Weather Eye

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From The Times July 9, 2008

Boris was spin, Bertha means business

Paul Simons Wether Eye

Boris huffed and puffed and went in for a lot of spin, but eventually fizzled out without doing harm to anyone. But Bertha has meant business and blew up quite suddenly.

Boris and Bertha were some of the earliest tropical storms of the new hurricane season. Boris erupted in the Pacific way off the western coast of Mexico and died out without causing any damage. But Bertha has been something of a surprise. She formed last Thursday near the Cape Verde islands off the coast of West Africa, and set a new record for the farthest east that a tropical storm has formed in July, only a month into the hurricane season.

On Monday Bertha rapidly erupted into a powerful Category 3 hurricane, packing winds of 190km/h (120mph). The storm is moving across the mid-Atlantic and could threaten Bermuda by Saturday, although the US is expected to escape unscathed.

However, the appearance of the first Atlantic hurricane this early in the year is unusual. Forecasters are predicting a busy year for hurricanes and there are fears for a lot of activity by the peak of the season, around the middle of August to mid-October, when tropical sea temperatures have reached their warmest for the year, providing the fuel for hurricanes.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4296773.ece

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From The Times July 10, 2008

Raging torrents 40 years ago

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Floods washed away bridges, homes were swamped, water and electricity supplies cut and seven people killed. Exactly 40 years ago horrendous thunderstorms flooded the West Country before deluging southern and eastern England. Huge downpours sent floodwaters surging through villages, towns and cities, with 125mm (5in) of rain falling in Bristol in only 18 hours. Thousands of cars were abandoned and many floated away. A double-decker bus from Bristol to Bath was stranded by 7ft of floodwaters and the passengers and crew had to be rescued from the top deck in dinghies. Raging torrents of mud, water and boulders tore through Cheddar Gorge and several people spent a terrifying night trapped in the caves by rising waters.

The storm had begun in Brittany but got worse as it hit southwest England. Many homes were flooded, leaving people marooned upstairs. Emergency shelters were set up for hundreds of people who were made homeless. The Army was brought in with amphibious vehicles to make rescues, bring in food and water supplies and build temporary bridges where the original ones had been destroyed.

July 1978, 1988 and 1998 were fairly miserable as well, and it looks as if 2008 is following suit.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4305026.ece

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From The Times July 11, 2008

In praise of the bog

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Bogs are not the most pleasant places, and Charles Dewhurst, of Marford, Wrexham, wonders why not drain them for farmland to produce more food (Letters, July 9).

The weather this week highlights one reason why wetlands are so important. They defend us against floods because their mosses, peat and other vegetation soak up heavy rainfalls like a giant sponge. That allows the rainwater to drain away slowly, instead of overwhelming rivers and flooding surrounding land.

Bogs are also surprisingly good at fighting climate change. The plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and after they die their remains are preserved as peat in the acid waters of the bog, locking away the carbon. Over thousands of years that peat builds up into a vast reservoir of carbon. In fact, across the world, peat bogs store twice as much carbon as forests.

But if the bogs dry out they leak dangerous amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas over 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. And the peat left behind from drainage is easily blown away, which is why the fenlands of East Anglia are seriously eroded.

Britain is blessed with some of the world’s finest bogs. They provide a vital buffer against the weather and climate and need protection.

http://www.netweather.tv/forum/index.php?a...f=54&t=2671

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From The Times July 12, 2008

The heat wave – something long forgotten?

Paul Simons Weather Eye

After last week’s washout, you have to pinch yourself to remember that this is summer. July should be hot, and tomorrow marks “Hot Wednesday” 200 years ago, when Britain was in the grip of a formidable heat wave. The population then simply was not used to intense heat and there were reports of people dying outdoors in scorching temperatures and oppressive humidity. “We have accounts from different parts of the country communicating distressing consequences of the late extraordinary heat of the weather,” reported The Times, and went on to list some of the casualties. “A man at Corby in Lincolnshire, on Wednesday, while mowing thistles, was so overcome by the heat that he died in the field. A woman employed in making hay in a field adjoining the town of Huntingdon, complained of being ill from the heat, and died before she could get home. A woman at Bellesdon, in Leicestershire, on Wednesday, died of excessive heat.”

There was no standard way of taking temperature recordings in those days, and many thermometers were left in exposed places that gave unusually high readings. But there are suggestions that some places that day may have been close to the official UK highest temperature record of 38.5C (101.3F), set in Kent in August 2003.

The extraordinary heatwave of July 1808, broke down in huge thunderstorms a few days later, on St Swithin’s Day.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4319328.ece

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From The Times July 14, 2008

No sign of hot, dry weather

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The weather is showing signs of some improvement this week, but there is still no sign of a sustained spell of hot, dry weather. The high-altitude jet stream winds are still sweeping uncomfortably close to Britain, dragging depressions with them, although tending to track farther north than last week, leaving drier conditions in the South of the country.

For most of us the jet stream only becomes apparent in a bout of airplane turubulence, but last week the jet stream winds revealed themselves as they caught hold of high-level wispy cirrus clouds and streaked them across the sky.

The opportunity for cloudspotting this summer has been magnificent. Cirrus uncinus has graced the sky; a wispy filament of cloud, its end bent upwards like a tail, which is why it is often called mare’s tails. We have also seen patches of cirrocumulus, beautiful little packets of cloud arranged like the scales of a mackerel. The sight of both these clouds is a sign of an approaching weather front, as the folklore saying goes:

“Mare’s tails and mackerel scales Make tall ships carry low sails”.

There has also been every sort of cumulus cloud, from the humble cumulus humilis (cottonwool), to the big, billowing cumulonimbus that brings thunder, lightning and deluges of rain.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4326845.ece

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From The Times July 15, 2008

Giant hailstones bombard West Country

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Hailstones in Britain are generally no bigger than the size of a pea, but 200 years ago an extraordinary hailstorm bombarded the West Country with giant hailstones.

July 1808 had been hot and humid before the hailstorm struck on July 15, St Swithin’s Day. Somerset was worst hit, and thunder and lightning were almost incessant, according to Weather journal. “It seemed as if the magazine of heaven had been opened, and all its artillery let loose upon us,” wrote one gentleman near Wincanton, who listed his damage: “Sixty panes of glass were broken; apples sufficient to make 40 hogsheads of cider destroyed; seven acres of oats, and the unmown grass beaten down as flat as if a heavy roller had repeatedly passed over it one way.” Hailstones were reported up to 109mm (4.3in) diameter, larger than a cricket ball, and left people caught outdoors battered black and blue.

Birds and livestock were killed, trees stripped of branches and leaves, crops pummelled, thousands of panes of glass smashed and roofs smashed. Incredibly, no one was killed. If such a storm struck a built-up area today it would be catastrophic, although highly destructive hailstorms have become far less frequent over the decades.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4333073.ece

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From The Times July 16, 2008

Unexpected consequences of global warming

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Climate change is having some unexpected consequences all over the world. In the Arctic, Inuit communities are seeing their first wasps, and radio broadcasts have been needed to caution about the hazards of trying to touch the wasps, which are flying farther north as the Arctic warms.

European brewers are facing a crisis as their traditional hops are wilting from drought and heat, and a programme has begun to make them more drought-tolerant.

The famous geysers of Yellowstone Park, Wyoming, are slowing down; Old Faithful’s regular eruptions have shifted by an extra 16 minutes in eight years. The reason is that the geysers’ water supplies are dwindling as the climate turns drier.

Perhaps the most unexpected impact of global warming is a rise in the number of kidney stones. These painful stones result from salts crystallising in the kidneys, often caused by dehydration. The hotter the climate, the more cases of kidney stones occur and the southern US regions get around 50 per cent more cases than northern states. The number of cases has been rising since temperatures began to warm noticeably from the late 1970s. As the climate warms, the zone of high risk for kidney stones is expected to push northwards, and by 2050 an estimated 1.6 million new cases are predicted.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4340010.ece

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From The Times July 17, 2008

When heat can kill

Paul Simons Weather Eye

In a summer when the highest temperature so far has been only 28C (82F), it seems perverse to mention the problems of heat in Britain. But this tepid, wishy-washy summer has left us susceptible to the dangers of heat waves because we rarely acclimatise to really high temperatures.

Heat illnesses are usually linked to extreme climates or marathon runners (Sir Roger Bannister, Letters, July 15). But the work of Professor W. R Keatinge (obituary, May 8th, showed how a sudden hot spell in Britain can be lethal. His research revealed that the deadly effects of heat usually appear at the start of a heat wave, when the national death rate can double or triple in the first 48 hours. These deaths result largely from heart attacks, thromboses and strokes, often triggered by a change in blood chemistry, creating blood clots more easily, or by overloading the heart.

These deadly effects were dramatically illustrated during the intense heat wave of August 2003, when the highest temperature record for the UK was broken. More than 2,000 additional deaths were caused by the heat in England, almost a fifth more than usual, and the problem was particularly severe in London.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4347000.ece

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The Times July 18, 2008

Challenging conditions at the Open

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Heavy rain, driving wind, leaden skies – the golf at the Royal Birkdale Open Championship at Southport, Lancashire, is under way in true British summer weather. And how fitting that England’s Graeme Storm led the way at the start of play.

This foul weather is caused by a depression doing a slow pirouette from Scandinavia, skirting around Scotland before passing back up to southern Scandinavia. But as the low pressure departs our shores with its wind and rains, its place will be taken by the Azores High, the anticyclone that brings warm, sunny times. There are hopes that this high pressure will bring a decent spell of sun from Sunday onwards, and fight off depressions trying to barge in from the Atlantic.

But the Open Golf Championship has quite a track record for challenging conditions. In 2007 St Andrews sweltered in heat until the wind suddenly shifted and a haar rolled in, a thick coastal fog that sent temperatures plunging. In 2002 Muirfield, on the Firth of Forth on the East Coast of Scotland, was hit by a fierce storm with horizontal rain and totally defeated Tiger Woods in one of his worst days of golf. But in 1987 the Open at Muirfield produced a shocking spell of four days of unrelenting cold, wet and windy weather.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4353801.ece

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From The Times July 19, 2008

This summer's dull – but it could be worse

Paul Simons Weather Eye

What a July this is turning out to be. Temperatures below average, rainfall more than double the norm, grey skies blotting out sunshine – things could hardly be worse. Or could they?

It was only this time last year that we faced the biggest inland floods for 60 years. On July 20 a weather front dumped more than a month’s rain in one day on many places, reaching 147mm (5.8in) in Sudeley, Gloucestershire. Over the following days the Severn, Avon and Thames rose to bursting point and swamped a large swath of central and western England.

Gloucestershire was the worst hit. Half a million people were close to losing their power supply when an electricity substation came within inches of being inundated, only saved by hundreds of troops and fire service personnel working round the clock to build a flood barrier and pump out floodwaters. But a water treatment plant was overwhelmed and more than 350,000 people were left without fresh water for more than two weeks. Hundreds of small water tankers were brought in to supply water and the Red Cross distributed hygiene kits.

The problem was slow-moving rainbelts. Saturated ground and overloaded rivers could not cope with the deluge and the floodwaters spilled over floodplains. As Bob Spicer, Professor of Earth Sciences at the Open University summed up: “Floodplains are called floodplains for a reason – they flood.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4360207.ece

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From The Times July 21, 2008

Azores High invites summer to shine

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Something amazing could happen this week – summer may reappear, for a few days at least. Warm sunshine, few clouds and little sign of rain is on the cards, just in time for the school holidays.

The improvement in weather is thanks to a visit from the Azores High, a huge high-pressure system often anchored over the Azores islands. The story of this anti-cyclone actually begins at the Equator, where intense sunshine sends warm, humid air billowing upwards. That generates huge thunderstorms towering upwards until they hit the invisible ceiling of the stratosphere. The tropical air then spreads outwards until it sinks at about 30 degrees latitude. As the air falls it gets squashed and warms up, much like a bicycle pump grows hot when inflating a tyre. The sinking air is also dry, leaving skies clear. And as high pressure systems like this straddle the globe at about 30 degrees latitude, they create some of the world’s deserts, such as the Sahara.

In the summer the Azores High also pushes further north, towards Portugal and Spain, and sometimes reaches the UK with its magnificent weather. As long as this ridge of high pressure is in control it sends wet and windy low pressure systems skirting around the top of the anticyclone. But if the Azores High slips southwards, the foul weather can return again.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4369405.ece

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From The Times July 22, 2008

A complicated climate

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Climate change is a complicated subject. To predict the future, we need to understand what happened in the past, but several myths have grown up.

Since the end of the last ice age, the climate has gone and up down quite naturally. But some of the stories are not quite what they seem. Much has been made of a warm period in medieval times that became a golden age for growing vines in England. But vines were not that widespread and, in any case, vine-growing carried on for the next millennium, even when the climate turned cooler. As Phil Jones, of the University of East Anglia, pointed out recently in Weather: “Past vine-growing in England reflects little, if any, on the relative climate changes in the region since medieval times.” When the Romans invaded England, the climate was supposed to be very warm. But in The Winelands of Britain Richard Selley describes how vineyards flourished largely in southern England, whereas today’s vineyards grow further north.

Critics say that the warm Roman and medieval periods prove how today’s high temperatures are simply another natural bout of warm climate. But today’s climate is the warmest in history, and the temperatures are rising unlike anything we have seen before.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4374970.ece

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From The Times July 22, 2008

A complicated climate

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Climate change is a complicated subject. To predict the future, we need to understand what happened in the past, but several myths have grown up.

Since the end of the last ice age, the climate has gone and up down quite naturally. But some of the stories are not quite what they seem. Much has been made of a warm period in medieval times that became a golden age for growing vines in England. But vines were not that widespread and, in any case, vine-growing carried on for the next millennium, even when the climate turned cooler. As Phil Jones, of the University of East Anglia, pointed out recently in Weather: “Past vine-growing in England reflects little, if any, on the relative climate changes in the region since medieval times.” When the Romans invaded England, the climate was supposed to be very warm. But in The Winelands of Britain Richard Selley describes how vineyards flourished largely in southern England, whereas today’s vineyards grow further north.

Critics say that the warm Roman and medieval periods prove how today’s high temperatures are simply another natural bout of warm climate. But today’s climate is the warmest in history, and the temperatures are rising unlike anything we have seen before.

http://www.netweather.tv/forum/index.php?a...f=54&t=2671

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From The Times July 23, 2008

Cloud patterns in the sky

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Beautiful streaks of clouds appeared over London on Monday evening. Contrails from highflying aircraft slowly dissipated into clouds barely distinguishable from surrounding wisps of cirrus and veils of cirrostratus clouds.

But most eye-catching of all were a couple of chequered patches made up of clouds arranged in beautiful ripples, like the waves from a stone hitting water. These were cirrocumulus undulatus, known as a mackerel sky.

Although mackerel skies often give warning of stormy weather on the way, these patches of cirrocumulus were too small to worry about and carried no great weather forecast. Instead, they and the other high-altitude clouds were a sign of moisture high in the atmosphere. The wavy patterns showed strong high-level winds making undulations in the clouds.

As all these clouds drifted lazily past the setting sun, a large smudge of multicoloured light emerged through the shroud of thin cloud. This was a sundog, an optical effect caused by ice crystals in the clouds bending and splitting the sunlight into the colours of the rainbow like glass prisms.

Keep an eye out for similar psychedelic colours when the sun is low and veiled by wispy high-level clouds.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4380642.ece

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From The Times July 24, 2008

A föhn in Aboyne

Paul Simons Weather Eye

It seems unbelievable, but a hot spell of weather has arrived just in time for the start of the school holidays. Stranger still, the hottest place in the UK has not been one of the traditional hotspots of southern England, but somewhere much further north – Aberdeenshire.

The small town of Aboyne was the hottest place in Britain at the start of the week, reaching 26C (79F) on Monday and 22C (72F) on Tuesday. However, Aboyne is better known for much cooler weather, lying in the foothills of the Cairngorms, 140m (460ft) above sea level.

This week’s heat wave began with a large ridge of high pressure that swept up a stream of warm air from the sub-tropics. As the air flowed over the peaks of the Scottish Highlands it swept down the slopes of the mountains and became compressed, drying and warming the air.

This mountain wind is known as a föhn. In the Swiss Alps public notices ban smoking outdoors while a föhn is blowing because of the high risk of fire in the desiccating wind. On May 11, 1861, almost the entire town of Glarus was burnt down during a föhn. The föhn is also infamous for a steep rise in depression, irritability and car accidents. But the föhn in Aboyne this week was a somewhat weaker affair.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4386768.ece

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From The Times July 25, 2008

Fog and the fall of Louisbourg

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Dense fog came to the rescue of a military campaign on this day 250 years ago.

During the Seven Years’ War, the British were determined to oust the French from North America. The key to taking French colonies in what is now Canada was the capture of the great fortress at Louisbourg, on the coast of Nova Scotia. But things did not start well. A huge British invasion force of 12,000 troops in a fleet of 39 warships and 120 transport ships faced a rough Atlantic crossing that delayed the schedule.

When a landing was made near Louisbourg on June 8, extremely hazardous conditions in rough seas almost wrecked the invasion. In the days afterwards, a thick fog descended, as warm air on land collided with Arctic currents at sea.

Gradually the British tightened their grip around the fortress and shattered its defences. The last hope of the French rested on the guns of their remaining warships. But under cover of thick fog, on July 25, a raiding party crept into the harbour and captured the last two French ships and the French surrendered.

The fall of Louisbourg gave the British control of the entrance to the St Lawrence River and opened the way to the capture of Quebec the following year.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4393190.ece

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From The Times July 26, 2008

Three fine days and a thunderstorm

Paul Simons Weather Eye

On July 5, 1660, a few weeks after Charles II returned from exile, he was entertained by the City of London, but the weather was not kind. As Samuel Pepys observed: “I saw the King, the Dukes, and all their attendants go forth in the rain to the City, and it bedraggled many a fine suit of clothes.” Small wonder that Charles II is supposed to have commented: “The English summer is three fine days and a thunderstorm.” And there is some truth to that.

As the weather grows hotter and stickier it is like a powder keg ready to explode. The detonator is often an injection of cold air sweeping in off the Atlantic, and when the two air masses collide, the hot air rushes upwards in an updraught, its moisture turns into towering thunderclouds and explodes with thunder and lightning. The more heat and moisture there is, the stronger the updraught, and the bigger the storm. This is why our biggest and most violent thunderstorms tend to happen during July and August.

This week, temperatures in Britain steadily climbed and on Thursday hit 28.2C (82.4F) at Heathrow, the highest temperature of the year so far, equalling the temperature on July 1, also in London. But the fine weather could not last over the entire country and this weekend there will be thunderstorms in various regions.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4402602.ece

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From The Times July 28, 2008

Threats to the production of oil

Paul Simons Weather Eye

For anyone worried about the price of petrol, it is worth keeping an eye on this year’s hurricane season. Last week Hurricane Dolly threatened oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, but the storm passed by the oil platforms before hitting Texas and northern Mexico. However, in 2005 two huge hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, shut down oil production in this region and sent oil prices climbing.

With another four months to go, forecasters are expecting a busy hurricane season this year and the signs are worrying. Hurricane Bertha this month formed remarkably early and much farther east than usual for this time of year. It also broke the record for the longest-lived hurricane in July.

But tropical storms also have their benefits. They are the Earth’s safety valve for cooling down the climate by shooting hot air away from the tropics. Rainfalls from many tropical storms can be catastrophic on land, but they can also break droughts. And the high winds can rejuvenate forests by getting rid of old trees and boosting new growth.

At sea the storms churn up ocean waters with oxygen and nutrients, giving a huge boost to marine life. Phytoplankton are also dragged up to the surface where they bloom and give sea creatures a big feed.

Tropical storms also help to reduce the greenhouse effect. Because phytoplankton soak up carbon dioxide, when their remains sink to the ocean floor they help to lock away that carbon. And a new study published in the journal Geology reveals that tropical storms can wash huge amounts of carbon sediment from rivers out to sea and bury it on the seabed. A single typhoon in Taiwan buries as much carbon in the ocean as the entire rainfall over a whole year.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4412684.ece

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From The Times July 29, 2008

Heatwave sparks flying ants' mating frenzy

Paul Simons Weather Eye

It took a long time coming, but the first heat wave of the year arrived hot and steamy like a Turkish bath. That oppressive heat triggered an annual summer occurrence, as swarms of flying ants appeared over the UK. Pavements and gardens have been crawling with dark, winged ants named Lasius niger, the black garden ant. Their annual appearance always seems to happen in hot, sticky conditions, often when the ground is fairly wet from recent rains, usually towards the end of July. And the happening is all to do with sex.

The winged male ants are fertile and live a pampered life underground waited on by infertile wingless male workers. There they bide their time, sometimes for several weeks, waiting for the right weather. The workers go outside regularly to check on conditions, and when it feels hot, humid and with hardly a wisp of wind (as in the lull before a thunderstorm), that is the signal for take-off. The ants from thousands of colonies all take off into the sky at once, in their millions. By swarming in such huge numbers in a nuptial flight they attract the queens and stand a better chance of mating in a free-for-all frenzy. There is also safety in numbers, the swarm giving some protection from birds. But the males’ moment of glory is brief — few of them get to mate and they die soon afterwards. The fertilised queens drop their wings and go on to lay eggs in new colonies of ants.

Although flying ants have a poor public image, they are fairly harmless and cause more nuisance than anything else. They do a lot of good by feeding on many garden pests and are a good food source for birds.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4418825.ece

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From The Times July 30, 2008

Multi-coloured lightning strikes a mysterious pose

Paul Simons Weather Eye

There was a magnificent display of lightning on Monday night over much of the southern half of Britain. As the flashes came thick and fast, the West Midlands was hit hard by lightning strikes causing power cuts and fires, while the torrential downpours caused flash floods.

There were also intriguing reports of different coloured lightning, ranging through white, blue and green. In the past there have also been cases of yellow, pink, red and purple lightning. Even a single bolt of lightning has displayed different colours as it branched out. So what makes different colour lightning?

One idea is the temperature of lightning. Hotter lightning is said to be blue or white, and cooler bolts are orange or red. But lightning temperatures do not vary much, even between weak and strong bolts. Perhaps gases in the atmosphere produce the colours. But the lightning we see is in the lower atmosphere where gases are well mixed together.

According to folklore, blue lightning is a sign of hail, white lightning is in dry conditions, yellow lightning is caused by dusty air and red lightning is mostly seen with lots of rain. There could be something in this because water, dust and gas molecules scatter and absorb light, producing different colours. And if the lightning is far away, there is more chance its light will become interfered with and show colours.

But then why does the rare and mysterious form of lightning called ball lightning also come in a host of different colours, even though it is usually seen very close by? It just goes to show how mysterious lightning still remains.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4425164.ece

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From The Times July 31, 2008

Total eclipse of the sun

Paul Simons Weather Eye

A solar eclipse will sweep across much of the northern hemisphere tomorrow. The Sun will disappear behind the shadow of the Moon, leaving a glowing ring of fire known as the corona, the outer ring of the Sun’s atmosphere normally hidden from view. But to see the total eclipse you need to travel to some remote Arctic regions of northern Canada, Greenland and Siberia, before it ends in Mongolia and China. The eclipse can be seen more easily live on the internet.

However, a partial solar eclipse will be seen in the UK, with part of the Sun covered, looking as if a bite has been taken out of it. The further north your location, the greater the partial eclipse, so that Lerwick in Shetland will have a maximum 36 per cent of the Sun eclipsed, while London will only get 12 per cent. The weather may be cloudy and wet in the North of Scotland. The partial eclipse also develops gradually, beginning at 9.33am, peaking at 10.18am and ends at 11.05am, which it is hoped would give time for any clouds to clear off. The eclipse will be worth watching out for, if only because the next total solar eclipse seen in Britain will not be until September 23, 2090.

But be warned: do not look at an eclipse directly. Even the tiniest sliver of Sun left uncovered by the Moon, or the Sun veiled by cloud, can badly damage your eyes. You will be able to see a crescent-shaped shadow on the ground, provided, of course, that the weather is well behaved.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4432137.ece

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From The Times August 1, 2008

Solar wind revealed by corona

Paul Simons Weather Eye

This morning the UK will be treated to a partial solar eclipse, when a chunk of the Sun will gradually disappear in the shadow of the Moon. But a spectacular total solar eclipse will sweep across the Arctic, Mongolia and China, in which the Sun will be completely blotted out by the Moon.

A total solar eclipse is like no other sight on Earth. As the Sun disappears, a ring of fire appears around the Moon’s shadow. This is the outer atmosphere of the Sun, its corona, which, at over a million degrees celsius, is far hotter than the surface of the Sun at a mere 5,000C (9,000F), for reasons that are not entirely understood.

Solar eclipses first revealed the solar corona and its incredible heat. This helped lead to the discovery of the solar wind exactly 50 years ago, by Eugene Parker, of the University of Chicago. The solar wind is a gradual extension of the corona escaping out into space at speeds reaching up to 3,600,000km/h (2,240,000mph) in a flow of electrically charged gas.

According to Parker, the beginning of the wind is best seen in a total solar eclipse, in which fingers of the Sun’s corona can be seen reaching out into space. However, the solar wind was a highly controversial idea, and two science journals rejected his research paper. In the 1960s, though, satellites confirmed the existence of the wind and opened the door to a new field of astrophysics.

The solar wind is of particular interest because of the way it collides with the Earth’s upper atmosphere, and causes magnetic storms that can knock out satellites or power grids on the ground and generate the amazing lights of the auroras.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4438986.ece

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From The Times August 2, 2008

August in Suffolk can be dangerous

Paul Simons Weather Eye

As if Gordon Brown did not have enough problems on his plate, his holiday home at Southwold, Suffolk, has a history of weird August weather.

Four years ago a circus at the resort was struck by a tornado, ripping off the top of the circus tent, followed by a deluge of rain that left thousands of pounds of damage, although no one was harmed. Less fortunate were holidaymakers caught in a brutal hailstorm on August 15, 1931.

As The Times reported: “Cattle grazing in meadows stampeded, hundreds of panes of glass were smashed, sun-blinds were perforated, and bathers were bruised and cut by hailstones, some of which weighed over 2oz.”

George Orwell often stayed with his parents in Southwold, and during a wet and thundery August in 1938 wrote of rain showers that brought out “enormous slugs crawling about, one measuring about 3in long”.

However, the most terrifying creature of all must surely be Black Shuck, the phantom dog of East Anglia. On Sunday, August 4, 1577, a fearful thunderstorm broke out during a church service at nearby Blythburgh. The church doors burst open to reveal the monstrous dog, which charged in and attacked and killed a man and boy, as a verse later recalled: “All down the church in midst of fire / The hellish monster flew / And, passing onward to the quire / He many people slew.” It was a story said to have inspired Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. However, other accounts describe how lightning struck the church spire, which crashed through the roof and filled the church with fire and smoke.

It might be prudent for Mr Brown to pay close attention to the weather forecast during his holiday.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4447033.ece

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From The Times August 4, 2008

Thunderstorms plague August

Paul Simons Weather Eye

A terrifying thunderstorm struck Devon exactly 70 years ago. Research by Jonathan Webb, of the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation, has revealed how the storm erupted in the early hours of the morning of August 4, 1938. “Many people hid in cupboards or other dark places,” exclaimed The Exeter Express & Echo. “Some people complained of shocks while using telephones at the height of the storm and there were some cases of faintings.”

One Devon resident described the storm as “like having the Victoria Falls, a howitzer battery and a searchlight tattoo in one’s own garden”. Roofs of houses were burst open by lightning blasts, chimneys demolished, and several houses and farm buildings set on fire.

“The rain was torrential and continuous with vivid streak, fork and sheet lightning appearing in all directions giving wonderful luminous effects, while the consistent loud crackling of thunder was like repeated gunfire,” wrote the borough meteorologist in Torquay, who recorded 6.40in (163mm) of rain over nine hours before the storm died away.

The aftermath was described by The Times as: “An extraordinary trail of havoc. Serious floods in many places, railway lines are under water, electric light and telephone services have been dislocated, roads have been blocked by fallen trees.”

Several more thunderstorms plagued that month. On August 12 a silk factory in Macclesfield, Cheshire, was set on fire by lightning and the pitch of Bolton Wanderers football club was flooded. In London a tram caught fire when it was struck by lightning, and passengers had to flee for their lives.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4453900.ece

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From The Times August 5, 2008

Life threatening lightning strikes

Paul Simons Weather Eye

A lightning bolt struck 91 people at a car racetrack in Norway on Sunday. The lightning hit a stadium and hurled spectators from their seats while others ran in panic. A fleet of ambulances and helicopters ferried the injured to hospitals in Flisa, near the Swedish border, but there were no serious injuries.

There have been many instances of open sports stadiums hit by lightning. But, according to a study in the US, the threat from lightning strikes is not just the lightning itself, but also crowd control. In 1998 lightning struck a concert in a stadium in Washington DC, killing one of the audience and setting off mass panic among the crowd that caused more injuries in narrow exit tunnels. Stadiums are now advised to plan for swift mass evacuations.

In the UK, one of the worst lightning strikes in a sports arena was at Royal Ascot on July 14, 1955. On a hot and muggy day, a thunderstorm broke during the afternoon and sent crowds rushing for shelter as rain pelted down. Soon afterwards lightning struck a metal fence and, even though no one was struck, the voltage gradient from the lightning ripped through the ground and scythed down crowds packed in and around a nearby marquee. The aftermath looked like a battlefield, as the injured lay on the ground and others wandered around dazed and shocked. Two spectators died and 48 others were injured.

Possibly the world’s worst sporting tragedy caused by lightning was in 1998, when an entire football team were killed and 30 others injured during a match in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the most lightning-prone places in the world.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4459426.ece

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From The Times August 6, 2008

Tornado was born from a powerful thunderstorm

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Last Sunday night a formidable tornado ripped through the northern French town of Hautmont and killed three people. At first sight the devastation looked like a scene from a tornado disaster in the US Midwest — houses were ripped apart, cars turned upside down and wreckage strewn for miles.

The tornado appeared during thunderstorms driven along a cold weather front. Cold fronts mark a battlezone between a mass of cold and warm air. The cold air sweeps underneath the warm air and thrusts it high into the atmosphere, often producing towering thunderclouds. Paul Knightley, at the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation, believes that the French storm may have been an exceptionally powerful thunderstorm known as a supercell, more usually seen in the US. These storms rotate like a slowly spinning carousel, but deep in their centre a faster-spinning column of air drops down to the ground as a tornado. They are especially feared because they last far longer than a normal thunderstorm.

Another cold weather front struck Scotland and northern England last Thursday night. Torrential rains hit Ayrshire particularly hard, and at the town of Kilbirnie the River Garnock burst its banks. In neighbouring Renfrewshire days of torrential rains have weakened a reservoir near Lochwinnoch so seriously that there are fears it could burst its banks. Nearby homes have been evacuated and roads closed as engineers pump water out of the reservoir to make it safe.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4466333.ece

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From The Times August 7, 2008

Has this summer finished?

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Has this summer finished? Late July had such a promising run of hot weather, just in time for the start of the school holidays, but hopes for a hot August have been cruelly dashed. There is no easy way to say it, but this summer is something of a damp squib. Weather forecast models show no hint of any decent weather for at least the next week or two.

How could this happen? After all, summers are supposed to be growing hotter as the UK’s climate changes. Instead, it looks like the highest temperature of the year will be 30.9C (87.6F), recorded in London on July 27. This is all looking terribly similar to last year’s atrocious summer – cool, cloudy and wet, but without the truly huge floods.

In both summers the path of the jet stream tracked farther south than usual and dragged Atlantic depressions across the UK.

The jet stream is a river of winds that sweep around the world at high altitude, and is thought to be sensitive to conditions over the Pacific Ocean. For the past year or so the tropical Pacific seas have been cooler than usual, a phenomenon known as La Niña. That upset the normal track of the jet stream, and the knock-on effect has been wet summers for the UK.

This was what the Met Office forecast in its summer outlook. But the good news is that La Niña is dying out and September’s weather is expected to improve markedly.

As for climate change, that carries on regardless. The world’s average land and sea temperature for this spring was the seventh highest on record.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4474220.ece

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From The Times August 8, 2008

Let the star show begin

Paul Simons Weather Eye

This is the time of year for one of the best annual spectacles of shooting stars. The Perseid meteor shower starts to put on a good show tonight and reaches a climax next Monday or Tuesday night, before dying away by next Thursday.

This is a sight well worth watching for anyone who enjoys late nights. The meteors will be easiest to see when the Moon has set after midnight and the sky is dark. The numbers of meteors will reach a peak of up to 100 per hour just before dawn, around 5.30am. Perseid meteors are particularly good to watch because they tend to be bright. They appear to originate from the constellation of Perseus, hence their name, although the best way to observe them is simply to look straight up at the sky.

However, the one drawback to the Perseid shower this year is the weather. The outlook for stargazing looks grim, with thick clouds over much of the UK tonight. Low pressure is to blame for these gloomy conditions, and it shows no sign of blowing away over the next several days.

The meteors come from a trail of debris left in the wake of the Swift-Tuttle comet. As tiny, dust-sized particles crash through the Earth’s atmosphere at phenomenal speeds, the atmosphere around them is superheated and glows, which from the ground looks like a trail of light, which is why they are called shooting stars. The Perseids were also called the “tears of St Lawrence” after the 3rd-century archdeacon of Rome who was executed by the Romans. Meteors streaked through the sky on the day of his execution and reappeared every year around St Lawrence’s feast day, August 10.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4481066.ece

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From The Times August 9, 2008

Beijing's climate problems

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The big weather problem hanging over the Olympics is smog. Beijing is one of the worst cities in the world for air pollution. Traffic, construction and factories create poor visibility and dangerous specks of pollution called PM10s, which can be breathed in and cause ill-health. Even temporary curbs on factories, building and traffic will not completely solve the problem because so much of the bad air comes from outside the city.

Air pollution is nothing new in the Olympics’ history. The Los Angeles Games in 1984 were also shrouded in smog, although sea breezes helped to disperse some of the worst pollution. Beijing, though, is a victim of its geography. It is much farther away from the sea, and hemmed in by mountains that trap the air. That air is often stagnant and cooked by sunshine that turns exhaust fumes into toxic ozone gas.

The ideal solution for the Olympics is to hope for some decent rainstorms that wash out the pollutants. Ironically, the Chinese authorities had planned on trying to keep the city dry by spraying clouds with chemicals to make them rain outside Beijing.

However, in the long run, Beijing is the victim of far worse climate problems. The northern territories of China are turning into a giant dust bowl and the deserts are expanding, eating into farmland and pastures. Each spring the city is choked by monstrous dust storms that turn the sky yellow and coat everything with grit. These storms are driving the deserts closer to Beijing – the nearest sand dunes to the capital are now only around 70km (40 miles) away and drifting closer each year. Water supplies are shrinking. Slowly but surely, Beijing is being swallowed up by sand and could eventually disappear into the desert

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4489720.ece

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From The Times August 11, 2008

A blast from the past

Paul Simons Weather Eye

There are lots of forgotten old names for weather, and one particularly evocative example was “Roger’s Blast”. This was described as: “A sudden motion of the air, whirling up the dust on a dry road in perfectly calm weather”, and the name seems to have originated from East Anglia. These days it is called a dust devil – a whirlwind that spirals up from hot ground.

There was a good deal of correspondence about Roger’s Blast in The Times during August 1938. That month was hot and often thundery, but when conditions were calm, dry and hot there were lots of Roger’s Blasts seen popping up all over the countryside. Mr Percy T. Caffyn in Horham, Sussex, described seeing hay whirling around a farm worker in an ever increasing circle and lifted up to a height of 100ft (30m). “It ascended in a spiral, but afterwards spread out, resembling a small cloud, as it disappeared in the distance,” he wrote. That report solicited a fascinating story from Mrs Westacott, the wife of a vicar in Shotteswell, Banbury. She described a farm labourer who had taken his small daughter in the fields to watch him work, and sat her down on a sheaf of wheat. “Suddenly there came a whirlwind so strong that it carried the sheaf into the air and the child with it. The father found her again in another part of the field perfectly safe and sitting on the sheaf,” exclaimed Mrs Westacott.

Some correspondents pointed out that a Roger’s Blast was a sign of a thunderstorm on the way, although whirlwinds usually crop up in fine weather. But exactly who Roger was, and why he was given to blasts, remains something of a mystery.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4499562.ece

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From The Times August 12, 2008

History repeats itself with Scottish floods

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Scotland has suffered diabolical weather this month. Heavy rains have led to widespread floods, disrupting roads and railways; landslides blocked roads in the Borders; and a dam in Renfrewshire will be demolished after water reached dangerous levels for a second time.

Coincidentally, today marks the 60th anniversary of the Great Border Floods across southeast Scotland and Northumberland. August 1948 was a month when gales battered the North Sea, snow fell in Switzerland, thunderstorms plagued Britain and Edinburgh had its wettest month on record.

On August 11 a slow-moving depression crawled across Britain, hitting southern Scotland especially hard. Some 100mm (4in) of rain fell in 24 hours. By the next day, the River Tweed had risen 5.2m (17ft) above normal. Surging waters across the region swept away 40 bridges, leaving towns and villages marooned. The East Coast Main Line rail service was severed as bridges vanished and embankments collapsed, and the Flying Scotsman express on the Edinburgh to London line was only maintained by lengthy diversions. A reservoir at Dunbar, East Lothian, burst its banks, and when a greyhound stadium in Edinburgh was flooded, the Lord Provost took out a rowing boat to rescue the dogs. Cattle and sheep were drowned and crops ruined, a cruel blow to the nation at a time when food was still in short supply after the war.

In many respects the Border floods of 1948 were remarkably similar to those of last summer. Both were typical of extreme rainfalls, when slow-moving depressions drop huge amounts of rain.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4508683.ece