Soaring Hawk

Facinating Roger. I shall follow this with great interest as we go through Jan and Feb. I love it when someone thinks outside the box around 'normally' accepted scientific theories.

Such positivism. Such immaculate timing with the hangovers and resultant grumpy moods around when they all crawl out of bed later. Your passport in date? <_<

Happy New Year ! Sunny: 6 degrees Wind: 23 W Relative Humidity: 85% Pressure (mB) 1011 R Visibility: Excellent We start the new year with blue sky and sunshine - fills me with optimism......

Difficult. Again. MCT has my vote this month - I feel I could step into his photograph.

Sunny: 12 degrees Wind: SW 24mph Humidity: 97% Pressure (mB): 1002 falling Visibility: Very good Calm after a wild evening and night. Beautiful day. Local weather forecast predicting "70-80mph gusts" with the graphics showing the track directly over us. Do hope its downgraded as have to drive back from relatives in Hertfordshire to north east Suffolk this evening.

Just been outside and its really blowing, difficult to stand up when the gusts come through. Wind sounds like a train through the trees, yet our area is supposed to be getting it tomorrow night......

Cloudy 0°C Wind N/A (0 mph) Relative Humidity (%): 100, Pressure (mB): 1042, Falling, Visibility: Very poor After the last few days it feels positively mild out there. We have large piles of what looks like thick snow under the trees, where the frost has been falling off through the night.

Thick freezing fog. Still only -1.5 degrees. The hoar frost is now almost an inch thick on all the branches. Looks very beautiful but our ungritted country lanes are lethal.

Hmmmm :unsure:

Foggy -3 degrees Wind: 0mph Relative Humidity: 100% Pressure (mB): 1042 Rising Visibility: Poor Thick hoar frost on every twig, branch and hedgerow. An eerily beautiful, classic Jack Frost country scene.

Misty Temp: -1 degree Relative humidity: 95% Pressure mB: 1036 Rising Visibility: Moderate The pond (diameter 60') is frozen; the ground, hedgerows and skeletal tree branches are white; mist is hanging over the surfaces; the view down the hill is pure Dickensian. Absolutely beautiful.

Definitely colder and with a sharpness in the air tonight. An altogether different smell...

From clear skies with sun to horizontal rain/hail with gale force gusts, all in 10 minutes. Just started.

Are you driving around with studded snow tyres or chains fitting on normal ones? When I used to live in Canada we had to have snow tyres fitted by a certain date. Does that apply where you are, or do you pop them on when snow/ice is forecast. This question was prompted by the casual way you mentioned driving on the freeway. Even 3" in the UK would cause complete gridlock but then we don't invest in snow tyres or chains unless we're skiers and go up mountains in Scotland or Europe.

Thank you for asking the question Tugmistress. I've also been meaning to find out the answer. Thanks too for the detail Gibli

As at 6am: Cloudy 8 degrees Wind S 15mph RH 89% Pressure mB 1017 F Visibility Very good Currently light rain with squally gusts. Barely light.

As ever a difficult decision between Coldfingers and Hemmy. However just first to the post is Hemmy's wave. It reminded me of the beautiful North East coast of Scotland where I was recently.

I'm glad someone with your gravitas asked that question John. I was wondering the same thing but unsure because I know so much less about the physics of weather than Roger!

You have no idea how apt that word is at my place, in my world! Thank you btw

Not sure if this is the right thread for this photo, but I took it at 10.35 this morning just before we got hit by one of the storms referred to in NW's latest output.

Morning. At 9am today : Cloudy: 8 degrees Wind: S 10mph RH: 95% Pressure mB: 994 R Visibility: Good The old fashioned method of looking out of the window shows sun now obscured by heavy, dark cloud and the wind has really picked up and is considerably more than 10mph.

Morning, enormous East Anglian sky, and its all blue..... Sun: 12 degrees Wind: SW 14mph Humidity: 97% Pressure mB: 979 F Visibility: Excellent

I think it was the emphasis on the type of coal that was burned both domestically and industrially. There was a higher reliance on coal powered industries compared to recent decades and in the 50's and 60's not many people had central heating so most houses needed fires to provide heat and/or solid fuel boilers to produce hot water. The Clean Air Act was bought in to reduce pollution. As a very small child I can remember my parents talking about the difference in price of smokeless coal (it cost more) compared to what they used in previous years. Can also remember thick fogs when I was very young in the 60's. And, am being slightly provocative here, the weather was colder then so coal was used for longer in the year than we can imagine now...... However, what about those multi vehicle pile ups in thick fog we used to have on the motorways not that many years ago? Wasn't that in the 80's? And does that blow my theory above out of the water?

Cloudy: 8 degrees Wind: SW 10mph RH: 79% Pressure (mB): 996 falling Visibility: Good

I can recall the winter of 78-79. I used to peer out of the bedroom window watching the heavy snow falling which was, and still is, something I love doing. I was living in the centre of Winchester at the time and I can remember the traffic problems because of so much snow on the roads. The dual carriageway (now the M3) was impassable several times with people living in Winchester being unable to get to work in Southampton. I can also remember the cold. It was bitterly cold and recall news reports about elderly people dying of hypothermia. I can't remember much about the late 70's but have particularly clear recollections of 78-79, most probably because of all the snow and the way it reminded me of living in Canada.