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Thundery wintry showers

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  1. Thundery wintry showers
    Just watched a few more of those Tom & Jerry episodes I got for my birthday. The cartoons themselves are fine, but there's been some annoying 'censoring' of them going on, especially the redubbing of Mammy Two-Shoes (I grew up on the uncensored versions that the BBC showed until 2000 and the uncensored VHS editions from the 80s and 90s). As it happens, the versions I have are the best available, and remarkably, there are no uncensored versions available any more.
    Yes, if some find the originals racially offensive, by all means release censored versions alongside the originals, but phasing out the distribution of the originals really is a case of 'political correctness gone mad'; a large majority of people didn't find them offensive.
    Okay, so maybe the 'blackface gags' were originally intended as racist jokes (which is totally unacceptable, but more a symptom of the way society was in the 1940s than anything else). However, there's a perfectly non-racist reason for people appearing in blackface following an explosion- I always assumed until recently that they went black because they were coated in charcoal. If we're to censor that sort of thing, should we do that with all cartoons that feature explosions, and should we censor the burning of toast because the fact that burnt toast is black could be used by bigots to perpetuate racism?
    I say all of the above as someone who is a big advocate of equality of opportunity and who despises discrimination of any form. But the real problem stems from people judging each other by stereotypes rather than as individuals, and embedding such stereotypes into social norms (such that they are accepted without question), and it's this that we need to be tackling. Most jokes about stereotypes, TV showings of stereotypes etc. are actually harmless as long as they aren't taken seriously (and Tom & Jerry is one of the most non-serious cartoons in existence).
    This obsession with "avoiding causing offence" is only scraping the surface of the problem, and is posing a real threat to freedom of speech and expression. I mean, in future will it be politically incorrect to like snow because it might offend those who have suffered bereavment of elderly people who died?
    Rant over.
  2. Thundery wintry showers
    Had a decent birthday today- indeed I can only remember two years when I haven't had a good birthday- it's probably partly because I make such a big thing of it!
    Got some new clothes, some sweets, and a set of Tom & Jerry DVDs. I haven't seen T & J for a long time, but I remember I used to watch it regularly at my grandparents' and I regularly tuned in to BBC when they showed it until 2000. According to reviews there are some issues with PC censorship (shame on the PC brigade) but haven't noticed any on my two favourite episodes. It was like putting the clock back when I viewed them- and I still find them as funny as I used to as a child.
    Had a good morning going to the local painting club and bringing a nice birthday cake in.
    As for the weather, many people might have noticed me complaining about Cleadon's weather today. Ironically, the post in my previous blog...
    ...turned out to be remarkably accurate, though at least the low cloud stayed off until late evening, giving us a sunny dry day rather than a dull one. And yes, I did hear, much to my angst, about how "lucky" I was to miss the showers.
    Yet another example to put with the rest of why, with the exception of its "thundery wintry showers" episodes in winter that inspired my Net-Weather name, I don't like the climate of the north-east coast. Actually, I think much of the North East has quite a reasonable climate; it's just along the coast that gets on my nerves.
    Might be doing more stuff this weekend. I feel more content with life; some feedback from UEA also about accommodation though I don't know where I'll be living yet, and probably won't know for a while. Some feedback also about Exeter and the Met Office- the PhD, and opportunity to work for the MetO, are feeling more mouth-watering as I get closer to the time. Meteorology has been my main passion since the age of four, and it's great to be in a position where I supply forecasts for an increasingly well-known, respected website (i.e. this one) and can think realistically in terms of pursuing a career in climate-related fields.
  3. Thundery wintry showers
    Well, my life has pretty much stagnated recently- being at home with lots of time on one's hands is great initially, but after a while I feel that I'm not getting as much out of life as I could do.
    The weather meanwhile has been ridiculously cloudy here; hardly a glimmer of sunshine. There have been a few showers and storms this month, but it has been difficult to see what's going on as there's always been North Sea "haar" in the way.
    It makes my blood boil on days when the rest of the country is having sunshine and showers/storms, Cleadon is dry but dull with coastal low cloud and temperatures several degrees lower, and I hear that my area is being very lucky with the weather, because at least it isn't raining. Looks like my birthday on the 22nd could turn out to be one of those days, if the low pressure ends up as far south as the GFS is currently showing.
    Have two weeks in France coming up in July, which should be good as I enjoyed my last three summer holidays there. As for the PhD, currently sorting out accommodation; so far things are going okay. Whatever the pros and cons of the Norwich climate, it's bound to be much more interesting than the weather we get up here. And of course, if I'm doing a PhD my life should be a lot busier.
  4. Thundery wintry showers
    Excellent news- I have just been offered a PhD position at the University of East Anglia! The project is based on analysing precipitation variability across the UK and includes 6-9 months' working with the Met Office, in conjunction with the well-known Climate Research Unit at UEA.
    I have to admit I was always against the idea of living in the south-eastern third of England, but then again I had always considered that Norwich might not be so bad, because of being in a relatively rural area, exposed to thundery wintry shower activity from the north and east, boasting a relatively high "sunshine and showers" frequency compared to the rest of the region, etc. Should get some pretty beefy thunderstorms there too.
    I applied to quite a number of places this year, the UEA one was the first one I applied for and I initially thought that if I was accepted, it would be "a good banker" for while I was hunting for other opportunities. However, on the UEA open day, the PhD topic, the University and the local area all exceeded my expectations, and the other places I applied to were less convincing, particularly in terms of the topics offered. In the end the acceptance of the offer wasn't a difficult decision to make.
    Note: this blog entry was originally posted on 3 May, and edited at 11:26am on 5 May to make it more to the point.
  5. Thundery wintry showers
    My Winter Snow Events file has been updated to cover Winter 2006/07 (I think it's unlikely that we will get any snow in the first half of May). With a score of just 11, Winter 2006/07 was the most snowless, along with 1997/98, since 1991/92.
    For those not 'in the know', the Winter Snow Events was largely inspired by L.Bonacina's 1875-1975 (recently extended to 2004) categorisation of past winters. I attempted more of a numerical/statistical analysis of the snowiness of past winters, aiming to include every snow event that occurred across lowland Britain for each winter, and awarding each snow event a score from 1-5 depending on how widespread and intense it was. The snow events for each winter are added together to give the winter's "score".
    Winter_Snow_Events.doc
  6. Thundery wintry showers
    May as well start writing some blog weather forecasts; partly because many other members of the forecast team are doing a similar thing, and also partly as a means of keeping myself up-to-date with events.
    21 April: A very hazy day across much of the country, with some patchy rain affecting Scotland, Ireland and to a lesser extent northern England under a rather moist south-westerly flow. South-eastern areas should experience the most sunshine. A warm day over England & Wales with highs touching 20C in the south, and around 15C across northern England, but cooler across Scotland with highs of 11-14C widespread.
    22 April: A weakening band of frontal rain will move south-eastwards, with continued warm south-westerly winds. South and east of a line extending from Hull to Shrewsbury should be warm and dry with some sunshine, temps again reaching 20C in the south, and rather hazy. Much of northern England will be dull and wet all day. Drier brighter weather and highs of 14-16C will work its way southwards across Scotland.
    23 April: It looks like eastern areas will have a mostly dry sunny day, but with cloud amounts increasing from the west during the day, and rain spreading into western Britain by the end of the day, with freshening SSW winds. 20C will again be the high across south-east England, with 15-18C across most other parts, maintaining the above-average temperatures.
    24 April: The rain will linger in eastern areas, with another pulse moving north-east across central & southern England during the afternoon; highs of 15-18C in the warm muggy southeast, 13-15C to the north and west of the rainband. Western Scotland and Ireland will have sun and showers, intervening areas dry but rather cloudy.
    25-27 April: Sunshine and a few showers, and slightly above-average temperatures (12-16C) will give way to dry sunny settled weather as high pressure asserts itself; there is a good chance of this settled weather lasting into May and producing a heatwave at the beginning of the month.
  7. Thundery wintry showers
    Well, at long last, it seems that I have a Stevenson screen set up such that there is, at worst, only a small anomaly relative to the sort of readings one would expect from standard Met Office stations (by small, I mean quite possibly no greater than a degree Celsius on the sunniest days, which is pretty good for a back garden site)
    I have had an automatic weather station since 22 June 2005, but until November 2006 the temperature sensor was placed on the side of a hut, giving anomalously high readings by both day and night in summer (due to heat radiating off the hut) and anomalously low overnight readings in winter (due to exposure).
    November 2006: set up Stevenson screen but with only one set of louvres; result; anomalously high readings in sunshine. Put on the second set of louvres and it worked fine until February/March when I started getting anomalously high readings again.
    The instrument was situated right next to a fence; some members of this forum suggested that the proximity to the fence, when heated by the sun, was probably a factor. I have recently had it moved further away from the fence, and it seems to have worked. So for the moment at least, it looks like I'm not going to have to keep 'calibrating' my readings relative to what my two older, more primitive thermometers are showing for days when the Stevenson screen readings is anomalously high.
    The last few days, incidentally, have been a big test of this, with plenty sunshine every day except Friday. My maxes were 18.8C on Thursday, 12.3C on Friday, 16.1C Saturday and 16.3C Sunday; pretty promising readings I'd say.
  8. Thundery wintry showers
    It is often considered that as we pass adolescence, we become old enough to decide for ourselves, therefore we cease to be influenced by social pressure and we never follow the crowd; supposedly only "weak" people follow the crowd. This argument is often used to dismiss the idea that any form of social pressure can be a factor in people's decisions, so if a person makes a negative choice the person gets 100% of the blame, end of story.
    To my mind, that idea is flawed. Yes, we make decisions for ourselves, but social factors attach 'strings' to our decisions. For example, if I have a choice between X and Y, but the real choice is "choose X and be rejected, or choose Y and be accepted", if I then choose Y, it does not follow that the external social 'strings' (rejection vs acceptance) didn't influence my decision. Also, saying that we are all influenced by society is not necessarily a criticism; if we were never influenced, we would never learn from anyone.
    I'd agree that only "weak" people are easily influenced into making negative decisions, but even strong-minded people can be swayed, if strong enough social 'strings' are applied to their decision making processes. It's probably fair to say that, as a general rule, the more social pressure is required to 'sway' someone, the stronger the person, but there's no such thing as a person with an infinite 'stubborn-ness' threshold.
    So what sorts of social pressure influence us? It ranges across a variety of spectrums, from individual peer pressure, manipulation and outright bullying, to social norms representing codes of behaviour or belief that are generally accepted without question, and where it is often socially unacceptable to deviate from them. In larger-scale forms, people are often also influenced by the weight of consensus (if everyone believes/does it, it must surely be 'right'!)
    Even the "we are who we are" concept cannot accurately be used to dismiss the influences of social pressure. People learn to conform from an early age, particularly in the school years, and this helps to mould our personalities as we get older. In all of these cases, I include myself under this bracket; I like to think of myself as an independent thinker but I, too, can be 'swayed' given enough pressure in that direction.
    I think it's important that this preconception is challenged, because in reality, many problems do have social pressure as a root factor. At a small-scale level, people can manipulate and bully others into making negative decisions; it makes no sense to me that the bully should be absolved of all responsibility on the grounds that "a strong-minded person could withstand an infinitely high amount of social pressure". This is relevant to many issues, such as school bullying, employer abuse of working hours (manipulating employees into 'wanting' to work 70 hours per week) and friendship issues (if a jealous third party tries to break apart a friendship, a 'true' friend is expected to withstand an infinite amount of manipulation, such that the third party never gets any of the blame and the friend can never get any support)
    Negative social norms also contribute; people often make negative decisions based on the blind acceptance of codes of belief or behaviour that are passed down the generations. For instance, take discrimination against women in the early 1900s; I'm pretty certain that the campaigners had to tackle and break down various social norms before they could make any significant headway against the issue. Accepting that people made their own decisions, and absolving social norms of any responsibility, would almost have been tatamount to resignation, and a 'that's life' attitude to the sexism.
    So, we need to recognise that social pressure can be a factor- in order to enable it to be addressed!
  9. Thundery wintry showers
    I was in the Debating Society in first year at Lancaster University. Now, I certainly wouldn't be in favour of banning phones, but could someone come up with a set of convincing arguments for banning them? Here are some obvious arguments that I think could be used:
    Telephones are abused by people who send prank calls, harrass and stalk others. We need to do something about these prank calls; thus, in order to put a stop to the problem, we should ban phones; then nobody would be able to send prank calls and abuse them to harrass others.
    “But surely such a law would punish a lot of the wrong people, criminalising the general public?”
    The law is the law. Everyone would know what the law said; if everyone obeyed it there wouldn't be a problem.
    “But there would be a problem with the law; the punishment of the many because of the few!”
    The minority spoil it, that’s life, it can’t be helped because that’s just the way it is.
    “But it can be helped; you can try to differentiate the idiots from the responsible majority!”
    HOW???????? You can’t always tell if someone has made a prank call, therefore other methods are flawed, therefore they won’t work. We have to do something about prank phone calls, therefore we have to ban phones, end of story, a minority have made it necessary.
    Now I'd hope that most people wouldn't be convinced into supporting a ban on telephones by those arguments. Yet, consider what normally happens when a few idiots abuse something. Nine times out of ten, similar blanket bans/restrictions are adopted, and the arguments that are used in support of these measures are identical to the ones I have just presented in favour of a ban on phones.
    Such token measures rarely do stop the idiots, and when they do, the idiots usually move onto abusing other things. It strikes me that with this standard method of dealing with irresponsible behaviour, the only way we will ever make significant inroads against it is to carry out measures that substantially erode human liberties. I thus propose; we need to start considering alternative methods of tackling irresponsible behaviour...
  10. Thundery wintry showers
    After a couple of what were, by North East standards, feeble cold snaps in January and February, something with rather more substance happened over the last few days.
    Monday had sunshine and wintry showers throughout the afternoon, although it did feel more like a potent early to mid-April cold snap, or a half-hearted late March snap. I recorded a max of 7.8C, but it frequently fell to 2-3C during wintry showers, and there were impressive Cb cells around.
    Tuesday: I only got up to 3.8C, which is a notably low maximum for a day in the second half of March that brought with it a fair amount of sunshine. I had 3cm lying snow in the morning, and some of it survived the daytime thaw, though by 1pm there was less than half-cover. There were some impressive near-'blizzard' conditions at times, with horizontal blowing snow, it looked almost like puffs of white smoke moving from north to south. Snow cover returned last night but not to the same extent; it's now thawing in the sun.
    So possibly a bit warmer by night due to the high SSTs, but overall a fairly potent northerly once those -10s at 850hPa came down on Tuesday.
    Looking further ahead, it's quite possible that the cold could be followed by a very warm spell, if those easterly winds subside; the GFS 00Z then has a white Easter in the offing (though the GFS should not be trusted at T+360!) Maybe this year we might end up with a variable spring.
  11. Thundery wintry showers
    Well, quite a quiet period in some ways. I've been busy applying for PhDs, and had a couple of interviews at Manchester and UEA- I'll be giving more details of what's been going on when I get confirmation of whether I have funding or not for any of the projects. Hoping to get funding this year, or else it's another year of hunting for what limited employment there is in this region in the fields I'm after.
    According to the law of society, I'm supposed to be obsessed by money and thus getting any old job just to get paid, but at the moment it's not a major issue; the main one for me is getting advanced in an environment/meteorology/research type career.
    Other than that, been messing around, doing some oil paintings (many of which were weather-related, including a "Spanish plume" hazy scene, a picture of a cumulonimbus from that snowy ENE'ly that never was around 22 February 2007, and a stormy sunset. Some non-weather-related pictures too. Also, I've been playing quite a bit of chess.
    Saw the programme on the Global Warming Swindle- I think I made my views on it fairly clear in the environment thread- a good summary of the flaws in the views of the extremists who support anthropogenic global warming (AGW), but not a major challenge to the science behind the theory of AGW. I'd quite like to see a programme on TV that takes a more intermediate stance, along similar lines to Philip Eden's books relating to the subject, rather than focusing on one side or the other. It's hard to argue with the notion that humans are probably affecting the climate to some degree- even if you take out the CO2 issue, there's aircraft contrails, methane, old aftereffects of CFCs, deforestation, albedo changes etc.
  12. Thundery wintry showers
    Well, with a lot of help from my dad, I finally have a kind of Stevenson screen set up to house my automatic thermometer sensor, which is placed by the side of my back garden near a fence (and at the opposite side from the house). It is louvred at all four sides, and has a plain white top and bottom.
    Some inflated readings while the sun was shining on the screen today that I might have to look into; don't know if the sun is somehow causing the screen to radiate heat despite it being 100% white, or if the sun shining on the solar panel has anything to do with it. Readings were fine after 2pm.
    Hopefully, next summer it might mean not having to correct for inflated maxima due to warming from the hut, wall or various heat source that my thermometers were previously situated on.
  13. Thundery wintry showers
    I have just finished my MRes course in Physics of the Earth and Atmosphere- got a Merit in it as well, so all in all a positive result.
    The positive result summed up a very positive year- the period September 2005-August 2006 probably represented the best year of my life so far. The course was very good with a lot of meteorology content, and it was good to be able to get involved in research into convective storm initiation and converse with the Environment department, the lecturers and PhD students who were all well-versed in the academic side of meteorology. At first I questioned whether academia was really something I would get into, but in the end, I certainly did.
    Not just that, but it was also excellent socially. There was very little of the suppression of individuality ("you have to fit in with the norm or you get ostracised") stuff- people generally respected each other as individuals, rather than putting pressure on them to conform. Consequently, forming frienships was remarkably easy. I also found the city of Leeds to be surprisingly good- I expected it to be just another city, but it has a very vibrant atmosphere with a wide variety of things to do, yet does not suffer from overcrowding, even on a Friday or Saturday night. There was also ample scope to do things other than go to nightclubs and get drunk- playing pool and going tenpin bowling were two favourites.
    I certainly have far more confidence in making friendships than I've had for at least a good ten years. In Lancaster and my old school I learnt how to deal with social problems; in Leeds I learnt how to deal with not having social problems- a very welcome experience indeed.
    Now for the bad news- I'm not there any more, and I'm in the position of looking out for a combination of job and PhD/research opportunities from my parents' home instead. On the research front the main thing will be to apply for the next batch of research funding early next year (or something might turn up before then; some PhD projects are available all year round, but funding is a problem). However, paying the odd visit to Leeds is certainly on the agenda, especially since three of the people on my course still live around there (two are doing PhDs). Ideally I'd love to be back there again doing some kind of research next year, but you can't put all your eggs in one basket- I have to look elsewhere as well, and for jobs as well as research courses. I guess that if I don't land anything in research by mid-next-year and haven't found a job in an area of my interests in the North East by then, I will have to put more emphasis on jobseeking and search outside of the North East region for jobs.
    People might be thinking "why do you want to go into research, or jobs in environment/meteorology, when they don't give much money". They may well not, but my main priority in life isn't to get loads of money- it's to have a happy life with an enjoyable work and home life, and to get enough money to sustain a basic living. Work isn't such a burden if you're working in something you take an interest in anyway.
  14. Thundery wintry showers
    In some discussions on this forum I've often displayed a questioning attitude towards rules and laws, and refused to accept without question that "rules are rules". I think I know where this attitude comes from.
    It's by analogy with being picked on for being "different" (years of experience of it at school, and also at Lancaster University to some extent). If you complain about being picked on for being different, you often end up with a discussion like this:
    I: I'm being bullied.
    A: Well, just fit in then. The peer group make it clear where they draw the line; everyone knows what the rules of the peer group are: you fit in and get accepted, you don't fit in, you are bullied. It's your problem not theirs; fit in, and the problem is solved.
    I: No, the problem is the suppression of my ability to be who I am.
    A: That's life. You've got to fit in to help give a sense of community, and you've got to abide by what is considered socially acceptable; if everyone chose to abide by what was socially acceptable just when they felt it was right, you'd have the equivalent of anarchy. For example, you could say "it's socially unacceptable to beat people up, but I think that's suppression of individuality, so I think I'm entitled to beat people up".
    I: But there's a difference between deviating from social norms in a way that is harmful (e.g. beating people up) and doing things where the only thing "wrong" is its difference (e.g. having unusual interests, such as the weather)
    A: Doesn't matter. The peer group have their rules. Rules are rules- if you don't fit in, you get bullied. That's life. There isn't a problem with the rules of the peer group; we know this because if everyone abided by them there wouldn't be a problem.
    I: But there is a problem- you can't be who you are, you get ostracised for doing harmless things and treated as you would if you'd beaten someone up!
    A: That's life. It is necessary to penalise responsible people because of the actions of irresponsible people, because the minority spoil it for everyone else and that's life.
    I: It doesn't have to be that way- you can differentiate harmful different activities from harmless ones.
    A: (defensively) HOW do you? You can't, because the minority spoiling it is unavoidable; if it wasn't, it wouldn't be a fact of life.
    I think that's the kind of analogy that makes me a bit more questioning of rules and laws than most.
  15. Thundery wintry showers
    Following on from the discussion with WBSH et al, I will add some of my own thoughts in here, especially since there have recently been positive developments in this area.
    In my experience, one of the main issues with these relationships are knowing where the line stands between platonic and sexual love (in theory it is easy; a platonic relationship has no sexual involvement, a sexual relationship has at least some, but in practice it is complicated). With regards sex and love being different things, I think it would help people understand if more analogies were made with "family" relationships, e.g. someone might love a platonic friend as they would love their mother, or a close sibling, neither of which are usually associated with sexual involvement.
    The bigger issue in my experience has been third parties spreading nasty rumours about the male constituent of the friendship and undermining the friendship. This kind of thing is hard to deal with due to the social norm that whenever a third party interferes with a friendship, you assume the friend 100% guilty, and the third party 100% innocent. Thus, if either of the friends go to anyone for advice on how to deal with this third party, they will be told that they are being shat on by each other. There's also the social norm that if a man is accused of abusing a woman, you believe the accusations, thus people tend to believe whatever rumours are spread.
    The issue of a "true" friend is double-edged here, as when the friendship is broken up, the male constituent usually ends up in trouble for what he is rumoured to have done. The truer the friend, the more trouble will be required to break up the friendship and thus the more likely it is to survive, but also, the more trouble the male constituent will end up in if the friendship falls apart. The concept of a friend who would stand by someone "no matter what" is unrealistic, e.g. if someone is made to choose between one person or another (which can happen in these situations) then he/she can't be a "true" friend to both of them. Again, an analogy with "family" makes this more clear; this stipulation of "stand by you no matter what" is rarely if ever applied to "family".
    I think the social segragation of the sexes also makes platonic relationships difficult, particularly for men, as male shows of care and affection are often misinterpreted as being sexual. Like-minded constituents of a platonic relationship may violate gender norms and be put under pressure to conform, which causes them to be pulled apart as they lose the things they have in common. In general platonic relationships seem to work best if they occur within a "family", mainly because society considers "family" to be trustworthy and "friends" to be unimportant, so "family" are given a lot more leeway (plus, "family" relationships are normally assumed asexual by definition) so third parties are less likely to take offensive action (and less likely to get away with it if they do).
    In the past couple of years, however, I have been able to form some platonic relationships with women without encountering the above issues, which has helped my confidence in them and shown me that it is possible to make them work. They are becoming more acceptable in society than they used to be, but as long as gender and "family vs friends" stereotypes continue to be accepted without question and enforced by society, there will always be barriers to them being accepted as they are.
  16. Thundery wintry showers
    The holiday in France was actually quite a good one- mainly spent around the swimming pool and messing about, sitting around in the sun (though I usually went in the shade to avoid sunburn) and playing table tennis. And also, getting lots of posh ice-creams. The first week was spent in the eastern Dordogne near Perigueux, the second not far from Magny-Cours.
    Some good visits to various places- my favourite was Chenonceau, which had a good castle and outdoor area, a boating area and a maze.
    The weather was very hot, especially in the second week. In fact, the second week, at 35-40C, was a very close approach to the ridiculous heat of my French holiday in August 2003, and I generally spent very little time outside between 1 and 5pm on those days. The first week (Dordogne) had scattered thundery showers dotted around but we missed them all; however the second week had two big thunderstorms, of similar nature to what the Dordogne storms are supposed to be like (strong gusts of wind, then a few hours of frequent lightning strikes and heavy rain). Without doubt, the biggest storms I've experienced so far. Although 35-40C is still far too extreme for my liking, I think I coped a lot better with it than I did three years ago, when I felt ill after going out into it for just two minutes.
    In Leeds, there's not much going on, most of the other students are stressed out with worrying about getting their projects finished on time, though I had an evening out playing pool and drinking Coke yesterday.
    Allegedly, Cleadon (Tyne & Wear) has not experienced much in the way of sea-fret, unlike last month, so when I get the July records in, it could well turn out to have been a scorcher. I reconstructed my earlier weather records by comparison with nearby stations to work out how hot the months of 1994-1997 were, and came out with August 1995 as the month to beat (estimated max 22.7, min 11.9, mean 17.3) so that's what July 2006 has to beat.
  17. Thundery wintry showers
    Going to France for two weeks tomorrow- one week in the Dordogne and another in the eastern side of the Loire region.
    I had a great birthday this year, but things seem to have gone downhill a bit since then, with many people leaving and social events becoming very few and far between. As I go through life, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the main factors influencing my state of well-being are the amount of social interaction and the scope to do things that I enjoy. Workload doesn't seem to be as large a factor, provided that there is scope to play hard as well as work hard.
    So in many ways this is great timing for a 2-week break; maybe my time in Leeds will pick up again for those last six weeks before I hand my project in. I'll have to take my thesis document with me to make sure that I don't end up overworked when I come back!
    For some reason one of my favourite French phrases is "Il y a des averses". It is French for "there are showers" (i.e. showers of precipitation. In the Dordogne region these have a reputation for producing severe electrical storms, but only time will tell.
  18. Thundery wintry showers
    These stats are copied from my June 2006 weather summary in the thread. I could sue myself for infringing my own copyright and make myself put up with Starforce 3.0 Professional copy protection just to read my discussion (only kidding; been uninstalling a computer game because of above issue)
    Statistics for June 2006, relative to estimated 1971-2000 averages for the location:
    Mean max: 18.8C (+2.2)
    Mean min: 11.2C (+2.0)
    Mean: 15.0C (+2.1)
    Difficulties with rainfall recorder- only 2mm, which I don't trust at all, though it was certainly a very dry month.
    Warmest: 24.8C (12th)
    Lowest max: 12.6C (25th)
    Highest min: 15.4C (17th)
    Lowest min: 7.6C (27th)
    The first 12 days of June in Cleadon were dry and very sunny in general, though cooling sea breezes ensured that the maxima weren't particularly high during the first 10 days; as the wind changed to a southerly the 11th and 12th were very warm.
    From the 13th onwards the weather was rather cloudy and dry with a fair amount of anticyclonic gloom, though the month ended with a couple of sunny days. It continued rather warm, primarily by night,
    It was the warmest June since 2003 at Cleadon. The average minimum was actually 0.1C higher than 2003 (although given inhomogeneities in my records, not statistically significant) but the average maximum was 0.6C lower. The sunshine excess of 1-12 June was largely negated by the mainly cloudy weather thereafter, with an excess of around 10% according to the Met Office sunshine maps. This means that June 2005 was actually sunnier than June 2006, while the last significantly sunnier June occurred as recently as 2003.
    Leeds did rather better sunshine wise, with an excess in the 20-30% region.
  19. Thundery wintry showers
    Currently cracking on with this main project, and failed the latest PhD application- looks like I'm going to be going home and looking for jobs (preferably related to meteorology!) in the autumn.
    There were some astonishing thunderstorms yesterday, which I posted about in the storms section. Continuous thunder for 20 minutes isn't something that happens very often, let alone three individual storms in one day.
    It seems that Sue started something of a trend among the moderators with Sloganizer.net- I had a look on there myself. After the usual typing in of my own name, I had some humorous experiments typing in the likes of "thundery wintry showers", "snow showers", "the weather", "the GFS", "an idiot", "a complete failure", "pie", "a nonce", "an imbecile" and "murderers"... plus some vulgarities... and some humorous stuff came out. My favourite was:
    "I wish I was a complete failure."
    And how about: "Call a friend, call an idiot."
  20. Thundery wintry showers
    I haven't updated the general section of this blog for quite some time.
    Essentially things in Leeds seem to be going quite well, but I don't have my coursework marks yet; I need to get above 50% average in all modules to be able to continue with this CSIP project analysis. I am also messing around on my computer quite a lot, and having some social events. It's no exaggeration to say that friendship-wise, the period September 2005-May 2006 in Leeds has been the best of my life so far, all I can say is that I hope it continues!
    As for the weather outside, it certainly seems to have recognised that summer has arrived. Although my favourite weather types are of the dramatic convective variety (sunshine and showers, thunder events and snow events), this kind of warm dry sunny weather is a very close second. I did make use of it to some extent, eating outside in Hyde Park this evening.
  21. Thundery wintry showers
    In Cleadon, Tyne & Wear, the statistics were as follows:
    Mean Max 14.8
    Mean Min 7.2
    Mean Temp 11.0
    Warmest: 20.9C (5th)
    Coldest max: 9.3C (13th)
    Coldest: 1.7C (14th)
    Warmest min: 11.8C (18th)
    Precip: 39mm (I think my rain gauge might have under-recorded slightly!)
    Air frosts: 0
    Fog 1, Hail 0, Thunder 0, Sleet/snow 0.
    In Cleadon the first half was warm, though less so than in many other regions of the country, with the wind off the sea helping keep maximum temperatures down. The second half was cooler than the first half, for the first time in May since 2000. The second half was unsettled and windy with westerly winds.
    The month as a whole was about 0.8C up on the local long-term average, but was the warmest May only since 2004. The 13th featured the first single-digit maximum in May since 1997, but occurred due to extensive cloud cover, whereas the 1997 single-digit maximum was associated with a day of sunshine and snow showers.
    Spring 2006 as a whole was the coldest spring since 2001, but also the sunniest in the area since 2003. However, this hides the fact that March was quite dull, and May near average, with April having sunshine about 40% above the local average.
    Leeds
    In Leeds the month had a rather different character, with an exceptional warm and sunny first half (23-24C reached on a couple of occasions) and a cool unsettled second half. Convective storms were a regular feature of the month in Leeds with three thunderdays, all of which featured quite impressive thunderstorms. All in all, I was happy to be here rather than in Cleadon.
  22. Thundery wintry showers
    I don't have the time (or will) to put in complete summaries for Jan, Feb and Mar, but here is a brief outline.
    January 2006: Max 6.6, min 1.4, mean 4.1, precip 30mm, sleet/snow falling 2, snow lying 0.
    It was a benign, and rather uninteresting month, and very dull until the final third, which was relatively sunny. The least warm January since 2001.
    February 2006: Max 7.1, min 2.0, mean 4.5, precip 22, sleet/snow falling 3, snow lying 1.
    Quite similar to January, with an easterly non-event during the last week- temperatures were no lower than average for the time of year! The only cold snap of note occurred on the last day, with a northerly bringing some snow flurries and a dusting of lying snow at 0900. The month was slightly duller than average. It was the least warm February since 2003, and the driest since 2003.
    (Note: I say "least warm" because temperatures were, if anything, slightly above the long-term normal)
    March 2006: Max 7.2, min 1.4, mean 4.3, precip 57, sleet/snow falling 11, snow lying 5.
    It was the snowiest March for snow falling since I started taking records, beating the previous record of 10 days in March 1995; for snow lying it was equal snowiest since 2001. A cold, bright snowy first week was followed by a brief mild interlude. Then after a classic mild vs cold battleground around the 12th, with the coldest day maximum in March since 1996, it was generally cold and cloudy. The sun re-emerged around the 22nd/23rd, then the last week was very mild and unsettled, but not mild enough to offset the cold weather of the first three weeks.
    Overall, it was the coldest and wettest March since 2001, but the average maximum was the lowest since 1996. It was slightly duller than the long-term normal, but less so than last year, sunshine totals certainly boosted by the exceptional first week.
  23. Thundery wintry showers
    Since I didn't get my weather records in until after the April 2006 Summaries thread was closed for some reason, here's the April 2006 Summary.
    Mean Max 12.2C
    Mean Min 4.3C
    Mean Temp 8.3C
    Highest max: 16.7C (25th)
    Lowest max: 6.9C (4th)
    Highest min: 9.5C (25th)
    Lowest min: -1.8C (5th)
    Air frosts: 3
    Precipitation: 27mm
    There was sleet/snow on 3 days (sleet on the 7th and 9th, snow on the 8th) and four days with hail or graupel. Snow was lying at around 3pm on the 8th April, but there was nothing on the ground by 0900 the next morning.
    Overall the month had a rather cold first third with sunshine and wintry showers, then the remaining two-thirds were dry, consistently warm and notably sunny. There was a remarkably homogeneous nature about the warmth, with no maximum above 17C for the first time in April since 2001.
    The average maximum temperature was actually higher than for April 2005, but the average mean and minimum temperature were both the lowest since 2001. It was also the driest April (along with 2002) since 1997.
  24. Thundery wintry showers
    Here is a summary of what happened in Cleadon, Tyne & Wear, during December 2005.
    Mean Max: 7.1C
    Mean Min: 1.6C
    Mean Temp: 4.3C
    Highest Max: 13.2C (11th)
    Lowest Max: 0.9C (29th)
    Highest Min: 8.3C (11th)
    Lowest Min: -6.0C (29th)
    Air frosts: 12
    Note that the lowest max was recorded using the standard Met Office 0900-0900 recording system: using an 0000-0000 system, the temperature on the 29th got no higher than -1.2C, the lowest day maximum for exactly 10 years.
    Precipitation: 35mm
    Days of falling sleet/snow: 3
    Days with hail: 2
    Days with more than half cover of snow at 0900: 4
    It was the coldest December since 2001, and after a wet start, was generally dry with generous amounts of sunshine. The 'beast from the east' may have disappointed for some, but it certainly didn't disappoint here: the 28th to 31st all had lying snow although by the 31st this had turned to a patchy covering of ice. The mean temperature was certainly below the local 1971-2000 average, and may have also been a fraction cooler than the 1961-90 average- making it two below average months in a row at this location.
    In terms of quantity it was only the snowiest December since 2001, but the persistence of snow cover was the greatest since late December 2000.
    I awarded the month 63% overall, which is pretty good for December.
  25. Thundery wintry showers
    Well, this was something of a surprise- my biggest snowfall since 22 December 2003, looking likely to be the longest lasting since the New Year period of 2001/02, and easily beating anything I saw in Lancaster.
    I was getting concerned when I woke up at 6 am. on Wednesday morning and saw no lying snow. I had forecast that the snow would probably settle on Wednesday, and up to that point, we had been warmed too much by the sea, and had had mainly hail and sleet showers. That had been in line with my prediction, but of course the settling snow was the most important compartment of my prediction, and there would be some disappointed faces if I got that bit wrong. But then, at 8:30am, suddenly, there was lying snow. I took way too many photographs of the "beast from the east" for my own good, and a handful of them may well crop up on the site after the breakdown tomorrow.
    Unfortunately we threw away the sledge recently, but plan to go out to Cleadon Hills today and do everything but sledge instead.
    As for Christmas itself, it was quite good. I got a gamepad, and a Monty Python DVD set from the series, and various other things. The Boxing Day tea was massive- so much so that we have spent the next two days finishing off the leftovers!
    On a N-W theme, I received a copy of Philip Eden's latest book, which didn't surprise me as people generally know of the high level of respect I have for him. A good read, and I particularly liked the strong comments about extremists at both ends of the pro and anti GW spectrum at the end- very much in line with my own views on the topic. It was also interesting to see his account of the August 2003 heatwave in France, given that I was also there at the time. I remember going out into the heat for 20 minute bursts, feeling ill and coming back in again, and spent most of the last few days of that holiday in the bath. In a way I am pleased I had the experience, so that I can brag about how I lived to tell the tale and know what 40C+ feels like, but I certainly wouldn't want to experience it again.
    And, unbelievably, there was more snow here in Cleadon than there was in Leeds. Yes, Sod's Law has finally failed to come up trumps.
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