dryfie

As ever, your most reliable mid-term guidance lies at Stark’s Park.

A pleasant enough 13 here with light winds and almost unbroken sunshine. Do forecasters still look at tephigrams these days, or do they slavishly follow models? If they had of they’d see that convective infill wasn’t happening today.

A forecast-defyingly decent couple of days here. Dry until late afternoon yesterday, then rain overnight. Brilliant spring sunshine for much of today, with any light showers pm quickly passing by and not even wetting ground. Grass now up to date and ground prepared for sowing/planting this week. Now light winds and pleasant sunshine. As they say, showers are mainly down to luck.

I appreciate that the winds were forecast, so no complaints, but I'm very surprised at just how windy it's become over the past two hours. Being inland we normally have our winds tempered, but this is a real hoolie, probably as bad as I've seen any time in the past ten years. Poly tunnel in jeopardy, and fortunate that trees not yet in leaf.

And on a bewildering evening BBC Scotland online reporting that ‘The Old Grey Man of Ben Macdui’ is a phenomenon known as ‘the broken spectre’. Should I be concerned that Google is more reliable than the EBC?

101_North Seems to be an astonishingly bizarre local effect! Only 2 knots being reported at Met site. Certainly worth you writing up a research paper.

Not CET related, but interesting to note that a small part of the UK experienced a cooler than average February. Not far into March, but that same area (Northern Isles) is currently the only one with above average temps.

During February there was just one area of the UK which experienced below average temperatures. Early as it is, so far the same area is the only part of the UK to have experienced above average temperatures.

Derecho Agreed, please accept my apologies. If you think it's bad here, how about living in Australia. Every MO in the world use the same reporting codes, and everybody uses GMT, whereever they are. These reports from Sydney show that the days maximum is reported at 1300 (32.8), the minimum at 0100 (22.6) and the rainfall at 2200 (nil). So that's the max in the early hours, the min around lunchtime and the rainfall around midnight! Granted these may just be for international distribution, with internal reports being different. 94768, Sydney Regional Office (Australia) ICAO index: ----. Latitude 33-51-38S. Longitude 151-12-18E. Altitude 39 m. SYNOPS from 94768, Sydney Regional Office (Australia)SN29/02/2024 16:00-> SN29/02/2024 14:00-> AAXX 29144 94768 45/// ///// 10231 20208 30113 40164== SN29/02/2024 13:00-> AAXX 29134 94768 45/// ///// 10232 20207 30105 40156 51021 333 10328== SM29/02/2024 12:00-> AAXX 29124 94768 45/// ///// 10231 20206 30106 40157== SN29/02/2024 11:00-> AAXX 29114 94768 45/// ///// 10241 20208 30095 40146== SN29/02/2024 10:00-> AAXX 29104 94768 45/// ///// 10281 20226 30084 40135 53027== SI29/02/2024 09:00-> AAXX 29094 94768 45/// ///// 10281 20221 30069 40120== SN29/02/2024 08:00-> AAXX 29084 94768 45/// ///// 10285 20225 30065 40116== SN29/02/2024 07:00-> AAXX 29074 94768 45/// ///// 10287 20227 30057 40108 58002== SM29/02/2024 06:00-> AAXX 29064 94768 45/// ///// 10301 20235 30059 40110== SN29/02/2024 05:00-> AAXX 29054 94768 45/// ///// 10285 20232 30060 40111== SN29/02/2024 04:00-> AAXX 29044 94768 45/// ///// 10301 20233 30059 40110 58013== SI29/02/2024 03:00-> AAXX 29034 94768 45/// ///// 10314 20245 30064 40115== SN29/02/2024 02:00-> AAXX 29024 94768 45/// ///// 10310 20241 30069 40120== SN29/02/2024 01:00-> AAXX 29014 94768 45/// ///// 10302 20236 30072 40123 58010 333 20226== SM29/02/2024 00:00-> AAXX 29004 94768 45/// ///// 10288 20232 30077 40128== SN28/02/2024 23:00-> AAXX 28234 94768 45/// ///// 10274 20232 30081 40132== SN28/02/2024 22:00-> AAXX 28224 94768 05/// ///// 10247 20222 30082 40133 58002 333 70000== SI28/02/2024 21:00-> AAXX 28214 94768 45/// ///// 10233 20216 30085 40136== SN28/02/2024 20:00->

Roger J Smith try *****@*****.tld *****@*****.tld Mark. mccarthy@ metoffice. gov. uk

For crying out loud. I’ve tried to explain, to no avail, that in the past readings were taken just once a day, at 0900. Therefore the readings taken were the max and min over the past 24 hours, no attempt being made to allocate them to 2 x 12 hours, as that would be based on assumptions, not fact. Some sites still use this convention, so all must. Towser understands, and is now sat in the corner whimpering with despair. Suggest not contributing to this forum until you’ve passed the 11+!

Weather-history Weather-history I’ve explained the 0900 to 0900 day to the dog, and he didn’t tilt his head, so here goes: When Met O opened 170 years ago the vast majority of observers were voluntary, preferring to sleep at night and have time to observe during they day. They had thermometers which could give current temps, max temps (since last reset) and min temps (same). There were thermographs available to give an ink on paper trace, not really accurate. Time when the average Joe was available to take readings was therefore limited to nonsleep. The thermometers they read could give extremes since they were last reset, but not when. During the wars more and more defence establishments (particularly airfields) were opened,usually 24/7, giving the possibility of manual observations whenever required. The past 50 years the use of electronics has made minute by minute observations possible. So…..If we want a neat midnight to midnight reading we could go back to the 1920’s, giving about 100 years. But, if we wish to extend the record period we have to continue with the 0900 to 0900 ‘C. Whoops! Towser just tilted his head. When did dogs start becoming “Rover”instead of “Towser”?

03529 is the airfield, the Met Office Tier 1 site. 99059 is the Agricultural College, the Tier 2 site. I imagine that the college is used for CET as it would presumably have the longer history, and is in line with the other CET sites.

A Winter's Tale Many thanks for putting me right about Dawyck. I was always under the impression that the extremes reported there were due to the valley location with trees and mountains to the south shielding a lot of the sun. You are presumably aware of the location, so I bow to your opinion that they are questionable.

I note that the list given by McGiven suggests a downgrade in the Jan max recorded just a couple of weeks ago. His list shows it as being 19.2 (provisional but a couple of weeks ago). There were reports higher than that at at lest two sites, one automatic and the other manual (the 19.9 previously reported). Have these now been ruled out?