Wind

Wind speeds from Buoys and Weatherships

I’ll warn you now this is a crazy post 😜. For some reason I got to wondering how much of an affect the friction from a stormy sea with large winds a big swell and large waves can have on wind speeds measured by an anemometer out in the open ocean? The reason I ask is because in the recent named storm ‘Ashley’ on the 20th of October 2024, the winds from the Weather Buoy known as K4, seemed to be rather on the low side. My memory is probably playing tricks here, but I remember when plotting any of the Ocean Weather Ships on a chart in stormy weather as an assistant, it wasn’t unusual for me to plot mean speeds of 50 knots or more. That’s when I got to wondering about surface friction and the height of the anemometer, and what effect friction would have on wind speeds? The height of the anemometer may have been 60 feet or more above the ocean surface on a weathership, but on a weather buoy, that might be no more than 20 feet. It may be fairly academic now because the days of weather ships have long since passed, but there are still hundreds of ship and probably thousands of weather buoys observations made each hour across the world, so I wonder if any adjustment at all is made to those from buoys? I did warn you that this post was crazy.😉

PS If you want to find out more about Ocean Weather Ships maintained by 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 Ican recommend this great site WeatherShips.com

Ocean Weather Ships, Oceans, Software, Wind

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10 August 2023 – New record maximum at Valencia

Maximum Temperatures [06-18] – 10 August 2023

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.

Valencia Airport – Plotted Grid
Thermograph – Valencia Airport
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Foehn, Temperature

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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.

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Named Storms, Rain, Wind

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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.

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Named Storms, Rain, Satellite, Wind

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Cold wave across North America

23 Dec 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). 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.

23 Dec 2022
12 UTC wind chill

Analysis, BBC, Cold, N America, Wind chill

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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

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Cairngorm Winds

Ben Rich should have taken a look at the observations from mountain stations across Scotland, he might then have realised that you didn’t have to look at high level wind at 35,000 feet to find extremely windy conditions.

BBC, Wind

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