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Thundery wintry showers

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  1. Thundery wintry showers
    So, following on from my latest blog on transport, I came across an article relating to Top Gear on the internet.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2009/aug/03/clarkson-hints-top-gear-over?commentpage=1

    Some very, er, revealing comments here!

    [quote]If only it could be removed this programme has probably caused more deaths on our roads than any other with its glamourisation of fast cars and speed over everything else.Why not introduce a weekly crash analysis slot into the show if it must continue to explain how the most recent deaths and serious injuries occured with police and road safety professionals to give their comments.[/quote]

    [quote]The BBC should replace top gear with cycling gear a new show looking at all aspects of cycling club road ,commuter and touring this would be a much more sustainable and socially responsible approach to broadcasting,yes it is probably only a dream but if only it could happen...............[/quote]

    [quote]
    Beauty of the car? An ugly metal and glass box that pollutes the planet, clutters up every inch of our streets, makes us fat and lazy and gives our kids asthma? Where's the beauty? The sooner this programme finishes the better - it's a product of the past, rather like the Black & White Minstrals in the late 70s.[/quote]

    [quote]At first glance this story seems cause for celebration. Top Gear ending, some good news amidst the depressing headlines. But think about it, with the current BBC commissioning policies TG would probably be scrapped to make way for an even less intelligent, dumbed down petrol head's fantasy show. If such a thing is possible.[/quote]

    [quote]

    *Warning to simple people*
    Don't say "if you don't like it, don't watch it."
    It doesn't matter whether we watch it or not: attitudes towards speed and responsibility leak out into wider society.
    [/quote]

    [quote] [quote]Many people are into cars because of something that comes naturally to humans. its called FUN. People drive these because they are fun to drive. It is easy to get attached to something, not just it goes fast and looks cool, you have a genuinely good time in it. That is why Clarkson and many others, including myself, dread the day when we have to say goodbye to our cars, our fun.[/quote]
    And when you die horribly in a gruesome car smash, I shall dance merrily on your freshly dug grave and dance a merry jig as your no doubt tea-soaked relatives blub tunelessly into kitchen roll. And for an encore, I will squat down and parp out the brownest turds of the purest joy, splattering your newly-chiselled headstone mischievously filling the grooves of sorrow.[/quote]

    A perfect illustration of why I defend motorists so much these days. Part of it is simply a backlash against attitudes like the above, which I expect will become more prevalent as time goes by.
  2. Thundery wintry showers
    The move from Exeter to UEA has proved surprisingly non-problematic. I thought I would really miss the Met Office considering how much I loved it there, but UEA is also pretty good, so I feel like I've settled back in at UEA. It's good to know of different places that are all very good to live near and work at (Leeds University is another example).

    As for the weather, my views on how July 2009 went are decidedly mixed. I certainly go along with the general consensus that it went downhill as the month progressed. But the month's weather overall? I have to say I quite enjoyed it, because of the high frequency of sunshine-and-showers days, the frequent torrential downpours from cumulonimbus cells and the fairly frequent thunder- even through to the end of the month (the 30th in particular had some pretty impressive thunderstorms in Norwich). True, we could have done with some more warmth and sunshine and perhaps not quite as much rain and wind, but if I had to list the most depressing summer months for weather that I've lived through, July 2009 wouldn't be near the top of the list. It would certainly come nowhere near the months Tyne & Wear experienced in June 2007, June 1997 and July 2000.

    I can understand people wishing for a settled spell after all of this wet stuff, but I often wonder exactly what people mean when they talk about "settled", especially as different people might be using slightly different definitions of the term. You can get settled in the synoptic sense- i.e. non-changeable weather patterns, mostly high pressure, minimal Atlantic influence, and you can get settled in the weather sense- i.e. the weather stays the same over a long period of time (which could be sunny & dry or dull & damp for example). I guess from the way people post that most people mean the former, though some seem to interpret it more as meaning "no rain".

    I must admit, while I would welcome a good week-long high pressure spell of the nature of late May/early June as much as anyone else, I groan inwardly when I see the pattern of Azores ridge, cloudy westerlies on its northern flank and all precipitation being exclusively frontal. August 1998 in Tyne & Wear, a classic case of a month dominated by such a pattern, redefined the term "boring".
  3. Thundery wintry showers
    As a non-driver who studies climate science and takes a strong interest in environmentalism, rather contrarily I'm also a bit of a petrolhead.

    I like motor racing (especially Formula One), have been quad biking in the past, enjoy motor racing games on the computer, and like "sporty" style cars (the ones with rapid acceleration/brakes, rapid cornering and stiff suspensions to make for a ride more akin to being on a rollercoaster instead of gliding along polished glass). I am also a big fan of Top Gear, which is probably my favourite TV program of all at the moment.

    However I also condemn the boy racers, the mindless idiots who drive recklessly (whether for pleasure or otherwise) without regard for safety- of which there are many on the roads, particularly prominent in 17-19 year old macho males. This ties in with my usual recommendation of clamping down on the idiots first and only then thinking of casting the net wider- though it's my usual stance on these kinds of issues anyway.

    As well as being into cars, I also like buses and trains when they're reliable, and I like cycling when there is a decent segregated network available. Cycling is also good for exercise, and getting on a bus or train can be very relaxing. So ideally I would like those to be improved. My favourite example of a good transport system is that of Strasbourg.

    It strikes me that current orthodox transport policies address both issues with a simple and neat solution: clamp down on everyone to legislate for the idiots and also deter car use, with road humps, lower and more absolutely enforced speed limits etc. However I argue that they are simple neat and wrong. They will improve safety but at much larger cost to responsible people than is necessary, and they will achieve a transport equilibrium at a much lower level than is necessary. Many for instance don't want a segragated cycle network because it won't deter car use whereas increasing their rights on the roads will- not good news for me as a prospective cyclist!

    I tend to come in for a lot of stick for my views on transport- like with climate change I have beliefs that incorporate views from both sides of the debate and in between, so it is easy to be lumped together with one side or the other. But in the case of transport it should be easy to see why I have these kinds of contrary views- because I come from a rare background of being an environmentalist, a non-driver, a former bicycle lover, a bus/train lover and a car lover.
  4. Thundery wintry showers
    Reading through Summer Model Discussion threads... sometimes I wonder what it would take to abolish the air of negativity in there!

    Hot and sunny for at least a week won't do, people complain that it's too hot.
    Modestly warm, dry and sunny (or cloudy) for at least a week won't do, people complain that it's too boring.
    Anything less than either of those two won't do, because people complain that we aren't having a summer and pray for a prolonged settled spell (hence "at least a week" in the above).

    I find the convective discussion threads a breath of fresh air because they involve people finding positives in the weather we're having. True, some people don't see anything to like in convective weather, just as I don't see anything to like in days on end of stratus trapped on the periphery of an anticyclone. We all have different preferences after all. But it would be nice if those who despise particular types of weather would stop imposing their misery on everyone else when they occur.
  5. Thundery wintry showers
    The CASE period at the Met Office is up, so after a bit of an emotional last day, have now returned to UEA- and strangely am living in exactly the same place as before!

    However late next week features a chess tournament up at Leeds University which should also be interesting.

    As for the upcoming weather, next week looks like being my "cup of tea" with sun, showers and thunderstorms, although the longer-range outlook, towards next weekend, looks, er, "Pretty Awful" lol!
  6. Thundery wintry showers
    An updated version of my "Winter Snow Events" analysis will be uploaded to N-W over the coming few weeks, based on a wider range of sources and overall casting the net much wider. There has been considerable "inflation" in the values for each season as a result, the average "snow score" has increased from the low 20s into the low 30s.

    Some brief (provisional) details to get the ball rolling:
    [list]* The winters prior to 1988 have been upgraded relative to the 1990s and 2000s (as I missed some snow events from the earlier years in my previous analysis) such that the period 1971-76 comes out with comparable amounts of snow to some of the winters since 1987. In particular 1972/73 came out with a similar total to 2003/04 and 2004/05. However, that 6-year period still had slightly less snow overall than the period 1988-2009.
    * Winter 2008/09 was only slightly above the 20th century average for snow, yet it was the snowiest winter overall since 1995/96, and the second snowiest since 1985/86.
    * All measures of "snowiness" have their issues, and the main issue with my method is that it measures occurrences of lying snow events rather than duration of snow cover. For example, by this measure 1978/79 was a snowier winter than 1962/63. The snowiest winter of the 20th century appears to have been the other famous one, in 1946/47.
    * The most snowless winter appears to have been 1991/92.
    [/list]
  7. Thundery wintry showers
    This is a slightly controversial topic that used to be referenced quite frequently by Philip Eden- how does one define "showers"? The dictionary typically tells us that a shower is a brief fall of precipitation, whereas most meteorologists use the term "shower" to refer to convective precipitation.

    I don't agree with Philip Eden's assertion that a shower should be termed a brief fall of light rain and that a brief, torrential fall is a "cloudburst" (it has to be said, I rarely disagree with what he says, but this is one such occasion). Think about it, most non-weather definitions of "shower" (e.g. taking a shower, being showered with gifts) involves short, sharp outbreaks, so I don't see why a cloudburst can't reasonably be called a heavy shower. However, I do agree with his point that to most of the "lay" public, the type of cloud that the precipitation falls from is not really relevant, and if a frontal system breaks up to give brief falls of precipitation, to most people, they would constitute "showers".

    In my view, though, when talking about showery weather on a large scale (such as when making a forecast) the distinction based on convective vs non-convective precipitation makes a lot of sense, because it is very rare for brief falls of precipitation to occur on a wide scale without them being at least partly convective in origin- plus it is much easier for forecasters to differentiate convective vs non convective precipitation than to differentiate prolonged vs short-lived precipitation (in addition to the fact that the two are strongly correlated anyway). It wouldn't surprise me if this was the main reason why "showers" as referring to convective precipitation came into widespread use.

    Another part of confusion concerns the definition of my favourite weather type, which . In the old days, it was sunshine mixed with brief falls of precipitation. These days my favourite weather type is rather more specific- sunshine mixed with [i]convective[/i] precipitation.
  8. Thundery wintry showers
    Thanks to everyone who gave me birthday wishes. I had a pretty good day- celebrated in style at the Met Office, and had some good messages on here and on Facebook- I got a subscription to Chess magazine as well for my birthday (I've subscribed to it before but had stopped- but given my record at the MetO, 8 wins 4 draws 0 losses, it was appropriate to restart).

    I'm getting quite excited about the upcoming week's weather. It may end up a bit humid for my liking, but otherwise as far as I'm concerned it looks like being my idea of summer bliss- highs in the mid 20s by day, plenty of sunshine, and chances of thundery downpours in late afternoon and evening. It will be a good way, weather-wise, to round off my stay in Exeter if this comes off.

    I would be pretty "narked" about the upcoming spell if I was on the Tyneside coast- no chances of thundery downpours there, and probably not much chance of sunshine either from Thursday onwards- but it doesn't matter because I'm not there!
  9. Thundery wintry showers
    Is this phrase catching on? There is an excellent site from Reading University's Meteorology department documenting the daily weather going back to the late 1990s:
    [url="http://www.met.rdg.ac.uk/~brugge/"]http://www.met.rdg.ac.uk/~brugge/[/url]

    ...and in its summary for the 3rd February it says the following:
    [quote]Overnight into the 3rd snow fell mainly in E areas of England and Scotland although some falls were reported in Ireland, SW England, the Channel islands and other places. To the S of the snow most places in England and Wales had an air frost - with Cent and E England then having a cold day. During the day there were further falls of sleet and snow in N and E Scotland resulting from fronts circulating around a low pressure area centred over S Ireland (MSL pressure down to 985mb). There were also some snow showers over Ireland, Wales and SW England that gave some heavu falls in places. The Met Office also reported some [b]thundery, wintry showers [/b]in S countiews of England which died out as they moved N.[/quote]

    I remember being affected by those showers in Exeter on that day- there was no thunder here but there were certainly some quite dramatic showers of snow, sleet and hail.

    The 15th June was an amazing day of weather in Exeter. It started off dry and sunny but shower clouds shot up during the morning and there was a colossal rainstorm at 11:30am, which led to some limited flash flooding around the Met Office. After some sunshine and showers over lunchtime, a thunderstorm came over from 2 to 2:30pm, with even more torrential rain- rivalling the deluge of the 6th June, although it was of more normal duration for rain of such intensity (about 10-15 minutes). There were about 20 rumbles of thunder in total and some overhead lightning. Flash flooding again occurred and although I didn't specifically notice any hail, it was reported from the location as well. The rest of the day was mainly sunny with a few showers, and at 7pm there was a "sunny shower"- a moderate shower with bright sunshine throughout leading to a vivid rainbow.
    True, the Norwich area got rather more severe thunderstorms (as per usual!) but from what I've seen and heard the rain was no more intense than in Exeter and the storms constituted one long spell of thunder- a large part of me feels happier to have had the short sharp cloudbursts that Exeter experienced.

    On a related note I am leaving the Met Office in three and a half weeks' time. The place and the people who work there will certainly be sorely missed, but on the other hand it will also be good to be reunited with UEA and the people who work there. The MetO has made an excellent account of itself while I've been there, and I hope to end up back there at some point during my future career.

    As for the climate of Exeter, I don't like the climate as much as that of Norwich overall, but I have to say that it's rather better from my perspective than I expected (and that's not just because the winter was unusually snowy- though if that is ever a problem there's always Dartmoor which is about as snowy as inland parts of North-East England). Sunshine hours are good, anticyclonic gloom relatively rare, summer weather pleasantly warm, and although thunderstorms aren't that numerous, there is no shortage of heavy convective rainstorms at any time of the year. Certainly more interesting than the climate of Lancaster, which is the other part of western Britain that I've lived in.
  10. Thundery wintry showers
    On this occasion I was priveleged to be at the centre of where all the weather action was happening. In East Exeter by the Met Office, a set of localised but very intense convective cells targetted the area giving over an hour of thunder and lightning around 8-9am. Although the rate of lightning was not outstandingly high (about 20 strikes over that period) most of the thunder and lightning was right overhead, making it very dramatic. But even more remarkable was the rainfall- it was torrential for most of the entire period. Some of the cumulonimbus clouds were extremely dark.

    The remainder of the day continued with heavy rain. At around 5-6pm, another torrential pulse again concentrated itself over my area, and again there were big cumulonimbus cells and it was very dark- dark enough for the streetlights to come on- but no thunder on that occasion.

    Reports suggest that a localised area close to the Met Office, possibly including my specific location, had over 100mm in 12 hours. For comparison, the average rainfall in Exeter for the whole of June is about 50mm. What was particularly unusual about it was the way extremely intense rainfall persisted for most of the day- it must have been from a succession of convective cells embedded in the frontal system, because rainfall of that intensity rarely lasts longer than half an hour.

    So it may well have been a driech dull wet day- but what a day all the same!
  11. Thundery wintry showers
    Why is it that all of the ills of society are blamed on working mothers? "Too many mothers are in work and not looking after the children, so children can't always rely upon Mum being there." say the masses. "We need to bring a return to the traditional family where the father goes out to work and the mother stays at home and looks after the children."

    Some suggest that we should have one parent stay at home irrespective of gender, but that would lead to the same result, as the mother is still expected to play the main role in bringing up the children- it would mostly be mothers who would stay at home.
    Some points:

    1. Most children who have two parents who work actually grow up to be good adults, and the ones who turn out badly-behaved, while clearly representing a major problem, are in the minority. And what about the kids brought up by single mothers who turn out reasonably behaved? As usual everyone are being made to suffer because of a minority.

    2. If a stay-at-home mum feels she is trapped, she is ruled by her husband and kids, her career sits in tatters and she has no life (which [i]can[/i] happen)- how is that going to be good for the kids? Quantity of time spent with Mum is important- but so is quality.

    3. If more employers were willing to offer flexible working patterns and chances for going part-time when bringing up young children where it was feasible, we'd get situations where parents could work, but work at different times so as to ensure that most of the time, at least one of them was available for the children.

    Giving mothers more scope to stay at home if they wish to is no problem, but I certainly don't want society to move in the direction of making mothers feel guilty if they work, as if it equates to child neglect. As per point 1 above, only in a minority of cases does this appear to be true.
  12. Thundery wintry showers
    I've complained quite a bit about the BBC recently, particularly re. their weather forecasts and dumbing down of documentaries. So, to balance the books, it's only fair that I give them credit when they do a good job.

    One example is the Formula One coverage. I think this has shown a definite improvement over the ITV coverage. The online coverage is more comprehensive, while the TV coverage is far more objective- there seems to be far less bias towards the British drivers than there was on ITV, and more interest in the rest of the field. I don't think Jonathan Leogard is as good as Murray Walker, but he's a lot better than James Allen. In addition with keeping Martin Brundle on board and adding Murray Walker to the online analysis, the BBC certainly showed it was prepared to listen to the popular consensus among fans. Brundle remains as good as ever.

    The other is the recent weather documentaries- rain, snow and then wind. I honestly can't remember a better documentary series on the weather- so far it seems to have struck the perfect balance between being informative, being unbiased, and not being too technical for those with limited knowledge of the subject.
  13. Thundery wintry showers
    I wonder where I would appear in a typical assessment of "climate change believer" vs "climate sceptic". I certainly appear more towards the "believer" end in the climate change discussion threads, but on the other hand I remain sceptical about the ability of computer models to predict the future (they have improved a lot in recent years and will probably continue to get better, but even so, there are all kinds of areas where they could go wrong).

    As per usual, while most of those with strong opinions on the subject take up one side or the other, I've formed a strong opinion that is somewhere in the middle, though perhaps further from the "sceptic" end than the "believer" end.

    It's rather odd, though, how the definition of "sceptic" seems to have migrated away from its dictionary definition, which is merely someone who is sceptical. By this measure, given the first paragraph, I would actually classify as a "sceptic", and some of those with anti-AGW positions would be better categorised as "disbelievers". I prefer that term to "deniers" which has a strong jibing element to it.
  14. Thundery wintry showers
    There seems to be a common process when changes are proposed or go ahead. Firstly, the masses tend to be resistant to change (whether for good or bad or in between) and mass OTT over-reactions break out. Then we get the proponents latching onto the few people who support the changes, while dismissing everyone else with comments like "get used to it, it's the future". And then, in the long run, everybody does "get used to it"- regardless of whether the change is for better, worse or in between.

    As with many such issues, we tend to end up with opposing positions at the two extremes. One is that change is usually good, people only resist it because they're naturally resistant to change. The other is the general resistance to change of any kind, amounting to "change is usually bad". And what we get precious little of is objective analysis of the pros and cons of the change, to determine whether it is or isn't a good thing.

    This scenario arose with the BBC weather graphics change in 2005, which ties in with my previous blog entry. But the current examples I'm primarily thinking of are the Facebook layout changes and the F1 points/wins change, both brought in without warning and at short notice. Personally, I don't agree with either of the changes, and on N-W, there has been a pretty good discussion on the latter. But a glance at the comments on messageboards like the BBC and Facebook reveals a bucketload of OTT nonsense, giving reasons for rejecting the changes that just smack of aimless whinging. The proponents will look at those and think, "oh, just resistance to change as usual"- and miss the good reasons for rejecting said changes.

    Maybe society could do with some education from a young age on how to carry out logical deductive reasoning in order to reach well-rounded opinions, and on how to have an open mind. The seemingly inept decision-making that prevails among politicians is echoed all too strongly in many "discussions" on topics on internet messageboards among the general public... it suffices to say that if I ever think Net-Weather has its problems with discussion quality, they pale by comparison with many other internet forums/messageboards.
  15. Thundery wintry showers
    I think there is a lot wrong with the current generation of BBC weather forecasts, but it's no good just sitting whining non-constructively. Here's a list of changes that I would like to see in the forecasts:

    [b]Presentation/Format[/b]

    I suggest less emphasis on the current day's weather. Just a brief outline perhaps, briefly mentioning any significant events, then straight into the forecast. Also, we don't need that tour of Britain for 8am, it takes up valuable forecast time covering the country in micro-detail, and mainly just the south. People switch off because it takes ages for them to get the forecast for their area for the next day. I think they should just stick with showing the whole country at once.

    Synoptic analysis should be included, but should be integrated into the main body of the forecast rather than preceding it. This is because, contrary to the BBC's assertions, people switched off at the synoptic analysis mainly because it preceded forecasts and took ages to get into the forecast itself, not because they felt "disenfranchised". So to quote a simplistic example, instead of having a series of synoptic charts and then the forecast, we could have synoptic chart, forecast for day 1, synoptic chart for day 2, forecast for day 2 etc. That way people get the information, but it is spread out over the forecast and only occurs for brief periods at a time, so people don't switch off.

    [b]Subjectivity[/b]
    I suggest going back to the old tradition of simply presenting the information without bias, rather than introducing a lot of subjectivity. There is plenty of scope for non-subjective ways to make a forecast sound jolly and interesting, like "you might need a brolly", "scorching hot", "it'll feel nippy out there" etc.

    Presenting a lot of subjectivity not only annoys people who don't share the same set of weather type preferences as the presenter is suggesting, it also misleads people- this goes for both positive and negative spin. A forecast for sunshine and showers where "rainy unsettled awful weather" is emphasised will mislead people into thinking it's going to be mainly dull and wet. A forecast for dry mild cloudy windy weather where "staying fine and dry and mild" is emphasised will mislead people into thinking there might be a fair amount of sunshine and not much wind.
    The forecasters' job is to tell us what the weather is going to be, not to educate us as to what types of weather we should and shouldn't like. The rest of the media does enough of that already. And no, there isn't a set of weather type preferences that are shared by the vast majority. That's just the media trying to marginalise any opinions that differ from the opinions it thinks we should have.

    The Met Office, Philip Eden etc. are perfectly capable of keeping subjectivity to a minimum- why did the BBC stop?

    [b]Graphics[/b]

    I think most of the problem with the "new-style" graphics is the changes to the forecast presentations that they've brought in with them. The graphics themselves can be used to good effect, as the regional and Countryfile forecasts often demonstrate. Thus I'm not one of those who campaigns for the return of the old-style look- for me they're about six and two threes.

    I note that the BBC often says the current forecasts are the best because "research" shows that most people wanted the changes and find them very helpful. My question is, is this research representative or have they just done the usual tactic of wording a survey to get the answers they want from people? Judging by their defensiveness over this "research" I guess it's more likely to be the latter.
  16. Thundery wintry showers
    Still five and a half months for things to change, but so far I have to give the Met Office a big thumbs up- seems a very good place to work, and I've been having a good time there. It isn't particularly difficult to find fellow weather enthusiasts, as might be expected. I'd been concerned that my social life might suffer, but in fact the MetO has a wide range of social outlets associated with its sports facilities, and thus so far it's been fine socially as well.

    The climate down here in Exeter is pretty poor for snow, as I gathered before I got here, but we get plenty "sunshine and showers" here which is always a bonus as far as I'm concerned. Although snow is very rare, Exeter does get a surprising amount of frost, probably mainly due to it being inland and in a valley. A couple of days ago, it was 0C at 11pm, rained at 4C at midnight (temps have a habit of shooting up just as the showers arrive) and then fell to freezing again, leading to a lot of "skitey bits".

    I've been playing quite a bit of chess recently as well, after a spell where I hardly played any (the chess society at UEA fizzled out).
  17. Thundery wintry showers
    So today was my last day for a while at the Climatic Research Unit at UEA. It feels strange, as normally in this kind of situation I'm leaving a place potentially forever, but on this occasion it's only for six months, and then I'm back again for at least another year and a third (depending on when I get the PhD finished!)

    The intervening period, after the Christmas break in Geordieland, will be spent at the Met Office in Exeter. It will be quite a significant change in environment, so thoughts of both anticipation and apprehension reign. I have no regrets about choosing this tied studentship though- six months at the MetO will leave me with many important contacts and some good experience of working outside of the purely academic environment, plus as a meteorologist you can't really ask for a better company to provide this opportunity than the Met Office.

    However, be warned that I will have to be, er, quite tight lipped about certain things as the security is very high, so I'm told, because of the MetO still being part of the Ministry of Defence. Certainly the security clearance took a while.
  18. Thundery wintry showers
    On cold-related deaths, I argue that they should not be cited as a reason why people should prefer mild.

    Cold-related deaths reduce when, in isolation, we have a winter that is mild relative to the average for recent years. But when we have a succession of mild winters, people get used to a milder average, and less prepared for a given degree of cold than before. Thus, in the short term milder winters mean less deaths, but in the long term they do not.

    Interestingly it's similar with snow- snow causes a lot more disruption in London and Paris than it does in Moscow, simply because it is much rarer in those cities and so the residents are less prepared for it.

    This doesn't just have relevance to weather type preferences. It is also a strong counter to the argument that we should welcome global warming because it will reduce cold-related deaths in winter. In practice the evidence just doesn't bear this out.
  19. Thundery wintry showers
    [url="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7755641.stm"]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7755641.stm[/url]

    I would not take that survey as gospel simply because three of its four indices only reflect the breakdown of so-called [i]family[/i] communities (marriages, people living in rented accommodation, being in it for less than a year). The one about living alone is a more complete, but still far from foolproof, measure of loneliness.

    This is strongly reflected in its point about increased student populations contributinig to loneliness. Er hello, most students are far from "lonely", in fact many students have the best social lives of anyone in the country! Most don't have families close at hand, but their networks of friendships are often much wider-ranging than is the case in traditional family units, who often socialise with a very limited circle of people.

    Social networking sites, society groups, employee lists etc. all provide communities that were relatively lacking 30 years ago. In addition it is much easier to travel to meet people than it was 30 years ago, even when the credit crunch is factored into account.

    In short, it's far from being as bleak as the article suggests because while traditional sources of communities have declined, new ones have sprung up to offset this.
  20. Thundery wintry showers
    Here's an exploration of various possibilities on issues relating to religions and spirituality. I have some clear-cut beliefs on this, but as you will see, plenty of areas where I believe that the truth could be anything across a wide range of possibilities.

    First of all, I don't think there is a god of the kind that the Bible described, that created the world in six days, Adam and Eve etc. There are far too many contradictions, far too many scientific discoveries re. evolution that cannot be realistically challenged while maintaining a literal interpretation of the Bible, etc. For those who are interested in this disproof, check out this link which inspired this blog entry: [url="http://alphacoursereview.wordpress.com/"]http://alphacoursereview.wordpress.com/[/url]
    This blog entry is remarkably similar to the experiences I've had with fundamentalist Christian types in the past, which in turn caused me to reject the religion.

    But does the above prove that there is no greater power of any kind, a generic "god" of some kind? I don't think so. Yes, many people like to believe in life after death, that there is a "guardian angel" or god or something watching over them and helping them, and that supernatural things exist. It is a comforting way of thinking, and from experience, I also think this is why many children are fond of the concept of Santa Claus. But that doesn't mean that nothing of the sort exists. There might be some kind of extra spirituality that we can't see or hear. People could be using these comforting thoughts to try and assemble these percieved paranormal experiences into something comforting, and perhaps that's where a lot of the religions originally came from. But maybe, just maybe, there might be something real behind at least some of it.

    An alternative possibility, which understandably gets up many people's backsides as it attacks comfort zones (I know this, as it attacks quite a few of mine!) but shouldn't be discounted, is that there really is no life after death, no existence beyond what we know. That said, one major reason why I often get defensive when people preach this view isn't that it attacks comfort zones, but rather that many atheists tend to preach with a lot of the same narrow-mindedness and arroagance that many fundamentalist Christians do.

    And another alternative that few consider- it may be that there is indeed an afterlife, and/or extra "beings" of greater existence that we don't know about- but that the reality is a lot more mundane than the religions suggest. "God" could be to humans as humans are to ants, in terms of intellectual understanding of things that our brains are too limited to grasp. Getting confused? Well, it serves to illustrate that when you start thinking about this sort of thing with an open mind... well, the possibilities are near-endless!
  21. Thundery wintry showers
    After complaining that Norwich missed out on the remarkable October event (when even Cleadon got some excitement- lying hail overnight 30/31 October) could we be in for a spell where I make up for it big-time?

    Ever since I first came to Norwich, one of the things I most wanted to see was a full-on northerly outbreak from the Arctic in November, knowing very well that Norfolk lies right in the firing line of the showers drifting down the North Sea, and that the strong contrast between cold airmasses and the warm sea can generate very intense shower activity at this time of year.

    Unless I'm dreaming, I can see not one, but two such northerly incursions that are projected to happen within the next week by all three of the main models (ECMWF, UKMO, GFS). The first one looks like it may even give some snow with Norwich being a little bit inland, while the second looks good for a wintry mix (probably rain, hail and sleet) but with some exciting convection. There are precedents- similar setups on 17 November 1995, 17-18 November 1999 and 8 November 2001 not only brought wintry showers to Norwich, but also brought thunderstorms.

    Not surprisingly I'm getting those camera batteries charged up for the weekend. If this potential for dramatic weather is fulfilled I won't mind missing out on that remarkable October snowfall- as these November northerlies are what I've been waiting for.
  22. Thundery wintry showers
    I didn't get my weather records until today, so no post in the October stats thread.

    In any case, Cleadon's stats for October 2008, with deviation from estimated 1971-2000 averages:

    Mean Max: 13.3 (+0.2)
    Mean Min: 6.0 (-1.0)
    Mean Temp: 9.6 (-0.5)

    Highest max: 18.8 (10th)
    Lowest max: 6.1 (28th)

    Highest min: 11.6 (20th)
    Lowest min: -1.6 (30th)

    Air frosts: 2

    Days of thunder: 0
    Days of sleet or snow: 0
    Days of fog: 0
    Days of hail: 3

    Precipitation 32mm (57%)


    This was a dry sunny month- and the first dry month since May! There was a notable cold snap near the beginning of the month, with a max of just 10.3C on the 3rd, and a minimum of 1.6C on the 4th, while the weather was mostly dry with sunshine. The second week was warm with variable cloud cover, then a fairly mixed third week followed with near-average temperatures.

    The cold snap at the end of the month produced the lowest October maximum temperature in records going back to 1993- no previous October day has failed to reach 7C. Although the area missed out on the snowfalls that many other areas had on the 28th and 29th, some dramatic showers overnight 30th/31st produced large hail and a temporary covering of hail- much of this lasted through to dawn on the 31st from about the Tyne Tunnel westwards, but it melted at the coastal strip due to higher temperatures.

    Like in the 8/9 November 2001 cold snap I often refer to as a benchmark for dramatic weather in Cleadon, temperatures were all over the place. They would stabilise at 6-7C in clear intervals, but fell abruptly during hail showers, falling as low as 3.3C at one point.

    Shame I was down in Norwich and missed it all! But then again Norwich was by far the thunderiest place in the country in August, so you can't win 'em all I suppose!

    Edit on 16 November: it is also highly likely to have been the sunniest October since 2003, in common with much of the rest of the country.
  23. Thundery wintry showers
    I was pleased to see Obama get into power even though I have doubts about some of his policies. The alternatives were a continuation of the current status quo in the USA- economic liberalism and social conservatism- and in particular trying to shore up holes in the economy in the short term only to suffer greater in the long term. And I can't stand social conservative policies, so Sarah Palin was never an attractive proposition as far as I was concerned. For once, the USA are prepared to try something different, and while it may not work out very well, chances it will work out better than keeping the status quo would have.

    I have generally downplayed the significance of his skin colour, but it will certainly set a precedent that will reduce the chances of skin colour being an issue in future political battles in the USA.

    Related to my rant about authoritarianism a couple of blogs ago: it is not the fault of the "Liberal Lefties" that it is happening. Firstly, it is not the result of socialist ideologies. The idea that things that aren't work/health/safety-related are non-essential and disposable (meaning a large percentage of personal liberty) is an economics-driven view of the world, it is not left of centre by any stretch of the imagination.

    In addition, straight from the definition of authoritarianism, any policy that punishes the many because of the few is authoritarian. Not only that, some of these nanny state policies help to reinforce traditional values- which is usually branded conservative policymaking. Take the way men are unable to interact with kids these days without being accused of being sexual abusers, except if the kids are deemed to be in their families. That sort of double standard invariably has its roots in traditional family values.

    In short, this is not a "liberal lefties" problem, this is a problem stemming from conservatives- particularly social conservatives (now you see why I didn't want Sarah Palin in)
  24. Thundery wintry showers
    I have to say I've been very impressed with the recent changes to the N-W charts in the datacentre. Until recently, I have to admit, I tended to prefer the Wetterzentrale versions, but recently the team has been implementing changes to give the N-W versions the advantages that the WZ versions have.

    I particularly like the Northern Hemisphere orientation that in my view is better than the one at WZ- finally our set of charts are looking professional!

    And incidentally, some very tasty synoptics out in f1:
    [attachment=70569:f10000.jpeg]
  25. Thundery wintry showers
    Well, although there's been a pleasing absence of it on this forum this year, I see that the "ban fireworks except public displays" brigade are out in earnest among the population.

    [Disclaimer: I do not subscribe to the views below, by the way!]
    Viewing the world from the eyes of the Authoritarian, while we're on with it, we can also:
    [list]
    [*]Ban pleasure driving because of a few boy racers,
    [*]Incrementally force a slow but sure reduction of traffic speeds as close to zero as we can get away with because a few idiots drive too fast,
    [*]Ban computer games because a few idiots let them take over their lives,
    [*]Ban men from befriending children because a few idiots molest them,
    [*]Ban male-female friendships because of potential for affairs and stalking,
    [*]Ban social networking sites because men might use them to befriend women or children (see above two bans) or steal ID,
    [*]Ban personal cameras because a few idiots photograph public transport for terrorist purposes,
    [*]and so on.
    [/list]
    ...by extension of the same lines of argument as for banning fireworks. The benefits are outweighed by the downsides, given that human pleasure doesn't come into it because it's non-essential, and that only matters relating to work, health and safety are essential.

    Clearly, persecuting and demonising innocent people for daring to enjoy themselves is a sign of being hard on offenders, the issue of idiots going underground can be tackled by banning the alternative avenues of abuse (rinse and repeat until we have no recreational activities left to ban), and Ian's ridiculous suggestion of differentiating abuse from responsibility won't work because it isn't flawless (you can't always tell). Because it's not as if mass prohibition isn't flawless or anything.

    In addition we can tackle global warming by demonising the people that pollute. By making life as difficult for those evil motorists as we can (this fits in nicely with the authoritarian measures to legislate for the idiots who drive recklessly as well!) we can create a splendid balanced transport system at the lowest common denominator, alienate motorists, and achieve a 1% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

    Isn't authoritarianism wonderful! ... er... not?
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