The British Climate
There’s nothing quite like the British Climate for it’s variability from one week to another.
The British Climate Read More »
Weather
Joint sixth longest cold spell since 1772
Dear Diary
Believe it, or believe it not diary, the recent cold spell that has just come to an end was the joint sixth longest cold spell since 1772 in Central England. The Gannt chart lists all cold spells that lasted at least 10 days, with daily mean anomalies of -4.9°C or lower. The table on the left lists all cold spells ranked using the dense ranking method. That’s based on anomalies calculated against the 1878-2021 LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. It’s no wonder the Daily Mail was getting hot under the collar about 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’s response to it and I think it’s longevity caught many people out. Cold spells of that length are not that common, it might not have been as severe as some in the past, but it lasted ten days from the 8th to the 17th of December.
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Differences between freezing rain and glazed ice
What are the differences, if any, between freezing rain and glazed ice? Well as far as I can see the end results are the same, surfaces covered with clear ice, but whereas freezing rain comes from supercooled water, glazed ice (also widely known as clear or black ice) doesn’t. At this point I would normally cite the Wiki entry for freezing rain and another for glazed ice, but I won’t because the authors have clearly mixed up information about the two and also the processes that cause them. Suffice it to say, from someone who remembers well the freezing rain in March 1969, and walked along an avenue of trees that suffered the effects in the hills above Sheffield, I beleive freezing rain occurs much more rarely than glazed ice does, and the Meteorological Glossary makes the distinction between the two clear. The media isn’t at all interested in the difference between the two of course, and it’s rather like if we have fog and temperatures are below freezing then it must be freezing fog – wrong again – but that’s a story for another day.
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SST Comparison
Dear Diary
It’s a slow job cooling the oceans with a two-week cold spell. SSTSST Sea Surface Temperatures are still between 1°C and 3°C above the LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. in waters that surround 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 cold snap has only done a little to lower them from where they were at the start of November.
Coldest December since 2010 and fourth coldest since 1884
Dear Diary
We are more or less halfway through December 2022 now, and the latest mean temperatures 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. (-3.49°C estimated) indicate that currently 2022 is the coldest since 2010 (the coldest December on record), and the fourth coldest since 1884 behind 2010, 1981 and 1890. Of course there is the matter of the second half of the month to come, and these low values are bound to take a big knock early next week as very mild air is set to make a temporary return.
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2022 will be the warmest year in Central England
Dear Diary
After a fiddly bit morning of programming, I can finally reveal that 2022 WILL be the warmest in the Central England daily series which started in 1772. That of course assumes that the rest of the month, from the 11th onward, has anomalies no higher than -3.5°C for each of the next 21 days. That’s not impossible of course, but even after a cold start such as we’ve seen this December, the mean temperature for the first ten days is still only 2.37°C below the December LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO., which would mean that the very low anomalies of the last few days would have to continue for the rest of the month.
If this finding is true for Central England, I think it’s more than likely it’ll be true of the gridded data for the whole 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. as well.
I found it easier to write that small program than to sit down and work it out with pen, paper and calculator, which must say something about how my brain works.
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Looking back to December 2010
Click to enlarge
Looking back to December 2010 Read More »
A distinctly nippy IONA
Sunday, 11 December 2022 – 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). temperature anomalies
Dear Diary
Another very cold day across all parts of 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. this Sunday, exceptionally so across parts of the south with anomalies as low as -10°C this lunchtime, as this cold spell continues. Many areas will see an ice day today with temperatures remaining sub-zero this afternoon. Finally, the northern Highlands of Scotland, have lost that persistent and tenacious east northeast wind of the last week that has been funneling a feed of milder winds into the Moray Firth. No doubt it’s just taking a breather and will be back later in the week.
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December 2010 v 2022
Dear Diary
I thought I’d take a look back at how the start of this December (2022) compares with that of 2010, the coldest December 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. in the gridded data series that extends back to 1884. I’m afraid it’s no contest so far, at least in the first eleven days of the month. It’s funny living in Devon as we did in 2010, it didn’t feel at all like it was going to end up the coldest December on record. We certainly had a couple of falls of snow, but the snow wasn’t as powdery, or drift as it did in the intense cold wave of January 1987. I’m beginning to sound like that episode of Vicar of Dibley now so I’ll stop.
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The Moray Firth hot spot
Hi Diary
The Moray Firth hot-spot is alive and kicking this morning! After dipping to -1°C by midnight, temperatures in StrathpefferStrathpeffer Strathpeffer (Scottish Gaelic: Srath Pheofhair) is a village and spa town in Easter Ross, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469. are close to 3°C by 8 am, after a moderate easterly wind picked up at 4 am and blew milder air into the ‘funnel’ that is the Moray Firth.
The rumours of a giant alien spaceship crashing into the Firth over 8,000 years ago and causing a massive Tsunami could well be true, and last night they must have fired up the engines.
The spread of anomalies across the country this morning is quite impressive 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. once again, from -12°C across the south, to +1°C across the NENE North East of Scotland. There’s a good covering of snow on the braes of Ben Wyvis above 200 M, but it’s just sleet or wet snow down in the strath, and very reminiscent of the last few winters in this part of the world.
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Fog over Ireland
Dear Diary
A fair bit of fog over Ireland still lingering in the river valleys such as the Shannon well into this afternoon. Temperatures are still well below freezing in places, so some of it could be of the freezing variety. CBCB Cumulonimbus cloud. Well-developed cumulonimbus clouds are characterized by a flat, anvil-like top tops across the NW and N of Scotland as well as a line of them running into Liverpool Bay. It looks like the W’NW wind blowing over Exmoor and Dartmoor is triggering some downstream stratus across east Devon, but I could be wrong.
Wed, 7 Dec 2022 – 09 UTC analysis
Dear Diary
Not feeling particularly cold this morning 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. with temperatures close to 3°C. No measurable rain since the second of the month, but a few spots of rain in what little wind there is this morning. There’s a coating of snow on Ben Wyvis, but nothing down here in the strath. Hoping for something from this second cold front later this afternoon, but not counting on it.
Wed, 7 Dec 2022 – 09 UTC analysis Read More »
We’ve got a widespread frost
Dear Diary,
Carol Kirkwood reckons that “We’ve got a widespread frost”. Not really Carol that’s not a widespread frost, if you look at a chart of the 18-06 minimum temperatures this morning (an air) frost has occurred in places where high ground has given shelter from the wind and helped to keep skies clear of cloud across southern Scotland, and parts of western England. We may have a widespread frost later in the week by the looks of it. I would agree that there may have been a widespread ground frost, but that wasn’t what she was talking about.
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The Great Smog of London
The Great Smog of London, or Great Smog of 1952, was a severe air pollution event that affected London, England, in December 1952. A period of unusually cold weather, combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants—mostly arising from the use of coal—to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday 5 December to Tuesday 9 December 1952, then dispersed quickly when the weather changed.
The smog caused major disruption by reducing visibility and even penetrating indoor areas, far more severely than previous smog events, called “pea-soupers“. Government medical reports in the weeks following the event estimated that up to 4,000 people had died as a direct result of the smog and 100,000 more were made ill by the smog’s effects on the human respiratory tract. More recent research suggests tha
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Friday the 16th of December
This looks far more of a threat of heavy snow than does tomorrow’s snow showers across the North of Scotland. Milder air pushing up against the cold block across the north, and a vigorous low moving eastward across the North of France. It’s always been the perfect set up for a lot of snow in the past, that is with the usual caveats; away from the coast and over higher ground; but maybe not exclusively in this case. Even at T+240 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. and 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. are in quite close agreement about it, but this is of course is in the realms of science fiction still at this range.
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A cold front and the snowy Cairngorms
Dear Diary,
A lovely image of the first cold front that straddles the north coast of Scotland early this afternoon. The stratiform cloud marks the boundary between the colder, showery and cellular cloud to the north. The snowy Cairngorms are also clearly visible to the south of it.
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5 December 2022 – 09 UTC analysis
Dear Diary,
The first rather modest signs of the much heralded colder weather arriving in the Shetlands this morning.
The cloud from front this will thwart the frost we might have seen tonight, instead of low cloud from the east, it’ll be low cloud from the north.
Sometimes you forget that you’re on an island and the weather is dominated by the sea.
Temperatures did their usual trick in the strath overnight: 0.1°C at midnight with clear skies, winds back into the east and low cloud rolls up the Cromarty Firth turning it cloudy, temperatures rise to 2°C at dawn, skies clear again as the wind backs more to the north, temperatures fall back to 1°C by 10am. This is a very common occurrence here and must be at least the third occasion it’s happened this Autumn.
5 December 2022 – 09 UTC analysis Read More »
Autumn 2022 [SON] – Days of Frost
Dear Diary,
The days of air frostair frost An air frost occurs when the temperature of the air falls below 0.0°C and ground frost were well down on their respective LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. for all regions, thanks to the very mild weather. I would have like to have added a colour contoured map but 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 don’t seem to generate them anymore for frost. Still plenty of sites still to report their first frost, some of them inland as well. My 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. records are never guaranteed to be 100% complete, so I may have missed the odd one because either the value or the whole observation 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). was missing. I could now, at least 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. that is, generate totals from the 21-09 UTC extremes now that they are finally being included.
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Temperature Anomalies 12 UTC 2 Dec 2022
Dear Diary,
The lowest anomalies at lunchtime, 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. at least, where in the foggy areas across Wales, central and southwest England. Anomalies across Scandinavia were close to average, but it was much colder further across Germany, Poland, Belgium and the low countries.
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Tropical Cyclone Season – 2022
Dear Diary,
2022 proved to be a below average season in the North Atlantic for the first since 2015. The pundits predictions of an above active season were all proved incorrect, and that, despite the SSTSST Sea Surface Temperatures over a large parts of the spawning ground for tropical cyclones being well above the LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. Combined ACEACE Accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) is a metric used by various agencies to express the energy released by a tropical cyclone during its lifetime. It is calculated by summing the square of a tropical cyclone's maximum sustained winds, measured every six hours. The resulting total can be divided by 10,000 to make it more manageable, or added to other totals in order to work out a total for a particular group of storms. is on the increase, but the linear trend in the bar chart below might be a little misleading, in as much as it’s comparing the pre-satellite era with the increasingly sophisticated satellite era from 1980 onward. The NHC these days don’t miss a thing with their eyes-in-the-sky, and quite a few nascent tropical cyclones life is less than 36 hours. Warmer seas are only one part of the equation in the equation of hurricane frequency, and maybe there are a few factors we don’t even know about that are just as important and have never been considered.
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Autumn 2022 [SON] – Third warmest since 1659
Dear Diary,
Unsurprisingly, Autumn 2022 [SONSON Meteorological Autumn - September, October and November] ended up the third warmest since 1659 in Central England, with a mean temperature of 12.4°C, which was +2.4°C above the 1659-2020 LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. There were only a few colder than average spells with warm spells dominating for long periods.
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November 2022 – Temperature
Dear Diary,
Yet another mild month 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.. The highest mean anomalies were in the Northern Isles followed by those in the SE of England, colder further west but still above average. Anomalies across the north of Scotland depressed due to the frosts during the last 10 days.
A couple of remarkably warm days on the 11th and 12th of the month.
November 2022 – Temperature Read More »
November 2022 – Rainfall
Dear Diary,
A number of wet spots 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., but the wettest of them was Valentia with 348 mm of rain. The north of Scotland had quite a dry month in contrast to parts of Aberdeenshire which were very wet. The above average rain across the south should have finally but paid to the dry spell. The 32 mm at Wick should be treated with some caution as I only received 71% of their observations.
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Contradictory temperature charts
Dear Diary,
Temperatures are only just going to manage to get up above freezing for a short while across the Highlands this afternoon. The air temperature at Aviemore was -1.2°C at 1100 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 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 2.2°C at 1215 UTC. Just caught the latest forecast from 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. on the News Channel. SKLSKL Sarah Keith-Lucas an English meteorologist and BBC weather presenter reckons that it won’t be quite as cold as last night with only a patchy frost overnight particular across Scotland, and then goes onto show this rather contradictory graphic of temperatures at 06 UTC, with labels of temperature that bare no relation to the NWPNWP Numerical weather prediction uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to predict the weather based on current weather conditions. blue contoured data that they overlay on the chart which also seems to be missing a few labels as well.
With a maximum of 2°C so far today I would make an educated guess that we’ll see a widespread moderate frost across the Highlands overnight and not at all patchy.
1157
Contradictory temperature charts Read More »