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 »
Temperatures were close to average in the north of Scotland during January, but it was a little duller than average (84%), with precipitation close to average (96%). I’m not at all convinced that the AWSAWS Automatic Weather Station rain gauges in our part of the Highlands picked up and melted all the snow they collected during the snowy spell in the third week though.
January 2023 – Weather Summary Read More »
The mean temperature in January 2023 was 5.2°C in central England which was 1.4°C above the 1659-2020 LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. 18 of the 24 January’s this century have been warmer than average. The cold spell in the third week wasn’t able to make up for the very mild first half of the month.
It’s not very often that the world’s leading estimates of global temperatures all have a full complement of up to date monthly data as they have at the end of December 2022. Not a lot of people know this but there are two things that all of these temperature series have in common, and that is (a) they have all been rising at a similar rate of between 1.96°C and 2.4°C per hundred years over the last 30 years, and (b) they have all ‘tripled dipped’ since 2016. No one seems to want to mention the ‘triple dip’ and the fact that global temperatures are little higher than they were back in 2015, but that’s another story. The anomalies in each of the series are also alarmingly different in magnitude as you can see in each of the six graphs. This is down to how they are calculated and more importantly which LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. they choose to calculate the anomalies with. I suppose the important thing is that the shape of the 12 month moving average line series are similar, and the linear trend for the last 30 years in each of them is similar too.
Global temperatures 1992-2022 Read More »
It was interesting to see how the deepening low on the 14th of January lept from the Atlantic ocean into the North sea in one bound as it headed eastward towards southern Norway. I do vaguely remember being told many moons ago how low pressure systems don’t like navigating over mountain blocks such as the NW Highlands. That may be an apocryphal story but that’s what seemed to happen yesterday.
They say lows Don’t like mountains Read More »
December started anticyclonic and the flow became very meridional till the 16th, before things dramatically changed. and for the rest of the month the circulation was predominately zonal west or southwesterly. There was at least one named storm possibility during December on the 19th, but this was summarily dismissed by 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 analysis showed that December had been 24% cyclonic and 9% anticyclonic, with S-SW-W 33% and N-NENE North East-E flow 26% of the time.
December 2022 LWT Read More »
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 »
The recovery in global temperatures from the double dip that occurred in recent years has continued to falter in the second half of 2022. The 365 day moving average continued to nudge slightly lower in December 2022, threatening a triple dip. Having said that estimated global mean temperatures for December in my DIYDIY Do It Yourself series, were just a whisker higher than they were last year, making it the third warmest December globally since 1948.
Global temperatures – December 2022 Read More »
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 »
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 »
The big problem with the monthly global temperature estimates from the world’s Met Services, such 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, is that they are all quoted in anomalies rather than as monthly mean temperatures. Anomalies are calculated by taking the LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO. from that mean temperature, and the LTA used to do this aren’t all using the same 30 year period. Ideally that period should now be from 1991 to 2020, but only two of the big six temperature series use it, in fact the GISTempGISTemp v4 The GISS Surface Temperature Analysis version 4 is an estimate of global surface temperature change using data from NOAA GHCN v4 (land stations) and ERSST v5 (ocean areas). series still uses the period from 1951 to 1980. My global temperature application allows you to compare anomalies from the big six series, and it also allows you to ‘zero’ the anomalies of all of them, and that’s what I’ve done in the chart above for December 1992.
As you can see there is now quite a spread in the estimated anomalies close to 0.12°C between the highest and lowest, which as far as global temperatures goes is a pretty large deviation. The UAH series can get pretty wild with its estimates, but in recent years it’s 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 from 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. that’s running the hottest of the six.
The dashed line represents values from my own DIYDIY Do It Yourself series. As you can see the shape of the curve follows the other series faithfully but the magnitude of the anomaly in that time is around 0.25°C lower. The DIY series is based on pretty coarse grid (2.5° x 2.5°) of six hourly surface temperatures, but is obviously lacking a certain slowly increasing (fudge) factor that my series doesn’t seem to have. This maybe because of differences in the LTA they use, more probably the complexity of the algorithms they use to produce a global estimate, and how they cope with temperatures over land, sea and ice.
The spread of global temperature estimates in the last 30 years Read More »
A massively large positive 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. anomaly over Greenland (+24 hPahPa A Hectopascal is the SI unit of pressure and identical to the Millibar) in December, combined with lower than average pressure to the west of Corunna in the Atlantic (-10 hPa), produced and odd looking trough of low pressure aligned SW-NENE North East to the west 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. in the mean pressure chart for the month. It’s one of those months, split into two diametrically opposed weather types NE-CNECNE Cyclonic Northeasterly-CSW-CW, that tend to cancel each out over the month, to produce a rather misleading mean MSLP chart.
December 2022 – MSLP anomalies Read More »
Latest 12 Month UK climate averages Read More »
I’ve been busy over the last couple of days updating that old application I wrote a few years ago now to keep a list of all 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. weather presenters since 1954. I thought that at the same time I would add all the ITV presenters and all regional and 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 presenters that I could find as well. I found the best way of doing this was using YouTube to search and grab a 112 x 112 thumbnail image of each of them.
I was amazed just how many of I found – 148 of them!
I don’t recognise many of those in the ITV regions, but I do recognise a good proportion of those on the BBC from our travels around 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. over the years. What strikes me that there’s a whole big weather presenters world out there, and once thy hit the big time on national TV they are very loathed to leave it behind, Tomasz Schafernaker already has 23 years under his belt bar an infamous short break.
Once I’ve fully populated the data set, I will be able to do some further analysis on which country all these presenterts are from. I already know that 53.4% of them are female, which is not that surprising, because the ITV seem to rarely employ a man when you can employ pretty women, and who can blame them.
Finally here is a Gantt chart timeline of presenters of the national Weather on BBC TV since 1954, again some of the data is incomplete or wrong, and I am a few presenters short, particularly before 1980. George Cowling who did the first national forecast headed a team of three – but who were they?
Dear Diary,
2022 was the warmest year in Central England in a monthly series that started back in 1659, the mean of 11.1°C was +1.7°C above the 1659-2020 LTALTA Long Term Average. This is usually defined as a 30 year period by the WMO.. It’s been on the cards for many months now that 2022 would be the warmest, and thankfully now that it’s finally been confirmed, we can move on to the next extreme. Seriously though Central England is warming at an incredible rate at the moment, the 50 year linear trend is running at +0.258°C per decade, and if it keeps going on like this people will begin to talk.
2022 – warmest year in Central England Read More »
The effect of the cold wave on temperature anomalies across north America can be clearly seen, in what was apart from that a fairly mild month across there. There are no vestiges left of the cold spell in the first half of the month 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., although to be fair this reanalysis data is on a sparse 2.5° x 2.5° grid, but it is noticeable that the familiar N-S cold gradient has returned once again.
December 2022 temperatures Read More »
Thes snowy highlands of Scotland courtesy of our American cousins at NASANASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research..
The snowy Highlands of Scotland Read More »
Dear Diary
For a change we have had four centimetres of fluffy snow overnight, everywhere is white including the A834, and it’s -2°C here in the Strath this morning. Some of the ice that survived the cold spell from earlier in the month survived to see it. I am now firmly of the opinion that the climate of a Scottish glen is more akin to that of southern Norway during December and January when the sun is very low.
27 Dec 2022 – 06 UTC analysis Read More »
To follow up the grid of analysis charts from 1998 to 2022 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 in the last post, I thought I would build a grid of reanalysis charts for Christmas day from 1836 to 2015.
You can see how over the last 25 years the analysis from the UKMO has got more and more complicated. This is more than likely due to the fact that the analysis is now done using NWPNWP Numerical weather prediction uses mathematical models of the atmosphere and oceans to predict the weather based on current weather conditions. fields and improved satellite imagery, rather than just surface observations anymore. It’s also shows the influence of Mr Occlusion over the last five years or so. Christmas day itself is usually a mobile affair and sometimes very cyclonic (1999 & 2013). Now and then its anticyclone (2006, 2008 & 2010) and one or two where its blocked (2009 & 2021). Just a rather cyclonic and boring SW’ly once again in 2022.
Christmas Days 1998-2022 Read More »
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.
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.
Cold wave across North America Read More »
Dear Diary
I would like to think there’s a broad warm sector across the SW and northern France but it might be just a warm occlusion. My cold front is not really supported by satellite imagery, but what the hell, it’s just between you and me diary.
23 Dec 2022 – 09 UTC analysis Read More »
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.
