J07
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If it's for your own records then of course no one can stop you accepting the 33.9C. But these things happen all over the world, there's always claims that it's much warmer here than x miles down the road, and very often these claims don't stand up to scrutiny! For quite a while, there was a temperature somewhere in Australia of about 54C, and when it was investigated turned out it was a farmer with a thermometer dangling from his porch, completely sun and building contaminated.
And these unofficial claims have a way of getting out, as we unfortunately saw in a bloody newspaper headline this year!
The Desert Road melted, Christchurch unofficially topped 40C and Kiwis flocked to the rivers and beaches as a heatwave hit New Zealand yesterday.Weather Watch Centre head analyst Philip Duncan said the Christchurch temperature was a once-in-a-decade recording.
"The hottest period of the year does not usually come until February, but the odds are against Christchurch topping today's high," he said.
Warm air coming across the Tasman Sea has been blamed for the scorching temperatures, which went into the 30s in several North Island centres.
The MetService measured air temperature up to 35.7C in Christchurch yesterday afternoon, close to the January record high of 35.9C in 1979.
Other weather stations in the city recorded unofficial temperatures over 40C, following a similarly hot day on Wednesday.
The Desert Road section of State Highway 1 turned to toffee by 4pm yesterday, its tarseal melting and lifting in the afternoon sun.
Sand was placed on the road surface, and motorists warned to keep their speed down.
"This hot air is part of the weather system that brought temperatures to over 40 degrees in Sydney recently," said MetService weather ambassador Bob McDavitt.
"The air is 20 to 25 degrees coming off the Tasman Sea and warming by around 10 degrees when it crosses the Southern Alps and spreads over the Canterbury Plains."
Christchurch weather analyst Richard Green said some thermometers in the city topped 40C as a hot nor'wester blew in.
"This is like being in the outback of Australia," Mr Green said. "It's been quite some time since I've experienced heat like this."
Temperatures near 30C are forecast for Canterbury again today, but a cooling southerly is expected to arrive on Saturday, which should also affect northern areas.
Mr Duncan said that forecasted temperature readings could be lower than the heat people felt.
"It is important to look at not only pure data - what a thermometer tells us - but also 'polluted data'. This is the effect of hot tarseal, high density housing and metal roofs, which all make us feel hotter.
"Readings are often taken from a white box in a field. But most of us live in the city, so we are more likely to be affected by this polluted data. It may be 26 degrees, but feel like 33 degrees, and a thermometer won't show that."
The dry spell also meant no respite for rain-hungry farmers in Hawkes Bay, North Canterbury and Central Otago.
Federated Farmers adverse events spokesman Frank Brenmuhl said he would be concerned if high daily temperatures and soil moisture deficits in Gisborne-Wairoa and Hawkes Bay continued.
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The reason why i'm so confident that the Oadby one isn't lying is because when I was outside in the sun this afternoon it felt like no heat I had ever experienced before. I don't usually feel faint after an hours worth of tennis when i've downed 2 litres of water! Everyone was saying how hot it was so it wasn't just me feeling the heat. I might have been quite skeptical that it was as high as 33.9c but surely the guy across the road's weather station that read 93f couldn't be telling porky pies aswell?
Just incase you or anyone else missed it... Here is the online Oadby weather station, currently reading 20.2c, seems a realistic reading and it hasn't overcooked it right now because other places around Leicester are reporting similiar temperatures. In fact Coventry and Church Lawford are reporting 21-22c so they are higher at the moment.
Look on the right hand side at the bit where it says... Temperature, High...
No one is questioning whether the equipment is correct, the issue is that it's not got good exposure. Given the behaviour of official stations around the country, it's likely this one is influenced by nearby buildings, hence it's not got standard exposure and would never be counted as official.
These comments: "It can't be wrong either because the guy across the road from me said he has a weather station aswell and he said it was reading 93f this afternoon." ; "when I was outside in the sun this afternoon it felt like no heat I had ever experienced before" , whilst not "wrong" are meaningless for corraborating the relevance of the station.
What do you think would happen if someone had a station in their backgarden of a terrace house in London today, or in any other hot spell? Records would be smashed for sure.
Surely it is correct that the station in question DID record 33.9C. But that is not the point. If we started allowing for these stations in records across the world, then our decades/centuries of records would be rendered worthless, and our whole understanding of temperatures would change. 30C would no longer sound hot, because there would be a wealth of unofficial stations recording 35C.
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The answer, it appears, is very little.
These are recorded UV indices from Homestead in southern Florida and Lauder/Alexandra in southern New Zealand. The period of 15th Dec - 15th Jan in NZ and 15th Jun - 15th Jul in Florida.
The difference in latitude is 25N vs 45S.
Total number of 11+ UVI Days (classed as "Extreme") is 24 in Alexandra, NZ and 18 in Homestead, FL.
Also, compare with Davis, California at 38N- because summer is their dry season there so plenty of clear skies. The number of extreme UV days there was only 1. Holtville, at 32N shows a similar pattern.
The Michigan graph shows a station at similar (modest) altitude and latitude to Alexandra, yet the difference is quite acute- with no double digit UVIs being recorded there. These readings at a glance support the idea that UV down under is approximately 40% greater than at the same latitude in the northern hemisphere.
The Utah site is at 1400m ASL, and at 41N, yet again is not really comparable.
Essentially to get higher UV indices you have to head down to both 32N and get up ~1400m above the surface, as shown by Las Cruces.
The other option would be to head into the tropics and remain at sea level.
For "entertainment" sake, have a look at Mauna Loa in Hawaii. It's in the tropics and it's 3400m ASL. The UV there is truly terrifying!
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Poor Gorillas. They're probably thinking "where I come from it's hotter than this in winter, but hey....free food".
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From the Times: The weather may have made Britain feel like a tropical jungle for much of this week, but there could be even steamier heatwaves to come. As most of the country was sweltering yesterday, with the temperature in London higher than in Bangkok,
I'd expect that sort of sensationalist stuff from the Mail or Express, not so much from the Times. They just ignored the humidity completely. BKK seemed to reach 29/23 yesterday, whereas London saw 30/12. Now, which of those feels hotter! It's pretty obvious isn't it!
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Trust me though, here in the UK we aren't built for heat. The houses aren't built with hot weather in mind, they are built for the winter weather. We have carpets on the floors, rugs on the floors in some houses. Wall insulation, loft insulation, double glazing windows to keep the cold out. No air conditioning unless it's in an office building.
The temperature in my bedroom has been between 29c and 33c for the last 48 hours. Right now it's 2am, I have the windows open and the current reading in this room is 32c. When it's 32c in the middle of the night, believe me that is VERY uncomfortable lol. In America and hot places it's nice and cool in the houses because of the air con. Not so here in Britian!
I know, I was in the UK for August 2003, didn't know what to do with myself!
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i'd like to see the humidity. it is ten past midnight here(bath) and my bedroom is a sauna.
In florida they have air conditioning.
Yeah I know, I'm not making allowances for the horrors of British homes in warm weather!
The London humidity at the peak of the day was very low (33%) and Bristol 61%. It's different now though because RH tends to hit its lowest during peak temperatures. In many places now, temperatures seem to be 21/18 or so, which is RH of 83%.
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It seems like it's hot and dry in the southeast, warm and humid further west. London's air was even drier today than yesterday, with 30/12, but I saw Bristol had a muggy 26/18 which is probably more unpleasant. Still not exactly "tropical" or similar to the US deep south or southern China though.
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Looks like 850hPa temperatures could creep up to 15C over the next few days. After that, if the EC is to be believed then a fairly bland period of weather coming up post-heat.
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Here's the Heathrow Metar from hottest time of the day. Really rather dry air there, 33% RH, so no sign of this much maligned humidity. During the warm part of the day, RH never actually got above 50% and dewpoints never above 15C.
EGLL 291550Z 12009KT 070V150 CAVOK 31/13 Q1017 TEMPO TSRA =
As for the difference between a heatwave and a hot spell - I don't know. I've heard both mentioned on the forecast. It was also mentioned that these days would feel more continental but the air is dry over the continent and it is quite oppressive at the moment - more like the tropics. Just my view though - not a rant at the weather forecasters.Bristol Airport got to 25/18 apparently. That is quite muggy. It would be considered typical conditions for the tropics in the depths of winter.
Noumea reached 24/18 yesterday, it's mid-winter there and those are quite average conditions there.
So when people talk of "tropical" feeling weather in the UK, I think except in exceptional spells, it's only really fair to compare it to the tropical winter/dry season when the air is drier and less oppressive.
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A little surprised by how low the dewpoints are at the moment. 28/13 is fairly dry.
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Sunday in summary across NZ:
Highest Maximum Temperature: 19C in Kaitaia and Whangarei
Lowest Maximum Temperature: 0C in Alexandra
Highest Dewpoint: 17C across Northland
At 9AM it was -4C in Christchurch and 17C in Kaikohe.
These are quite big spreads for mid-winter in a maritime country. It's due to a tropical outbreak over the north. A slow moving low has been able to pull air down from inside the tropics, and this has made quite a difference to regions that have been recording frosts and clear, cool days for a few weeks now.
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That was excellent. I wonder what was on his mind - a Glastonbury toilet experience? A dodgy curry from the previous night? Or....just an innocent slip of the tongue.
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Rubbish in Oz:
After a great start to the season where a set of fronts and cold polar air brought considerable amount of snow to the Australian Alps, snow has barely made it back again.The Queen's Birthday long weekend 2009, was to many ski resorts, the best start to the season in a decade with extensive falls over the NSW and Victorian Alps. Since then, however, little snow has fallen in the Alps.
over the next two weeks, conditions are not looking too promising as warm and moist northeasterlies bring rain over the next few days, potentially melting the snow at low altitudes.
A weak front is set to lower the freezing level on Wednesday and bring some snow to the higher peaks. However, less than 5cm of snow is likely.
From about the 26th onwards, a period of dry weather is set to last for at least four or five days as a high pressure system ridges in over the southeast. This will at least allow overnight snow making.
At this stage, the next chance of natural snow is not until around the 2nd of July, when a front and and upper trough are set to cross the southeast.
- Weatherzone
© Weatherzone 2009
Good in NZ:
Mt Ruapehu is basking in record snow levels with all Turoa runs open this weekend.Cold clear days and low humidity, and a couple of timely southerly storms in the past fortnight have made snowmaking conditions the best in years.
All 34 snowguns at Turoa have been running hot 24 hours a day. Together with natural snowfall, there is a metre-deep snow base on the upper mountain.
Turoa's main lifts Giant, High Flyer, Movenpick and Park Lane will all open tomorrow to kickstart the season. Alpine Meadow beginners' slope is already open.
At Whakapapa, another 54 snowguns, plus natural snowfall, have added a half-metre base to build on for next weekend's opening.
Together the snowguns spray out about 20,000 litres of water a minute on both skifields.
Ruapehu Alpine Lifts marketing manager Mike Smith said the opening weekend at Turoa topped any previous years for snow coverage.
"The snowmaking guys, Fred Campbell and Baltazar Sanchez, are like pigs in the proverbial, there's so much snow around."
It was the first time all ski trails at Turoa were accessible so early in the season.
Last year snowmaking allowed both Turoa and Whakapapa to open earlier than any previous season. This year the snow cover was more complete and over a wider area.
About 2000 skiers are expected on the first day of the season tomorrow. Both Giant and Alpine cafes will be open.
Two hundred staff at Turoa had been undergoing induction courses this week to prepare for the influx.
MetService predicts cloudy conditions with strong, cold southerlies at Mt Ruapehu this weekend.
AVALANCHE OF COSTS
* A family of two adults and two children can expect to part with $500 to $600 for a day's skiing and two nights' accommodation in Ohakune.
* On-piste food and apres ski accommodation options at Turoa and Ohakune:
* SKI: Day lift pass $83 (adult), $48 (youth under 15). Half-day $52 and $30. Discover package (one-day lift pass, gear rental, 1 1/2-hour lesson) $95 (adult), $60 (youth under 15).
* FUEL: Turoa has three cafes Giant, Snowflake and Alpine and a bar upstairs in the Alpine Cafe. Turoa's German-born chef, Frank Betran, is offering fugassi (designer panini), sushi, homemade soup, gourmet burgers (all $8.50), pizza ($15.50), snapper and chips ($8.80) and flat white espresso ($4).
* SLEEP: Ohakune Backpackers YHA (bring your own bedding) $27 to $37 a night; B&B (Dakune Lodge) $110 to $140 per night; Hotel (Powderhorn) suites $230 a night; apartment $750 per night; self-catering chalet rental $120 to $149 a night; lodge/retreats (Ruapehu Golf and Country Lodge) $190 to $220 per night.
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These are very relevant points Severe Blizzards - some areas of the UK that sadly do not see as many storms compared to the SE, do not have to put up with as many 'discomforts' as use SE'eners either (to my knowledge anyway). Don't get me wrong, I love our warmer summers and warmer evenings, but sleeping is a mega-bit*h when the day time temps and humidity are up (33C+) and night time temperatures dont fall below 20C on some nights (Add 10C for the room temperature)
The numbers of wasps, hornets, stag beetles, fruit flies, midges and mosquitos compared to our more northerly neighbours is also a bit*h. I may be wrong, but I suspect we get these little 'critters' on a greater scale than the North due to the slightly higher average temperatures - some mornings I wake up covered with bites over my head, neck, back, legs, arms - its nasty. Last summer I was out running at a fitness session, where there so happened to be a convenient cloud of 'biting insects'. Within half an hour I counted the best part of several dozen bites, and on one of my mates, 31 bites!
Well, really, there are worse places for storms in the UK than the SE. Crikey, what carry on!
As for this 33C+ stuff. How often does that happen? I'd bet if you took averages for the last 30 years, it probably comes out at about 1 day a year that exceeds 33C. In the meantime, you have 364 days when you can be slightly happier.
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Same old, same old. Partly cloudy, 9C. High of 11C. Few showers at times. Strong southerly winds.
Meanwhile some parts of the country have been enjoying stunning weather for days. Found this photo on another forum...an obscure corner of the North Island on the winter solstice.
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I think they got to 2C at the airport, but no doubt lower away from the sea. This high is very slow moving. Auckland's forecast for the next 5 days is "Fine with light winds (or southerly breezes), with highs of 13C and cold clear nights with frosts in sheltered parts. That's perfect winter weather if you ask me!
NZ is a little larger than the UK, but it is "longer" and so that probably contributes to the variation. Other factors are the more extreme terrain, the speed of depressions to our south, and that both the polar jet and subtropical jet have direct affects on our weather.
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Scotland - don't think they will get higher than whatever it was they got in May (27C?)
Wales - 30C
NI - 28C
England - 33C
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I think in the 1960s, Auckland Airport managed to get down to -3C. How, I don't know. Tomorrow night looks like the cold one for them. They get cold nights when there is a southerly flow (cold, dry air off the central plateau) and then the southerly dies overnight leading to plunging temperatures. In that case not even their strong oceanic influence can save them.
Tonight won't be all that cold, tomorrow is the one to watch
Wellington historically is milder than Auckland. Lowest temperature here ever is -2C, and that was back in the 1920s. Coldest day ever still managed to reach 5C.
Currently, at 11PM the coldest place is Waiouru on -6C and the warmest Cape Reinga on 10C.
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Try rubbing vaseline around the edge of your eyes, and smearing it in your nostrils.
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I sincerely hope there are not any further parallels with the year 2000 as I think near most of us will not want to live through another Autumn like we had in that year.
What happened? I can't remember. Was it the November floodings?
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Another cold outbreak heading our way.
We've been in a warm situation for a few days now, with nationwide highs hitting 20C at times in the north. Dewpoints have been as high as 16C up there, making it more autumnal than wintry.
Warning for heavy snow down south:
SEVERE WEATHER WARNING.
ISSUED BY MetService AT 8:04 pm 14-Jun-2009
MEDIA
HEAVY SNOW EXPECTED FOR SOUTHLAND, SOUTH OTAGO AND DUNEDIN
An episode of very cold showery conditions is spreading onto southern New
Zealand and should persist well into Tuesday. In Southland, south Otago and
Dunedin, snow is expected to develop to low levels on Monday, although initially,
no large accumulations are expected.However, on Monday evening, snow is expected
to lower to sea level,and a burst of heavy snow is likely overnight Monday to
Tuesday.During Tuesday, snow levels should rise slowly, as the activity eases.
These conditions are expected to cause disruption to many roads.Strong or even
gale force southwest winds about exposed coastal areas and the hills, are likely
to lead to blizzard conditions with heavy drifting snow and very low wind chill
temperatures.
FOR THE LATEST WEATHER AND FORECAST CHARTS PLEASE GO TO
MORE DETAILED INFORMATION FOR EMERGENCY MANAGERS AND TECHNICAL USERS FOLLOWS:
HEAVY SNOW WARNING
AREA/S AFFECTED: SOUTHLAND SOUTH OTAGO AND DUNEDIN
FORECAST:
In the 42 hours from 3am Monday through to 9pm Tuesday, up to 25cm of snow could
accumulate above 200 metres. Lighter falls are expected down to sea level,where
2 to 5cm could accumulate during this period.
Heaviest falls are expected between 6pm Monday and 3am Tuesday, when
up to 15cm of snow could fall above 200 metres. Blizzard conditions
and heavy drifting snow can be expected in places.
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I was wondering how high the UV index can actually get in the UK and what causes it to be say 6.3 (today), 5.9 (tommorow) etc, counting the sky is clear.
The peak time is usually the 21st June apparently but ive noticed that next Sundays UV index is forecast a 5.7 whilst Thursday
is forecast 7.0 (providing clear sky) which is quite confusing?
Also ive noticed that on a day like today with scattered clouds the suns strength seems to dramatically increase shortly before going
into Cumulus clouds and Cirrus seems to make it stronger to.
Does the sun reflecting off surfaces like windows/cars etc magnify its strength aswell?
Thanks.
AFAIK, a few things contribute (at least): Ozone depth, latitude, time of the year (ie distance from the sun), pollution and cloud.
I really know little about how ozone depth varies, but obviously the layer is very shallow near the Ozone hole and when parts of it break off. Elsewhere, I think typically there is less ozone in the tropical atmosphere than in temperate regions. I don't know what governs the day-to-day movement of different depths of ozone.
Where do you get your UV forecasts? It sounds like it's pulled straight out of a computer model, which is probably trying to juggle a few different variables at once. See the two attached files for an example of the type of thing we get down here. It's also trying to take into account the cloud, but I don't know how sophisticated is the cloud model. Clearly it recognises different depths - with the UVI being 8 underneath one area of cloud but 5 under another area.
Yours are clear sky forecasts, I wonder if it's just translating forecast ozone depth directly into a surface UVI?
But I found that UV forecasts can be just as wrong as temperature forecasts, at least down here anyway.
I suppose you would get your highest UV within 2 weeks of the Solstice. Worth noting that the sun angle changes *very little* around the solstice, so being bang on June 21st is probably not much different to being in the first week of July when it comes to UV.
Highest UVI ever recorded in the UK was 8, somewhere in the South...don't have it to any greater accuracy than that. UVI would be limited by the relatively polluted atmosphere over the British Isles, the high latitude and low sun angle, and the fact that the Earth is furthest from the Sun around July 4th - hence the seasons are "backwards".
I don't have any sources at hand, but I think the highest sea level UVI was 17 in Carnarvon, Western Australia but mountainous tropical regions in the Southern Hemisphere (eg Andes, PNG) get UVI up to 25.
The "high cloud magnifies UV" is a mystery to me, I've often heard it but really don't know.
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Yeah. That happened to me once.
Heatwave
in Spring Weather Discussion
Posted
Got to 30/15 in Edinburgh Airport, relative humidity of 40%. Those are still reasonably high dewpoints for Scotland though, combined with high temperatures.