment. Don’t forget to click an image to enlarge it. Here for completeness is the thermograph for Benson to prove just what a cold hole it is.
Winter [DJF] 2022-23 Frost Read More »
Weatherdiary.uk
Welcome to my ramblings and occasional moans about the weather and climate 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. and across the world. I hope you find the blog of interest. I think my tastes in stories about weather and climate are pretty catholic, with a small ‘c’, so there should be something here for anyone with even the vaguest interest in things meteorological. Most of the graphs, maps and tables of weather observations and climate statistics I generate from the many computer programs I’ve written over the years and from free data I daily download from the internet, hopefully these are accurate, but if they’re not please let me know.
If you are viewing this blog on a PC don’t forget to click on the article to expand it.
January 2023 – Temperature contrasts
Here’s an interesting graph that compares 24 hour mean temperatures between Benson in Oxfordshire and Loch Glascarnoch in the Highlands, and which highlights the differences between the cold frosty continental conditions in the south and the much milder Atlantic air across the north during the fourth week.
January 2023 – Temperature contrasts Read More »
European temperature Surge
The recent surge in temperatures across Europe in January can be seen in a sharp rise in estimated mean temperatures across the northern extratropics in the daily anomaly chart for the last year. The surge seems to have started shortly before Christmas in my DIYDIY Do It Yourself global series, and is still going on in around that zonal region, with anomalies now around 1.2°C higher than the 1991-2020 LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. The effects of the North American cold wave and the cold snap across Europe are also visible as a blue down spike at the very end of November.
European temperature Surge Read More »
2022 not the warmest 365 days in Central England either
Just as I found in the gridded UK data series 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 that 2022 wasn’t the warmest 12 months on record, I also find that it isn’t the warmest 365 day period in the CETCET Central England Temperature series either. That accolade belongs to the 365 days between the third of May 2006 and the second of May 2007, with a mean temperature of 11.71°C which is far higher than the 11.15°C temperature for the year 2022 in central England. It may not mean much to most people, but I think it makes a bit of a mockery of all the hoo-ha that we’ve had to endure recently from the media about 2022 being the warmest year, when in reality it occurred almost 15 years earlier both in the CET series and the gridded series.
2022 not the warmest 365 days in Central England either Read More »
2022 not the warmest 12 months on record
If you spend some time grubbing around 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. gridded temperature series 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 that extends back to the year 1884 as I do, you might find that the highest mean temperature for a 12 month period didn’t actually occur in the year 2022, but the 12 month period that ended in April 2007. The mean temperature of 10.41°C was considerably higher than that of 10.03°C for 2022 that has been bandied about so much in recents days by the media.
There’s no reason to think that the UKMO weren’t aware of this fact, but they obviously kept shtum about it, not wanting to detract from making an even bigger splash with a headline “Warmest year on record” or the climate crisis version of it “Hottest year ever!“.
2022 not the warmest 12 months on record Read More »
Cold wave across North America
12 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). analysis
Dear Diary
A lot of sensational reporting going on in the media about the low that’s been undergoing cyclogenesis in the eastern parts of the Great Lakes today, and the cold wave that’s introducing Arctic air across much of North America in its wake, as the low tracks NENE North East’ward into Canada. 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. News seems content to report temperatures in degrees Fahrenheit, perhaps because it makes the negative numbers even larger. Here are a few of the phrases that I’ve picked up from the BBC reports.
- Weather Bomb
- Bomb cyclone
- Flash freezing
- Brutal cold
The cold front has certainly dropped temperatures as it’s raced through. In my experience wind chills of -40°C or lower are very severe, but far from unprecedented across North America, and ones like this usually occur in most winters, but what the hell do I know. Another thing I don’t know is if the NWSNWS National weather service definition, an agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that is responsible for meteorological observations. has named the culprit low, perhaps it has descended into the realms of lunacy as most of its European counterpart Met Services have.
12 UTC wind chill
Cold wave across North America Read More »
Spot Canada
Dear Diary
What have the Americans got against releasing their observational data? They are so generous with every other kind of weather data they generate, be it satellite imagery, SSTSST Sea Surface Temperatures, sea ice, ENSOENSO El Niño–Southern Oscillation is an irregular periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, affecting the climate of much of the tropics and subtropics. The warming phase of the sea temperature is known as El Niño and the cooling phase as La Niña., CO2CO2 Carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO2) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. and their 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. NWPNWP Numerical weather prediction uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to predict the weather based on current weather conditions. data, but for some reason the NWSNWS National weather service definition, an agency of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that is responsible for meteorological observations. don’t, and have never liked sharing observational data in the form of 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, which to me seems a great pity. As you can see the observations they do release makes for a very thin network indeed across America when compared to the AWSAWS Automatic Weather Station network of their Canadian counterparts north of the 50th parallel. Over the years it’s got worse with fewer and fewer stations being released, they love METARsMETAR METAR is a format for reporting weather information. A METAR weather report is predominantly used by aircraft pilots, and by meteorologists, who use aggregated METAR information to assist in weather forecasting. Raw METAR is the most common format in the world for the transmission of observational weather data. of course but these are a poor substitute for SYNOP observations, and really for aviation and not meteorological purposes.
