knocker

I have a book, John Gould's Humming Birds. It's a re-printed complete collection of 418 hand-painted illustrations that first appeared between 1849-1861. Quite magnificent. Anyway........................ http://www.sciencecodex.com/hummingbirds_22millionyearold_history_of_remarkable_change_is_far_from_complete-131104

In response to some criticism in the media Verifying our air quality forecasts3 04 2014 As forecast, air quality levels were poor across some parts of the UK yesterday and that continues today. Observations available from Defra’s monitoring network show that yesterday parts of the south east saw levels of 8 and 9, in the high category for pollutants, on the air quality index. Given the close match between our forecast and the observations that we do have available, there’s confidence that our forecast provided good advice and that we saw air quality levels in line with expectations. Today’s forecast is again for poor air quality in south eastern parts of the country. Observations show daily air quality index values of 10 in the London area. Conditions are expected to improve as we go into this evening and later into the week. The air quality forecasts provided by Defra are the most detailed forecasts provided for the UK to date. It means that emergency responders, government agencies and members of the public can use the forecast to make informed decisions. http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2014/04/03/verifying-our-air-quality-forecasts/

And possibly to the south

The ECMWF is similar to yesterday for beginning of the week with a low 985mb off the east coast of Scotland 00z Tues with high pressure to the south west of Cornwall giving a strong WNW flow over the UK. This follows a quite unsettled weekend in these parts with bands of rain nipping through. By Wednesday the low has popped off east and the high has moved over the UK where it remains on Thursday but is in transition and the high pressure is over Scandinavia by the weekend with a slack low pressure area over the UK but a deep low to the west is stretching it's tentacles into Scotland by Sunday. A couple of EPS anomaly charts until Sat 12th.

Just throw this into the ring. Steffen Tietsche â€@stietsche 11h Poll amongst #SIPN workshop participants: expected Arctic sea ice Sep extent 4.6 km^2. Thanks Phil Jones for initiating this fun guesscast.

Some beautiful weather photos in European Meteorological Society competition winners | http://www.emetsoc.org/publications/photo-galleries/europhotometeo-14/top-ten-photos …

Deleted. Wrong thread.

Tornadoes, microbursts, and silver linings http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/features/11336/tornadoes-microbursts-and-silver-linings

Cloudy with the coid front hanging around. Mostly Cs and Ac Temp 8C Wind a light southerly Pressure 1000mb rising Visibility good

Cloudy with the coid front hanging around. Mostly Cs and Ac Temp 8C Wind a light southerly Pressure 1000mb rising Visibility good

Perhaps the spring is a key factor as well. River ice reveals new twist on Arctic melthttp://www.sfu.ca/pamr/media-releases/2014/river-ice-reveals-new-twist-on-arctic-melt.html

Potentially a 'winter' storm for the record books on the way to Minneapolis. Fcast/stats via @NWSTwinCities. pic.twitter.com/7vCBcprrSy

Natural variation: Warm North Atlantic Ocean promotes extreme winters in US and Europe http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140401210414.htm

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2657

Given the synoptic situation I must admit I find the convection a bit odd but then what do I know and have access to limited info. Just that it's basically a warm front/cold front and warm sector situation although it's not your bog standard warm sector with a long southerly fetch on the wind. Anyway here it's been stable with As/Ac all day with just a little rain from the medium stuff.

Probably should be Sunni.

Looking at the ECMWF for next week starting on Sunday. The first couple of days have low pressure to the NW and High to the SE with the UK the sandwich filling in a fresh south westerly airstream. By Tuesday the low has nudged it’s way into Scotland with the wind veering more westerly but still fresh. This is but a brief victory as the high pressure kicks it out of the way and by Wednesday and dominates for the next couple of days. In fact for the rest of the week really although by Friday and especially Saturday it’s weakened and retreated SE giving a more southerly flow over the UK. This gives fairly average temps at the beginning of the week especially in the west but these will pick up as the week progresses and by the end we could be looking at 18-19 in the east but still around 12-14 in Cornwall and about the same up north although around Shawbury could be 17C To sum up the 850 hPa temp anomaly and the 500 hPa Geopotential Height anomaly until Saturday the 12th.

Forecasters crack formula to predict long-range weather Full story http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/article4051876.ece

Drought's not over yet: California storms improve Sierra snowpack, but it remains low http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25468885/droughts-not-over-yet-california-storms-improve-sierra

Cloudy with 8.8 As. I assume the cold front is still to the west although there won't be a massive wind veer associated with it I don't suppose. Quite mild. Temp 12C Wind SE 17 mph gusting 30 Pressure 997 falling.

Cloudy with 8.8 As. I assume the cold front is still to the west although there won't be a massive wind veer associated with it I don't suppose. Quite mild. Temp 12C Wind SE 17 mph gusting 30 Pressure 997 falling.

Scientists Focus on Polar Waters As Threat of Acidification Grows A sophisticated and challenging experiment in Antarctica is the latest effort to study ocean acidification in the polar regions, where frigid waters are expected to feel most acutely the ecological impacts of acidic conditions not seen in millions of years. http://e360.yale.edu/feature/scientists_focus_on_polar_waters_as_threat_of_acidification_grows/2752/

Update on the California Drought (March 31, 2014)