Crepuscular Ray

Dev, if you look back, she's definitely been veering towards preaching rather than having her say. That said, 80 years ago, my dad's family (not badly off as his dad was a bank manager) would perhaps have had one joint of meat a week, which would have been made to last for several days, with fish on Friday, perhaps sausages on Saturday and a bacon for a fry-up on Sunday. Westerners do eat far more meat now than even a few generations ago. The planet's resources can't sustain this exponential growth in livestock rearing and its effects vis-a-vis deforestation, especially with the rapid growth of meat-eating in the far east. But calling people immoral because they do something our species evolved to do is just plain silly.

I'm a vegetarian and I find your comments offensive. Yes, producing meat does use up a lot of resources, especially water, but humans have evolved as omnivores and meat is, after all, the easiest way to obtain all the essential amino acids. Getting over-emotional and throwing insults around isn't going to win you any argument.

Milder here, too, when sheltered from the wind, which still has a nasty bite to it.

Don't the trees themselves act as a CO2 reservoir, just by being made of a lot of cellulose - C6H10O5? If they're not there, those elements are in the atmosphere. It will mostly be soya beans and cattle.

Here it was about ten minutes of drizzle. That wind is perishing, though.

There is only one word to describe today: "Bleugh."

I suspect that's an old wives' tale Jenny.

Yes, activity has fallen, but your source site's 336 pixel limit is an artificial cut off. The patch of black dots labelled 2290 on that image is definitely a sunspot group. And I still don't understand why you wish to keep to results that are equivalent to those obtained by old technology. What's wrong with scientific progress?

Well, some of what I see on http://www.spaceweather.com is definitely small spots not pixels. If you click on the image of the sun and then enlarge it, you'll see what I mean.

Spotless Days Current Stretch: 0 days 2015 total: 0 days (0%) 2014 total: 1 day (<1%) 2013 total: 0 days (0%) 2012 total: 0 days (0%) 2011 total: 2 days (<1%) 2010 total: 51 days (14%) 2009 total: 260 days (71%) Update 25 Feb 2015 As ever, which modern scientific instrument are you following Jon? Above data from spaceweather.com Anyway, given that the quiet solar max has so far produced two of the mildest/least snowy winters for decades in this country, how are the correlations for low solar max/cold winters in the UK looking?

Gerbils and other rodents in places like Kazakhstan still harbour the plague virus. However, gerbils are exclusive to the desert (unless in a plastic box with a wheel) and wouldn't have got on ships to Europe, so IMO the rats were more likely to be responsible for spreading it, even if they caught it from the gerbils.

BBC Sky at Night magazine is giving away eclipse glasses. Apparently, one way to produce a multiple-eclipse effect a bit like 4WD's one from leaves is a to use a colander with round holes. What I found eerie both in the 1999 one (partial as seen from London, of course) and the 1973 one off Africa before totality is the way the colour of the light changes to a slightly bluey-grey, presumably as there's less direct light and a greater proportion of what there is has been scattered. What a lot of alarmist tripe: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/biggest-solar-eclipse-since-1999-could-plunge-britain-into-darkness-10067907.html Anyone would think it didn't ever get dark in this country.

Jonboy is one of the many who correlate solar activity directly with weather conditions in the UK. The Maunder minimum a few hundred years ago resulted in the Little Ice Age and some snow lovers are hoping that the current lack of solar activity might be a precursor to something similar.

Caught all the forecasters by surprise, from what I can see.

Completely unexpected snowfall in south Hailsham, 14 m a.s.l. Big wet flakes, but not settling as the ground's too soggy after 36 hours of rain.

Rain, rain, rain all day in Hailsham. About an inch of rain in the 24 hours to 8 a.m. and I don't think it will be much less for tomorrow morning's reading.

It's been a gorgeous sunny day in London. At lunchtime a fair proportion of the population seemed to think spring had arrived and were sitting outside with their sandwiches and coffees.

Thank you so much for that information Kevin.

Early Chinese New Year?

Decent morning in Hailsham, although cloudy around lunchtime. The journey back to London late afternoon was mostly done in glorious sunshine. There were hang gliders over Ditchling beacon and Venus was bright in the western sky when I got back home as it got properly dark. Compared to the last few days, it was both mild and dry. A welcome change.

It's been absolutely lovely today, but make sure you've got something waterproof to put on if you're coming back tomorrow!

GO TO BED AND SEE OFF YOUR MIGRAINE DANIEL*!!!!!

Flying over the centre of Australia was pretty fantastic. We went over the formations north of Uluru and the interaction of wind and ancient sandstone was fascinating. Today's weather report for Hailsham: morning grim and windy, grim and windier, slightly less grim but windier, lunchtime wet, wet, wet, partly clear late afternoon, another band of rain since. Bit warmer than the last couple of days. Go to bed in absolute darkness Daniel*.

Judging so far this winter, you can't at all.

No worries. In my experience, High Wycombe's not the warmest place around either. Last time I was in that neck of the woods -17 January, when it snowed at about 9 a.m. - more snow had settled there than in Rickmansworth