J07

Sad news at the end of what must have been a good life. *All* natural processes? Whilst pretty much everything is non-linear, does that mean that every system can, or does, exhibit chaos? Also I believe that to have an intuitive understanding of such processes you pretty much have to give up on the chaotic parts and leave that to the computers. Trying to linearise a non-linear problem is pretty key for us humans. (In my opinion :lol: )

What thread are you picking up on here?! Florida still gets heaps of sun thoug, definitely above 2500 and I seem to recall that it pushes towards 3000 in places (could be wrong here). It certainly is sunnier than the likes of Singapore, which rattle by with about 2000 hours per year, and of course it's even hotter and more oppressive than Florida.

Yep that's me! That sort of heat renders anything physical too difficult for me! Simply horrible. "Special atmosphere" really sums it up very well. I recall staggering through the streets of Wellington at 1AM in January as the cyclone approached. It was 23C with dewpoint 18C. Pretty odd feeling at that time of the night, but special yes.

Wellington in summer probably is cooler than many places in the South East of England but is warmer than the rest of the UK and sunnier than anywhere in the UK. A problem with Wellington is that there isn't really a good place to put a weather station which is truly representative. The two that are most commonly used are the airport and Kelburn. I don't know why they use the airport when it's stuck on a little peninsula completely exposed to southerlies. Kelburn is about 100m+ up on a hill and exposed to wind from everywhere. Most people live at lower levels and clustered into valleys and hillsides. But you can't have stations there due to the urban heat effect. Despite being only a stone's throw from the sea, Wellington CBD will exceed 30C relatively often in summer (especially this summer), and this is would be the most representative site but is obviously useless thanks to asphalt and heat trapping buildings. Commuter towns called Wainuiomata, Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt are all much warmer in summer and much colder in winter- they are also cloudier. Lower Hutt quite frequently is the warmest place in New Zealand for a few hours on summer days. That would never happen at any site around the harbour. A quick example is 7th Feb this year. Kelburn had a max of 18C, the airport also 18C. Wainuiomata had 26C, Lower Hutt 22C and Upper Hutt 26C. Hataitai which is in the city got to 25C and Eastbourne 23C.

Yes, I love Melbourne's weather patterns. I think it has some of the most exciting weather you can find, and especially has a fantastic claim to the 4-seasons-in-1-day that everywhere likes to claim! Interestingly, despite Auckland being on the same latitude, it is never subject to the same ferocity of cold blasts that Melbourne gets, thanks to the orographic sheltering. However, I am currently looking at an interesting forecast for Northland. Normally in southerlies it will carry on ticking away with pleasant temperatures. However, 17-18C maxima are being forecast there for the next two days. It's the first time they'll fail to hit 20C since October. And you lot, you make me jealous going on about June. Lovely time of the year in the UK. Not so much here...

Yes, it's wierd isn't it. Looking back at temperatures, as in "today it reached 36C in Kent" is never quite the same as watching the 6PM news and actually seeing a *forecast* for such temperatures the next day! It's part of why I always find it wierd looking at an Australian weather map from Nov-March and seeing temperatures of 40C+ actually being forecast, sometimes for days on end, in Melbourne, Adelaide or Perth.

Yep, the mountains are a real give away aren't they.

I just like the contrast of coastal scenery with the backdrop of repeating hills culminating in mountain range.

Below average months have become fairly rare in the UK in "The christmas pudding" (TM? :lol: ). Thought I would start checking it out for New Zealand. I believe we get more below average months. But the overall change is most likely smaller since we are surrounded by the odd spot of water or two. Just for the moment, looking at 2007, we have: J 16.7 -0.4 F 17 0.9 M 16.6 0.9 A 13 -0.5 M 12.4 1.7 J 7.9 -0.6 J 8.1 0.2 A 9.1 0.4 S 10.5 0.1 O 11.7 -0.5 N 13.4 -0.3 D 16.1 0.5 On the left, the average temperature, on the right is the anomaly. So, 5 below average months in 2007, and 7 above average. Perhaps the only *significant* temperature anomaly though was in May. Coming after a cold April, May 2007 turned out to be the warmest May in history (similarly in Australia). It gave a true Indian Summer. Following on from this, a cold June. Interesting that the warm pattern disappeared just in time for the first week of June where there were snowstorms and in Queenstown (sub-alpine resort town) their Annual Winter Festival had to be postponed (!!!). Other months did not have such large temperature discrepancies. However, it's very much a case of data getting smeared again. Many people would consider November 2007 to have been a warm month, this is because the summer drought began halfway through that month (it's still persisting for many) and also because record temperatures were recorded in many regions. However, the tale-end of miserable October lagged into early November and pushed the average down. IMO, it's worth noting that consistently the sunshine hours seem to be increasing year-in, year-out. It does not appear correlated with temperature and seems to be a trend that continues despite cold years and warm years. I wonder if this is a permanent factor that is appearing. For example, in 2007, Wellington recorded a 10% increase in sunshine hours. This is actually a fair increase (in the region of 200hrs). Perhaps the bulk of this came in August 2007, where the temperature was bang on average, but the sunshine hours recorded were 180. This is in the region of 50% greater than normal. Unfortunately, I've not yet worked out what sites are chosen to take the average temperatures from which to decide a "national average". On one extreme, you have towns in the south island interior which get 70 air frosts per year even in a warm year, and on the other there is Northland, where in places the average daytimes highs are about 24C in summer and 17C in winter with frost never occurring. I will look more into this.

Zonal means east-west motion as opposed to meridional which is north-south motion. I'm not entirely sure what people mean when they say "zonality" or whether there even is a precise definition. I think gardening in summer should be a challenge. Summer rain I find is quite often a bit of a let down with lots of it going to waste. It'll also never please everyone. In summer you're going to need several days of fairly continuous rain coming down so that it does to good use for flowers, however, if you're someone that is trying to ripen tomatoes this is pretty bad news.

It says the photos have been moved or deleted? Lovely area of Wales, Pen-y-Fan has a very distinctive shape and looks great from all directions.

Long live Hoggett.

Yes, I don't think heat + humidity combined is too healthy either. A very large proportion of the world's population live in such climates though so maybe the rest of us are just soft! One good thing about humid summer days is the balmy evenings you tend to enjoy

Those are horrendous conditions. The majority of people probably don't own clothing to cope with that. But then hopefully the majority of people wouldn't think of going up there when it's so cold!

Simple, but true, IMO. I am reminded of a 16C sunny day in February where someone posted about "how we are witnessing an unprecedented change in our climate". Based on what evidence? Well, nothing. Just pure emotion (Frankly I think that getting carried away during that warm spell is pretty much understandable).

Always am impressed by the flatness of hills in Britain, quite different to what I am used to these days. And that village- nothing like that over here that's for sure! I also see the lack of trees, is that due to the landscape being progressively deforested or is it pretty much above the bushline for naturally occurring trees in that area? At what elevation is the bushline in Yorkshire?

April 10th 1968, Cyclone Giselle moved south over NZ, causing much destruction along the way and apparently regenerating around 40S. It is most well known for causing the sinking of the Wahine, one of the largest ferries in the world at the time. It sank only a few hundred metres from the coastline of the capital city- Wellington. Mean wind speeds at Wellington harbour were 60mph, gusting to 90mph as the ferry approached. The highest ever wind gust recorded in NZ was 275kmh (170mph) in the city itself. Wellington is a city well used to winds and generally copes with them much better the UK. But this storm was unprecedented and destroyed homes. Interesting paper here: http://www.rsnz.org/publish/nzjmfr/2003/024-lo.pdf Claims that modern numerical models could not have predicted the 12m swell experienced in Wellington Harbour that day. http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Kids/NZ...ers/Giselle.asp Cyclone: Cyclone Giselle When: 10 April, 1968 Where: New Zealand-wide What happened The storm began to build in the Coral Sea near the Solomon Islands on 5 April, 1968. The cyclone was given the name Giselle by French meteorologists when it struck Noumea, capital of French Caledonia. The next day storm warnings were issued throughout New Zealand, even though the cyclone was 3,000 kilometres away. Early in the morning of 9 April, Cyclone Giselle hit Cape Reinga. Wind gusts of up to 160 kilometres an hour caused massive damage to houses and other buildings. With the wind came torrential rain, flooding the farmlands of Northland, and drowning hundreds of farm animals. A farmer was killed near Kaitaia when he was blown off a haystack. The cyclone moved south, repeating the pattern of damage as it travelled across the North Island and down the East Coast. Ships were driven ashore, and landslips closed roads. The torrents of rain caused massive flooding, and the wind left a wake of torn-off roofs and broken windows. By the time Cyclone Giselle hit Wellington on the morning of 10 April, another storm had driven up the West Coast of the South Island from Antarctica. The two storms met over the capital city, causing huge amounts of damage and wrecking the inter-island ferry, the Wahine, with the loss of 51 lives. The winds in Wellington were the strongest ever recorded by the New Zealand Meteorological Service. At one point they reached a speed of 275 kilometres an hour. A young girl was killed and her sister injured when a piece of roofing iron crashed through their bedroom window. An elderly man was blown over by the wind and died on the way to hospital. Other people were seriously injured in falls or by flying debris. In the Wellington suburb of Kingston the roofs of 98 houses were ripped off by the wind, and three ambulances and a truck were blown onto their sides when they tried to go into the area to bring out injured people. As the storm moved onto the South Island, in Christchurch hundreds of houses lost their roofs and both the Avon and the Heathcote rivers flooded. Throughout Canterbury over 500 hectares of forest were destroyed. In Southland the flooding was the worst since 1913. Some people were stranded on the roofs of their houses and had to be rescued by jet boat. http://www.teara.govt.nz/EarthSeaAndSky/ClimateAndAtmosphere/Weather/7/ENZ-Resources/Standard/3/en I got out of the car with a bit of a struggle into the wind, but soon became aware of an unbelievably strong wind. The funnel effect of Kent Terrace made it worse as it blew towards the Basin Reserve. My thoughts immediately changed from walking across to the Wellington office, to survival and seeking shelter. But before I could find any shelter, the wind blew me out into the middle of the street, into the path of oncoming traffic which I and others in a similar situation hoped would stop for us. This was both dangerous and frightening. Some people were clinging to lamp posts; others sought the shelter of shop doorways. That’s where I headed when the wind dropped enough for me to regain some control of my direction. I huddled in a doorway with others, confident that we would all be safe, at least in the meantime. But then the shop’s huge plate glass window was completely blown out by the wind, and glass shattered everywhere on the footpath. I realised that it was not actually safe anywhere in the open, not even in an obvious shelter. I eventually made it back to the car and out to the Hutt. I didn’t deliver those papers and I didn’t visit any clients that day. We looked out the office windows to see sparking broken power lines and a Volkswagen car picked up off the ground by the wind, then dropped again. http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~glaive/nz/pages/cyclone.htm This link has a good summary of information, too much to copy and paste. You can see the storm caused major destruction through the north and the east of NZ. Those parts relevant to Wellington: The hurricane winds were the strongest ever recorded by the New Zealand Meteorological office. At one point they reached an incredible 275 kilometres per hour! The weather was vicious. A seven-year-old girl was killed and her sister seriously injured when iron from a nearby roof was blown through their bedroom window, and an elderly man was bowled over by the wind and died while being taken to hospital. More than eighty people were treated at hospitals for various injuries caused by the storm. One man was seriously injured when he was blown off a building he was helping build, and another when a garage collapsed on him. A woman was blown through a plate glass window in the city and the wink knocked over many people in the streets. Children were advised to stay home from school, but some who had left before the warning was given were pushed off their feet by the wind and bowled along the ground. The exposed Wellington hillside suburb of Kingston was one of the worst hit. Ninety eight houses lost their roofs and many others were damaged by flying tiles and airborne sheets of corrugated iron. Efforts to evacuate the area were made later in the morning but three ambulances and an army truck, which went in to help bring out the injured people, were all blown over on to their sides. The coastal suburb of Seatoun felt the full fury of the storm. At an army camp in the area more than twenty cars and vans were blown into a heap by the force of the wind. The roof of one house was peeled off and hurled through the window of its neighbour. Further around the coast, near Lyall Bay, an ambulance, two trucks, and several cars were blown on to the beach. Such was the force of the wind that paint was sandblasted off several cars. Other Wellington hillside suburbs, including Northland and Karori, were also badly battered by the storm with many windows being broken and roofs blown off. In some cases, even the walls were blown down, leaving terrified residents cowering in the basements. But, if being inside was risky, it was even more dangerous outside. Sheets of roofing iron flew through the air, and in some cases, embedded themselves in the walls of other houses! At Lowry Bay, on the eastern side of the Wellington harbour, a car collided with a boat that had been blown up on to the road. Several other small craft were swept from their moorings and their wreckage littered the edges of the harbour. In the Hutt Valley, the wind was less severe but there were serious flooding in Upper Hutt and a State of Civil Defence Emergency was declared. Wahine disaster described here also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/s...000/2924897.stm http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/wahine-disaster If in 5 days theres a cyclone brewing in the tropics we will all be hoping history doesn't repeat itself!

Beauty I like number 5 the best. What mountains are we looking at there? Names? Elevations?

But isn't that what's supposed to happen above a warm cored cyclone?

So we would see anticyclonic behaviour at higher levels above a polar low?

Has there been any progress on stopping "Nice pics" comments?

Can of worms! I think "unspoiled" (or unspoilt?) is a very relative term in the UK. Much of the environment has been vandalised over many centuries. How much of our original forest remains?

I'm coming into this very late but it has been perplexing me though I don't know if the OP is still around. Even if he is not, the continued discussion would be of interest. When it comes to the water vapour partial pressure that is obviously not given in soundings so it has to be inferred. And it tells you in that paper how to do it. You need theta (sounding), RH (sounding) and e (2.718...blah). So no problems with that. I am fairly tired so not much time to think about this but with all that data, just plot it on a t-phi gram for the first few significant and standard levels. Blank tephis are on the web. easy to find the LCL from this data, just look at the surface plots of temp and dewpoint. Follow a constant mixing ratio line up from the dewpoint, follow a dry abiabat up from the temp and where they intersect, that's at the pressure value of the LCL. Only thing is, surely the precipitable water content is going to depend on the means of ascent. LCL => Forced ascent, i.e. over mountains. I would think that in Manaus, convective ascent is more important. For this you need to know the Level of Free Convection which gives the convective cloud base whereas LCL would give you the cloud base for forced ascent. Convective condensation level also can be inferred.

Thanks guys

Do you really get "Monsoonal Showers" in Ballina? AFAIK, the Monsoon trough sits firmly around the Australian tropics north of 20S, occassionally delving down to north of Brisbane in exceptional circumstances. Coastal NSW/temperate coastal QLD is more affected by SE trades than by monsoon troughs.