Weather Eye

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From The Times October 18, 2008

Uncannily accurate folklore weather calendar

Paul Simons Weather Eye

There are times when the folklore weather calendar is uncannily accurate. Today is St Luke’s day, when high pressure is supposed to be in control, delivering sunny, warm and calm weather. And true to form, the southern half of the UK will see a decent spell of sunshine thanks to a tremendous ridge of high pressure which stretches from the Azores to Russia. Perhaps it is some small compensation for such a rotten summer.

This great spell of weather used to be called “St Luke’s Little Summer”, and the story goes that because St Luke’s day did not receive as much attention as some other saints’ days, he boosted his profile by delivering some golden days to enjoy before winter set in. As Shakespeare mentioned in Henry VI: “Expect St Martin’s summer, halcyon days.”

And there is something in this legend, because a spell of relatively quiet, settled weather is common around this time in October, and which the Americans later called an Indian summer.

Unfortunately, St Luke’s Little Summer is likely to be the calm before the storm. According to tradition, late-autumn storms arrive soon after and continue until mid-November. Again, this could prove unnervingly accurate, as tomorrow looks likely to bring a gale.

Northwest Scotland will face the full brunt of the foul weather, which will sweep across much of Britain through the day and night. And as, high above, the jet stream winds thrust over the UK with renewed vigour, it looks like a long spell of gloomy, wet conditions is predicted to run well into next week, and perhaps even into November.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4965631.ece

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From The Times October 20, 2008

Spectacular roll clouds over Japan

Paul Simons Weather Eye

On June 18 last year a Japanese coastguard aircraft flying over the Sea of Okhotsk, off the coast of Hokkaido, spotted a magnificent and very peculiar cloud formation. It looked like long rolls of carpet parallel to each other, curving away into the distance. The spectacular sight can be seen in a photo and video clip at hubpages.Strange-clouds-appear-over-Sea-of-Okhotsk--Japan. http://hubpages.com/hub/Strange-clouds-app...-Okhotsk--Japan

These may have been roll clouds. They are made by waves in the atmosphere known as “gravity trains” and behave rather like waves from a boat. When a boat tears across a lake, water in front of the boat is pushed upward. Gravity pulls the water back down again and this sets up a wave. Usually we cannot feel these gravity waves in the atmosphere because air is far less dense than water, but you are definitely aware of them in an aircraft when they make for a very bumpy ride, in clear-air disturbances, although usually without clouds.

Such rolls clouds are best known in northern Australia as the “Morning Glory”. This is one of the world’s greatest weather phenomena. Around this time of year, the Morning Glory rolls in near dawn as one or more tubular clouds rapidly advances low across the Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Queensland. It can span the entire horizon in a spectacular display up to 1,000km (620 miles) long. And because the cloud rides on a gravity wave in the atmosphere, it has become a magnet for gliders and microlights to ride like a surfer riding a wave. It is claimed to be one of the most exhilarating experiences in gliding.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4974455.ece

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From The Times October 21, 2008

Visit of the Devil in Widecombe, 1638

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The village of Widecombe nestles among the rolling hills of Dartmoor, famous for its impressive church tower. On this day, in 1638, a congregation of about 300 souls were packed inside the church for a Sunday service, when the sky turned pitch black and a fearful thunderstorm erupted. “Extraordinary lightning came into the church so flaming that the whole church was presently filled with fire and smoke, the smell whereof was very loathsome, much like unto the scent of brimstone,” wrote one chronicle.

A great ball of fire came through a window, apparently blasting open the roof, tearing through the wall of the church tower and rebounding “like a cannon ball”.

A pinnacle on the church tower collapsed and crashed through the roof, sending a large beam and building stones tumbling down. Many of the congregation were thrown to the ground, some hit their heads against pillars and died, others were horribly burnt. Several people were killed and about 60 injured.

The ball of fire may have been a violent form of ball lightning, a rare and mysterious form sometimes seen in exceptionally intense thunderstorms. But it was probably accompanied by another rare occurrence. The landlady of a nearby inn described how the Devil had passed through that day, and ordered ale that sizzled and steamed as he drank it. Tornados were often referred to as the Devil in those days, and it is possible that an exceptionally violent thunderstorm spawned both a tornado and ball lightning, an extremely rare and terrifying event.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4980962.ece

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From The Times October 22, 2008

London hit by tornado

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Tornados have hit London a number of times, most recently the ferocious incident that blitzed Kensal Rise, northwest London in December 2006. But on this date 80 years ago, the centre of the capital was struck by a tornado.

About 8.15pm, in pouring rain, a fearsome “gust” of wind ripped through the capital from Victoria to Euston station. The areas around Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Circus were especially badly hit. The roof was lifted off a labour exchange in Great Marlborough Street, narrowly missing one man walking by. “There was a terrific crash behind me and I just escaped being crushed by a great mass of debris,” Mr Maurice Kaizer told The Times. Amazingly no one was seriously injured or killed, although people were swept off their feet and a taxi was blown several yards down a road.

“Shop windows were forced in, electric signs, blinds, chimney pots and huge pieces of masonry of all kinds and projecting portions of buildings were swept away by the gale,” reported The Times.

There was pandemonium at The Piccadilly Hotel, where the front doors were blown up by the tornado’s blast. “The wind howled down the lobby and the next thing there was general confusion,” said a spokesman for the hotel. “The tables at which people had been dining were swept clear of linen, plates and food. Carpets blew up from the floor, and the winds rushed down the chimneys bringing with it a cloud of soot. People were smothered in soot and food.”

That same evening, tornados also appear to have struck Bromley in Kent and Hythe near Southampton.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle4988045.ece

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From The Times October 23, 2008

Night sky with the Moon bright provides wonderful spectacles

Paul Simons Weather Eye

With the Moon still bright in the night sky, some wonderful spectacles can appear. A lunar rainbow, or moonbow, was photographed by Martin McKenna in Maghera, Co Londonderry, last Wednesday and Thursday (October 15 and 16). The rainbow was created as bright moonlight shone through a shower of rain. “The clear sky around the Moon and showers to my west provided the perfect environment for the formation of a lunar rainbow,” said Mr McKenna. “The incredible moonbows were bright and colourful.” His photos can be seen at www.nightskyhunter.com/Sky%20Events%20Now.html

Look out also for thin veils of high cirrus clouds covering a bright Moon. These can create a large circle of coloured light or halo around the Moon. The clouds are so high they are made up of ice crystals, and if these crystals are six-sided and lined up like stacks of dinner plates, they can bend the moonlight into a halo. Red wavelengths are bent less than other colours, so the inside of the halo appears red, although the colour is faint.

Lunar halos should not be confused with a lunar corona, a much tighter ring of coloured light around the Moon. This is created by a veil of thin, low clouds. Instead of ice, the clouds consist of water droplets, and these can scatter the moonlight into rings of light. A corona can give warning of storms approaching, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow described in his poem The Wreck of the Hesperus:

For I fear a hurricane;

Last night the moon had a

golden ring.

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

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From The Times Oct 24, 2008

UFO sightings could be due to atmospherics

Paul Simons Weather Eye

There was great excitement this week when the Ministry of Defence released files on UFO sightings from 1986 to 1992 (The Times, October 20). Among the many reports were stories of phantom objects seen on radar that suddenly disappeared, or strange missile-shaped objects. But there could be explanations for both of these spooky happenings.

Weather radar sometimes picks up echoes from what seem to be small clouds that explode into a doughnut-shaped ring and then vanish. But there is a clue to how these phantom rings appear because they are often seen around sunrise. This is when huge flocks of birds all leave their roost in one big surge, the flock expands as the birds disperse to begin feeding, and so the radar image fades away.

The atmosphere can also do some strange things. Usually the higher the atmosphere, the colder it is. But if layers of warm air sit over cold air a sharp difference in temperature can bend light like a glass prism and create some fantastic mirages. One amazing incident was on March 4, 1937, in the North Pacific when the crew of a ship saw another steamer going the same way upside down. Ten minutes later they saw another horizon, which had appeared above the real one, with a weirdly distorted image of the steamer upside down and now joined to the real ship funnel-to-funnel. A short while later there appeared to be three ships sailing along on top of each other with the middle one inverted. Small wonder that mirages in the sky can create unbelievable sights easily mistaken for UFOs.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5003327.ece

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From The Times October 25, 2008

Prepare for winter's dark cloud

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Tonight the clocks go back an hour and the evenings will get darker earlier.

Benjamin Franklin first suggested that daily life should follow the changing hours of daylight through the year. In 1784 he was American envoy in Paris and proposed that everyone be woken up at sunrise with church bells and cannon fire; it would apparently save Parisians £100 million worth of candles, in today’s prices.

The idea did not catch on, but in 1907 William Willett, a wealthy builder from Chelsea, London, proposed changing the clocks with the seasons. Although he had the backing of Winston Churchill and Conan Doyle, his idea was largely met with scepticism. However, opinions swiftly changed during the First World War when the Germans advanced their clocks by an hour to improve their productivity, and the rest of Europe soon followed suit.

In recent years the debate has returned (Letters, October 24). Adopting Central European Time would synchronise our clocks to most European countries, and also improve road safety, crime, productivity, energy saving and reduce carbon emissions (Comment, October 22). In one bold experiment, from 1968 to 1971, the clocks stayed one hour ahead as British Summer Time all year round. But the dark winter mornings were especially unpopular in Scotland, where sunrise in midwinter was not seen until 10am, and the experiment was abandoned.

But the sudden jolt of being plunged into darker evenings is depressing and makes it feel like winter, even though it is mid-autumn and still relatively mild. Only supermarkets seem to have entered into the spirit of it – their shelves are already full of Christmas goods.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5010050.ece

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From The Times October 27, 2008

Darker evenings highlight the marvel of twilight

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Every year it happens – the clocks go back and suddenly everything is plunged into darkness an hour earlier in the evening. But the darker evenings highlight the marvel of twilight, provided the skies are clear.

Twilight is a special transition time, when the sun is just hidden from view but still lights up the sky. It is the “violet hour” of T. S. Eliot, the haunting nocturne silhouettes of James Whistler, or the spooky juxtaposition of twilight and daylight in the surreal paintings of René Magritte.

As the sun sinks, its light travels through more atmosphere and catches more dust, gases and liquids all floating around in the atmosphere. This gives the glow to the twilight skies and its colours. Some of the best twilights follow volcanic eruptions when the air is full of dust blasted high into the atmosphere.

Twilight officially begins the moment when the upper edge of the Sun seems to coincide with the horizon. Civil twilight ends when the centre of the Sun is 6 degrees below the horizon, when it is too dark to read outdoors, but just light enough to make out objects on the ground and the horizon – the brightest stars can become visible but outdoor artificial lights usually need to be switched on.

Nautical twilight ends when the Sun’s centre is 12 degrees below the horizon, the stars can be distinguished and a distant horizon is no longer visible, except by moonlight. Finally, astronomical twilight ends when the Sun is below 18 degrees and marks the start of night.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5019373.ece

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From The Times October 28, 2008

Lake District Original Mountain Marathon hit by storm

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Some 2,500 runners faced a gruelling ordeal at the weekend when they were struck by high winds and heavy rain during the Original Mountain Marathon in the Lake District (report, Oct 27). The bad weather had been forecast, though, as a deepening low-pressure system in the Atlantic skirted past western Scotland. Embedded in the storm was an active cold front, which dropped nearly a month’s rainfall in 24 hours, with some places getting more than 100mm (4in) over the weekend.

But there was nothing particularly unusual about this storm or that the Lake District is often very wet. The valleys of the Lake District are arranged like bicycle spokes around the mountains, and help to funnel winds from all directions. That airflow is often laden with moisture and when it comes up against the steep fells and mountains of the Lake District, the moisture is released as buckets of rain on the slopes. This is why Sty Head in the Lake District is the wettest place in the UK, on average, with 430cm (169in) of precipitation a year and nearby Sprinkling Tarn set a UK annual rainfall record of 652cm (257in) in 1954.

This weekend also gave reminders of May last year, when 2,400 young people had to be evacuated from Dartmoor during the Ten Tors Challenge. Driving rain flooded streams and rivers, and more than 700 rescuers were involved in the mass evacuation. In 1996 the same event was abandoned during a sleet and snow storm. The weather in the uplands can be ferocious, and organisers and participants in these events need to pay close attention to weather forecasts.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5026049.ece

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From The Times October 29, 2008

Shadow of winter descends

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The shadow of winter has descended on Britain. A bitterly cold wind from the North Pole is bringing widespread frosts and snow to many parts of the country. As often happens with these Arctic outbreaks, Aberdeen and northeast Scotland come off worst with the heaviest snowfalls, but even southern England can expect snow on the hills.

How unusual is such wintry weather in the middle of autumn? Snows fell in England in October as recently as 2000 and 2002, but some of the most remarkable events happened farther back. In 1926, on October 25, blizzards hit Scotland and heavy snows fell over England, with some 5cm (2in) of snowfall in London.

Even more unusual weather struck in October 1880. Braemar, in the highlands of Aberdeenshire, recorded minus 11.4C (11.5F) on October 20, Britain’s coldest temperature for October. Thick, slushy snow fell on London, and Surrey saw snowfalls up to 20cm (8in) deep on the hills.

Oak trees were still in leaf and strained under the heavy weight of snow. “They have all the morning been groaning ominously beneath the burden of a dense sheet of snow,” a reader from Godalming, Surrey, wrote to The Times. “At intervals a sharp crack has marked the giving way of some sturdy branch.”

Heavy snows in October do not necessarily mean that a severe winter will follow. Many of the coldest and snowiest Octobers of the past were followed by unremarkable winters, and the Met Office long-range forecast for this winter has above-average temperatures, although not as mild as last winter.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5033631.ece

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From The Times October 30, 2008

Winter arrives with indecent haste

Paul simons Weather Eye

Winter seems to have arrived with indecent haste this week, in a blast of snow, ice and frost. This is a particularly sad time for gardeners as the last of the non-hardy plants shrivel up and die, especially tomatoes, dahlias and chrysanthemums.

In sub-zero temperatures down on the ground, these plants succumb to damage by ice crystals growing inside their tissues and they die.

Frost is usually the big killer on calm, clear nights in autumn. The ground loses heat rapidly and moisture in the air turns to ice crystals on freezing cold objects. But gardeners keen to prolong the life of their vulnerable plants can use protection without resorting to greenhouses or heating, such as coal fires in the walls of old kitchen gardens.

Before a frost, water the ground. This may sound crazy, because water in the ground might be expected to freeze. But a wet soil can hold four times more heat than a dry soil and help to ward off frost. This is why clay or loam soils, which hold water well, are less prone to frosts than sandy soils, which are full of air pockets, have less water and so cool rapidly at night.

Covering plants can raise the temperature by 3C (5.4F) at night. Woven fabrics make good covers because they are good insulators, but any material is better than nothing. The best time to put on the covers is around late afternoon, but care is needed to avoid their touching the plants, otherwise there is less protection. Next morning the covers should be removed before the sun gets high.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5041737.ece

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From The Times October 31, 2008

Samhain remains a time of magic

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Today is Samhain (pronounced “Sah-ween”), the ancient Celtic festival when the ghosts of the dead came back to haunt the living on their way to the afterlife. With the rise of Christianity, Samhain turned into All Saints Day, or All Hallows, when the living prayed for the dead. But the night before, All Hallows Eve, or Hallowe’en, remained a time of magic.

Recently the spookiest event that happened on Hallowe’en was possibly in 2003. Storms on the Sun launched billions of tonnes of electrified gas that shot through space in the solar wind and rocked the Earth. These were the most powerful solar storms ever measured. The effects on Earth were so severe that satellite operations were affected and long-distance radio communications broke up because of the effects on the ionosphere in the upper atmosphere. Aircraft were rerouted from polar regions where the solar winds impact most forcefully, a power failure was triggered in Malmö, Sweden, and the aurora borealis was seen as far south as Florida.

But this Hallowe’en is completely the opposite. The Sun is at the minimum of its roughly 11-year cycle of sunspots, the dark blemishes on the solar surface where magnetic storms erupt. This year so far has been unusually quiet, the calmest spell of solar activity for 54 years, for reasons no one is sure about. Although this week there have been tentative signs of renewed solar activity, it is too soon to say whether the next sunspot cycle is about to start.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5051311.ece

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From The Times November 1, 2008

Localised storms take their toll

Paul Simons Weather Eye

There were unbelievable scenes in east Devon on Thursday. The town of Ottery St Mary and the surrounding area was struck by a storm lasting around two hours, with about 100mm (4in) rain. Hail piled up to form slabs of ice a few feet deep. The hailstones smashed down in a deafening cacophony, accompanied by lightning and fierce winds. The town was cut off, cars were swept along on the tide of floodwaters, and many residents had to be rescued from their flooded homes.

Yet this was a localised storm – several miles away, Exeter had only a fairly light shower. This made it difficult to forecast, as was true in the case of the Boscastle flood disaster of August 2004.

The storm was created as warm, moist air off the Channel was sucked inland and hit extremely cold air over the UK. The storm exploded over the Blackdown Hills and remained stuck in the same position.

Torrents of rain and hail surged down the hillsides and flooded Ottery St Mary – an area notorious for flooding – where bridges had been swept away by the floods of 1800, 1824 and 1849.

The storm behaved so violently that it may have been a group of storms combined together. It could have taken on the character of a supercell, a ferocious type of thunderstorm notorious in the US for spawning monstrous tornados, enormous hailstones and flash floods.

Such storms are slanted by strong winds coming from different directions high above and last much longer than normal thunderstorms, with devastating effects. Whatever the causes, it is no exaggeration to call this a freak event in what has been a thoroughly strange week of weather.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5059059.ece

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From Times Online November 3, 2008

Dark days usher in spooky weather

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Autumn can be a spooky time of year, especially in calm, cold weather.

In the chill of early morning, ghostly wisps of “steam” can often be seen hovering over ponds, lakes and rivers. They rise slowly upwards before vanishing into thin air as mysteriously as they first appeared.

This phenomenon is sometimes called “steam fog” and autumn is a good time to see it. At this time of year calm waters are still relatively warm. They give off heat and moisture into the cold air above. Just a few inches above the water’s surface the warm air cools off and the moisture contained within it condenses into tiny droplets of water, which is what we see as fog. But as the fog slowly climbs upwards it mixes with drier air, the water droplets evaporate and the fog vanishes.

Something even stranger can sometimes be seen over lakes, especially large lakes.

Fingers of slowly spinning steam can rise up from the water’s surface to create gentle tornado-like formations that are known as “steam devils”.

As plumes of fog form over the warm waters, light winds cause them to dance in slowly gyrating patterns, rather like the whirling of a spinning top.

Over the Great Lakes of North America these steam devils can soar to about 1,000m (3,300ft) high. In many parts of the world they might even be a possible explanation for legends of lake monsters with long necks apparently swimming through the water.

A striking photo of a steam devil can be seen at jpgmag.com/photos/1129560

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5068248.ece

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From The Times November 4, 2008

Britain's speciality — the Helm Wind

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Mr Robert French of Wells, Somerset, asked why many local winds in various parts of the world have their own special names, such as the Mistral in France or Sirocco in North Africa, but Britain seems to have none.

In fact, there is one — the Helm Wind. This is a quite spectacular wind that roars down from Cross Fell, Cumbria, the highest point in the Pennines. The wind plunges down the steep sides of the fell, sometimes for days on end, blasting walkers who dare to venture into its path.

According to legend, the Helm Wind helped to defeat a Norman army in the days of William the Conqueror, when it blew the French cavalry off their horses and gave the Saxons an unexpected victory.

The Helm Wind originates on the shallow eastern slopes of the Pennines before it rushes down the precipice of Cross Fell, often reaching gale force in violent gusts. But by the time the wind reaches the valley bottom a few miles below, it is largely exhausted and conditions there can be remarkably calm.

The wind can be seen for miles around as a telltale bank of clouds hugs the top of the hills like a helmet, hence the name “Helm Wind”.

And several miles farther down the valley, a long roll of cloud can appear, called the Helm Bar, which gently rotates in the sky.

This is created from turbulence as air rises and sinks in a standing wave to create a rotor cloud, rather like the way a fast river sets off standing waves when it hits shallows.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5075729.ece

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From The Times November 5, 2008

Can the weather affect elections?

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Election day in the US was largely dry, sunny and very warm — in some parts around 10C (18F) above average — which helped to bring out the voters. However, the Northwest was soaked by a Pacific storm, and it was stormy in the states of North Carolina and Virginia, where the contest was finely balanced.

But could the weather make any difference to a US election? According to a team of political scientists: “The Republicans should pray for rain.” The researchers matched reports from 22,000 weather stations with voter turnout across all US counties for the 14 presidential elections between 1948 and 2000. The study revealed that turnout drops by about 1 per cent for every 25mm (1in) of rain that a county receives on polling day.

This tends to benefit the Republican Party, whose voters are more likely to turn out in bad weather. The tighter the election, the more crucial the weather. One notable result was the battle between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. “It was an incredibly dry election day, but had it experienced average rainfall our results predict that Richard Nixon would have received an extra 106 electoral college votes, 55 more than he needed to become president,” explained Professor Brad Gomez of the research team at Florida State University.

In the 2000 election, southern Florida was soaked by showers that helped to turn the contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore, according to the study. Had it been a dry day, the political scientists calculate that Al Gore would have won the state and so the presidential election.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5083624.ece

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From The Times November 6, 2008

Could autism be related to the climate?

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Could autism be linked to the climate? In the US, the states with the lowest rates of autism are in the southern parts of the country, while the highest rates are in the north. This paradox inspired a new study that collected rainfall data across California, Oregon and Washington.

The rates of autism were highest among children in places with the greatest rainfall. According to the research published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, the effect of the rainfall appeared in children who had grown up in their first three years in a wet climate.

However, the link may not be directly related to rainfall. It could be, for instance, that children in wet weather are forced to spend more time indoors. This could affect their development, perhaps by exposing them to household chemicals, or from a lack of vitamin D, which is made in the body when exposed to sunshine.

“There is also the possibility that precipitation itself is more directly involved,” the researchers wrote. “For example, there may be a chemical or chemicals in the upper atmosphere that are transported to the surface by precipitation.”

Polluted air and rainfall may lead to other diseases. Scientists at Salford University found that humidity and pollution in the atmosphere together may trigger outbreaks of meningitis. The most infectious type of the disease, meningitis B, is closely linked to weather conditions and poor air quality. And the high level of humidity in the climate may also play an important part in the high incidence rates of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Britain.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5093486.ece

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From The Times November 7, 2008

Lemming numbers dwindling in Scandinavia

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Lemming numbers are dwindling in their native Scandinavia, but this is nothing to do with them jumping off cliffs in mass suicides. In fact, the lemmings’ suicide pact is a myth. The lemmings have a natural cycle of population boom and bust every three to five years and when their numbers peaked it spurred the animals on mass migrations in search of food that occasionally led them to jump into water, where they could swim in any case.

But according to a report in the journal Nature, the lemming population is now in decline without any population explosions. Surveys of lemmings going back 40 years revealed that the last population boom was in 1994.

The problem is warmer weather in late winter and early spring. In recent decades the mountains of southern Norway have experienced the highest temperatures since records began in 1756. That warmth has eliminated the powdery snow that female lemmings used to hide under in tunnels where they had shelter and access to plants to feed their litters in early spring. Instead, the warmer winters have made the snow much wetter, which often refreezes into hard sheets of ice that deprive the rodents of their shelter and food.

With the decline in lemming numbers, their predators have had to turn elsewhere with devastating effects. Arctic foxes and other predators have turned instead to catching ptarmigans and grouse, sending the population numbers of these ground-nesting birds into a nosedive. Although the lemmings will probably survive, the Norwegian mountains have changed with climate change.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5101331.ece

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From The Times November 8, 2008

A very confusing year for weather

Paul Simons Weather Eye

This year’s temperatures have been notable for one thing — they have been largely average. After years of new records broken with dizzying frequency, it seems almost abnormal to return to a normal climate again.

However, last month was slightly cooler than average across the UK, when most areas had their coldest October for five years. It was also wetter than usual in all regions. This is hardly sensational news, though, except for one curious piece of weather information — October was sunnier than August.

Normally the summer would be expected to be the sunniest time of year. After all, the longest daylight of the year usually falls on June 21, the summer solstice. And we live in hope that summer is the season when the clouds might be expected to part long enough to let some of that sunshine through.

But something strange happened this year. It was so cloudy in August that the UK only had an average 105 hours of sunshine, compared with 111 hours for October. And September’s sunshine total also beat August as well. As if that was not crazy enough, even February was sunnier than August, at least in England.

The seasons seem to have been turned upside down, which goes to show what an abysmal summer we had this year. The barrages of depressions that rolled off the Atlantic produced not only downpours but also blotted out the sun with infernal clouds. We sorely missed the Azores anti-cyclone that usually delivers warm summer sunshine.

And to add to the unreality of it all, October also beat the sunshine total for September, which was also fairly gloomy. All told, this has been a very confusing year for weather, but perhaps the normal seasons will return next year.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5108938.ece

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From The Times November 10, 2008

Stalagmite reveals record of China’s monsoons

Paul Simons Weather Eye

A stalagmite found in a cave in northern China has revealed a remarkable record of China’s monsoons and how the climate has shaped the country’s political history.

Each year the monsoons in China dripped water through the cave and gradually built up the stalagmite over 1,810 years. And like the yearly growth rings in a tree’s wood, the stalagmite has yearly growth rings that preserved a record of the annual monsoons. In a new study, published in the journal Science, scientists measured chemicals trapped in the stalagmite’s yearly rings to reveal the history of the monsoons. The researchers then compared this record with China’s political history and found that weak monsoons were linked to the demise of three Chinese dynasties, when weak monsoons led to poor rice harvests and huge social upheavals.

The waxing and waning of the monsoons has been linked to a warmer climate and changes in the strength of the Sun. One tumultuous episode was the fall of the Tang in the year 907. This coincided with a temporary weakening of the Sun’s energy, which the researchers believe led to a cooler and dryer climate. The same factors also brought down the Maya civilisation under severe drought.

On the other hand, strong monsoon rains gave abundant harvests and led to booms in population and some of the golden ages in China’s history.

But since 1960 the link between monsoons and the Sun has broken down and they are now affected more by human-made climate changes.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5120839.ece

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From The Times November 11, 2008

November 1 brings end of hurricane season

Paul Simons Weather Eye

An unexpected storm blew up in the Caribbean last week. Hurricane Paloma turned into into a monstrous Category 4 storm with winds reaching 225 km/h (140mph). Paloma had already hit the Cayman Islands before it lashed Cuba on Saturday with a 14ft (4m) storm surge. Up to 12in (30cm) of rain had fallen by the time the storm began to die out.

The official hurricane season ended on November 1. Although hurricanes are not unknown at this time of year, only four significant storms have been recorded in November, and Paloma was the second-strongest of them.

This has been a phenomenal year for hurricanes. It is the first season that a large hurricane has struck in every month from July to November, with Bertha, Gustav, Ike, Omar and Paloma. In another record, the US was struck with a barrage of six successive storms – Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike.

The worst of these was Ike – a Category 4 storm with 230 km/h (143mph) winds. It was the most massive Atlantic hurricane recorded, reaching 885km (550miles) wide. Ike also had the highest integrated kinetic energy of any Atlantic storm in history, a measure of its power to cause storm-surge destruction. It was the third-costliest hurricane of all time, causing more than $30 billion of damage in Cuba and the US, with 164 deaths.

Is there any significance to all this? We are currently in a very active hurricane period that could last for several more years. Added to that, many scientists believe that warmer oceans are exacerbating hurricane activity.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5126597.ece

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From The Times November 12, 2008

Freak tornado leaves a trail of damage across countyNico Hines and Kaya Burgess

Paul Simons Weather Eye

A freak tornado carved a swath through East Anglia, felling trees, tossing garden furniture over hedges and blowing people off their feet.

Villagers in Suffolk yesterday were surveying the damage left by the twister, which struck at 2.30pm on Monday. Residents of Pettistree saw electricity lines ripped out, windows smashed and chimneys knocked down. Maureen Stollery, 67, said: “Everything was going round and round. It spun the top of a 35ft tree in our garden until it was ripped off. It was pulled clean off and the top spun round in the air.”

The village of Blaxhall, ten miles to the northeast, was next in the tornado's path. Clare Borrett, 35, said: “All of a sudden this really dark cloud came from nowhere and my hat blew off. I tried to run after it - but I could not stop running because of the wind and it blew me over. I managed to get up and saw sparks flying from power lines. Then I stumbled 30 yards to my house and it hit me on the ground again. I had to crawl up a verge and throw myself in a hedge.”

The coastal town of Leiston felt the same force. It damaged the roof at Leiston High School, ripping off a skylight and lifting bins off the ground, Ian Flintoff, the head teacher, said.

Paul Knightley, of Torro, which monitors severe weather, said: “It was almost certainly a tornado. There aren't any other phenomena that would have left such a long, narrow path of damage.” The Met Office confirmed that fronts over southeast England had created the conditions for a tornado.

Yesterday Colin Dolby, 47, a trawler skipper, was missing after his 40ft boat disappeared from radar screens in gales in the Thames Estuary, and a 44-year-old Spanish fisherman died after he was lashed by a snapped cable in 50mph winds off the Scilly Islands.

On Monday a police helicopter spotted the car of Molly Leonard, 91, where she had spent the night on the North Yorkshire moors after pulling over in atrocious weather.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5134406.ece

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From The Times November 12, 2008

Magnificent supernumerary arc over Surrey

Paul Simons Weather Eye

There was a magnificent rainbow in Surrey on Friday. It was late afternoon, the Sun was low and the sunshine caught a shower of rain against a backdrop of dark clouds. The colours of the rainbow were extraordinarily vivid violet on the inside and red on the outside. But another faint bow appeared underneath the main rainbow, with indistinct bands of green, pink and purple. This was a supernumerary arc and is not often seen.

Supernumeraries become visible when the rain droplets are nearly all the same size. They are usually clearest near the top of a rainbow. For years they remained an enigma, long after scientists had established that rainbows were created by light refraction inside raindrops. Rainbows fitted Isaac Newton’s theory that light was made up of a series of small particles, but it could not explain supernumeraries. However, in 1803 the English scientist Thomas Young claimed that supernumeraries could be explained if light behaved as waves, not particles. As the waves of light reflected inside raindrops they crashed into incoming light rather like ripples bouncing off the sides of the bath to create an interference pattern. A similar phenomenon with light in raindrops produced extra bands of light.

Young faced scathing attacks for his theory and was accused of disrespecting Newton. But the wave theory of light won out and dominated in the 19th century. Today we view light as both waves and particles.

Apologies for an error in yesterday’s Weather Eye: the official hurricane season ends on November 30, not November 1.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5133732.ece

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From The Times November 13, 2008

An expected tornado hits UK

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The weather on Monday was a surprise. Deluges of rain, violent winds and a cold blast swept much of the country. Apart from flooding and fallen trees, a tornado also ripped across part of Suffolk, tearing off roof tiles, smashing greenhouses and sending trees tumbling (report, November 12). The tornado left a trail of devastation around nine miles (15km) long, before fizzling out not far from Sizewell nuclear reactor.

This tornado was not quite the freak event that was reported, however.

Britain has one of the highest frequencies of tornados in the world, partly because of its weather patterns, and partly they are easily spotted in a densely populated country. Tornados at this time of year are not unusual, because the sea temperatures are relatively warm and cause instability in the atmosphere, sending strong weather fronts across the UK. In fact, forecasters at the Met Office and the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation had expected tornado activity on Monday.

That weather front was created by a wedge of cold polar air ploughing under a mass of warm air, thrusting it upwards and erupting into violent weather.

The largest tornado swarm in Britain was recorded on November 21, 1981, when 105 tornados struck in a few hours as a cold front swept down from North Wales to southeast England.

They smashed hundreds of homes, wrecked caravans and uprooted trees. Eyewitnesses described how the skies suddenly plunged into darkness before a terrifying roar, like an approaching train, was heard and ferocious whirling winds struck.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5141528.ece

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From The Times November 14, 2008

Beautiful light surrounds the Moon

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The Moon is big and bright this week, and last night was a full Moon, sometimes called the Frost Moon in November. A particularly glorious sight appeared on Tuesday, when a beautiful light surrounded the Moon in concentric rings of pastel colours, blue towards the inside and reds and browns to the outside.

This was a corona, created by patchy low-level clouds sweeping over the Moon. The water droplets in the clouds interfered with the moonlight by deflecting and scattering the light into coloured circles, and because the droplets were all of fairly similar size they separated the light into its component colours. Tuesday night’s coloured rings were strikingly large, a sign that the cloud droplets were small — larger droplets give smaller rings of light.

Mariners knew that rings around the Moon were a sign of bad weather on the way, as a saying goes: “See a ring around the Moon, a storm is sure to follow soon.” The Zuni tribe of New Mexico saw a corona as the moon sitting in its teepee before it rained.

There is mention in folklore because the thin veils of cloud scudding over the Moon often herald the approach of a weather front. In fact, the number of stars within the coloured rings is supposed to forecast how soon the bad weather will arrive — fewer stars will be seen as the clouds grow thicker as the front draws near. As far as Tuesday’s corona was concerned, it was followed by a weather front that swept in from the west as another Atlantic depression made its presence felt.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5149913.ece

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From The Times November 15, 2008

A nice wood fire? Think of the pollution

Paul Simons Weather Eye

An open wood fire at home is so satisfying — logs blazing, wood hissing and crackling, and the sweet smell of wood smoke drifting out into the night air. Unfortunately this causes air pollution.

Inefficient wood fires give off some very unpleasant muck, with fine sooty particles so small that they get breathed deep into the lungs, with serious health problems. They also give off poisons such as nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, dioxins and other foul substances.

Take the experience of Canada, where more than 3 million homes use wood for heating in woodstoves or open fireplaces. On calm winter days, a yellowy cloud of choking smog can hang in the air. The most dangerous conditions are when an invisible cap of warm air sits over much colder air on the ground and like a lid on a saucepan this traps the wood smoke in stagnant air. It has become such a serious problem in cities that public smog alerts are given to warn of the health hazards.

The key thing is smoke. Any smoke that escapes a wood fire is wasted fuel and creates air pollution. If wood is burnt efficiently it should only give off carbon dioxide and water, without smoke, and that needs a highly efficient woodstove or fireplace burning dry wood, with plenty of air, a bright hot fire and ash regularly cleaned out.

Now that wood-fired heating systems are becoming more popular their efficiency is also important for controlling greenhouse gases as well as smog. The carbon dioxide they give off should roughly match that soaked up by the tree when it was alive. And so long as new trees are planted to replace the burnt wood, wood fires should make little overall contribution to the greenhouse effect.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5158271.ece

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From The Times November 17, 2008

Great ball of light strikes Wales

Paul Simons Weather Eye

In the violent storms last Monday a strange incident struck near Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, South Wales.

Annie Dobson was sitting in her living room with her husband when there was a loud crack of thunder. “Between us in the centre of the room this very, very bright white light appeared, it was about 15 to 18 inches in diameter,” Mrs Dobson told BBC Wales. “The ball just appeared around about head height, it didn’t move, it just appeared. The light was so bright that it cast shadows, even though we had lights on in the room at the time.” The ball then vanished with “an absolutely horrendous bang” and the power in the house went off for around 15 seconds before coming back on again. Afterwards there was no sign of damage or evidence that the ball of light had been in the room.

“There was no smell, nothing fell from it, it was just a ball that was there for a split second,” Mrs Dobson explained.

At the same time, another eyewitness upstairs in the same house saw another very bright light drawn from the landing into his bedroom.

This entire incident was probably a case of ball lightning, a rare and fascinating weather phenomenon. These glowing balls of light come in a range of colours and sizes, often drawn into buildings where they can be attracted to electrical equipment before exploding with a deafening blast. Despite their light, noise and appeal for electrical things, they rarely cause damage or injury. However, what exactly they are, or what causes them, remains a mystery.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5167519.ece

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From The Times November 18, 2008

Furious Santa Ana wind fans california wildfires

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Palls of smoke hang over southern California as wildfires rage. Firestorms have destroyed hundreds of homes and more than 30,000 people have been evacuated as the inferno blazes around Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.

The fires were widely expected — after another hot, dry summer had left the vegetation all around tinder dry — and when a furious wild wind blew down from the mountains, it soon fanned the countryside into flame.

This is the Santa Ana wind. It is driven by a huge block of high pressure over the high plateaux of Nevada and Utah and low pressure down on the Pacific coast.

The effect is rather like a sea breeze at night, which is why it is sometimes called the Sundowner, and it drives cool air down from the mountains. As the air rushes down the slopes it is squashed and warms up, rather like squeezing a bicycle pump, and grows hot and dry.

Winds last weekend reached 110km/h (70mph), with temperatures of more than 30C (86F) and humidity down to 10 per cent. The winds often reach their greatest speeds as they are funnelled through the canyons near the coast. The winds fan the fires making them very difficult to fight.

Santa Anas are so hot and dry they are said to cause headaches, nausea and bouts of irritability.

As Raymond Chandler wrote of the unwelcome phenomenon, “Those hot dry winds that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5175386.ece

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From The Times November 19, 2008

Polar air is set to deliver a cold snap

Paul Simons Weather Eye

November seems to be blowing hot and cold at bewildering speed, with another drop in temperature expected at the end of the week when polar air delivers a cold snap.

But things could be a lot worse. Oymyakon in eastern Siberia hit minus 47C (-52F) this week, several degrees below normal. Oymyakon is a village of several hundred people, and famed as the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth. Temperatures there have plummeted to a record low of minus 71.2C (-96.2F), and earned the surrounding region the title of “The Pole of Cold”.

Water has to be delivered by tankers because pipes freeze. Cars and trucks are kept in heated garages because batteries go flat and diesel freezes solid at minus 50C (-58F). But fires are often lit beneath the fuel tanks to keep them from freezing, and because axle grease also freezes it is warmed with a blowtorch. Incredibly, people there believe in swimming outdoors in winter to avoid colds and pneumonia.

As yet tourism has made little impact on Oymyakon.

It is easy to assume that somewhere so cold must lie near the North Pole, but Oymyakon is actually placed well outside the Arctic Circle.

It lies in the middle of a large landmass far from the warming influence of the sea, where a vast swath of snow in winter helps to reflect heat. That blanket of snow helps to create a high pressure system that brings clear skies in, allowing heat to escape quickly into space. And Oymyakon also sits in a high valley surrounded by mountains that trap much of the cold.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5182824.ece

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From The Times November 20, 2008

Dreaming of a white Christmas?

Paul Simons Weather Eye

An Arctic blast with snow is on the way this weekend, with the threat of blizzards in parts of Scotland. But a word of warning for anyone tempted into making an early bet on a white Christmas — snow in November is no guarantee of snow in December, or even a cold winter.

In fact, snow in November is normal for Britain. On average, Scotland gets three days of snowfall and the Midlands gets two days. Even the urban warmth of London does not make it immune from snow every now and again. Despite some wonderful mild autumns over recent years, November 2004 was gripped by a savage cold spell mid-month. On November 18 temperatures fell in only a few minutes as a cold front swept through, and a heavy downpour of rain turned to snow, leaving a swathe of England and Scotland snowed under. And three days later minus 13C (8F) was recorded at Kinbrace, Sutherland — a shockingly cold November day not seen for many years. However, the rest of that winter was fairly unremarkable.

Delving farther back, on November 22, 1993, eastern and southeastern England were treated to a spectacular snowfall, 10cm (4in) deep in parts of East Anglia and Kent, and even London sharing in the snow.

That was followed by a reasonably mild December. And 20 years ago a November snowfall was so thick that Dover was cut off from the rest of the country. That was followed by a glorious Christmas that felt like springtime, and the rest of the winter was one of the mildest on record.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5192146.ece

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From The Times November 21, 2008

The season for fog

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The worst months for road accidents are October and November, after the clocks go back and the evenings are plunged into early darkness. The weather also plays its part, because this is the season for fog.

During the 1960s fog on motorways caused some horrendous accidents. In 1964 police on the M1 reported on one pile-up: “As we approached the accident in fog with blue light going and both of us hanging out of the car windows trying to slow traffic down, cars overtook us at 60mph on both sides. We could hear them crunching into the wreckage ahead.”

Barely able to see the road, drivers lost their sense of speed and distance and ploughed ahead at insane speeds. It was called “motorway madness”. In December 1965 the Government tried to end the chaos by introducing the first new speed limits for 30 years — 70mph on motorways and other unrestricted roads, plus an advisory 30mph motorway limit in fog. The new speed limits were supposed to be experimental but quickly became permanent.

Even so, the multiple crashes grew to terrifying new heights as the motorway network expanded. In November 1970, 100 vehicles crashed on the A1 north of Doncaster; the following November 50 vehicles crashed on the M1 in Bedfordshire and 26 vehicles collided farther up the motorway in Derbyshire. Efforts to improve motorway safety seemed to make little impact, except for one outstanding feature: as clean air legislation got rid of coal smoke, there was dramatically less fog, and November also became much sunnier.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5200870.ece

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From The Times November 22, 2008

Explaining bizarre events in the Byzantine Empire

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The Byzantine Empire lasted for more than a thousand years, but in 1453 the capital, Constantinople, was under siege from the Ottoman Turks. The inhabitants believed that their city would fall only when the Moon gave a sign — and in May that year it seemed to come horribly true.

The first omen was when the Moon went into a long and unexpected eclipse. The Byzantine defenders sought divine help with a religious procession, but that was ruined by a tremendous thunderstorm. As a Greek chronicler later wrote: “Such was the unheard of and unprecedented violence of that storm and hail [that it] certainly foreshadowed the imminent loss of all.” The following day, a dense fog enveloped the city, unsual for late spring. And that was followed at night by a fiery light around the dome of Hagia Sophia, the imposing cathedral of Constantinople. By now the citizens were filled with despair and at the end of May the Ottoman Turks finally took the city.

These bizarre meteorological events could be explained, though. In about 1453, the volcano Kuwae in the New Hebrides blew up so violently that massive clouds of dust were shot into the upper atmosphere. According to the American astronomer Kevin Pang, the globe was wrapped in a shroud of volcanic dust that made the Moon look as if it was eclipsed. Sunlight was also weakened and sent the world’s climate plunging.

And the “fire” over the cathedral could have been an intense twilight created by volcanic ash high in the atmosphere reflecting sunlight from below the horizon — similar fire alarms happened after the eruption of Krakatoa.

Byzantium exhibition is at the Royal Academy of Arts until March 22, 2009

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5209735.ece

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From The Times November 24, 2008

Temperature inversion gives range to radar

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Astonishing progress was made developing radar in the Second World War, sometimes with unexpected results.

A strange quirk was the way radar signals occasionally reached far beyond the horizon, much farther than normal. There were theories that the varying air temperatures were playing tricks with the radar.

Roy Haslett, who died recently, was a radar officer in the RAF in India. From his base in Bombay, he played with radar signals and sometimes reached freakish distances, even as far as the coast of Africa. Intrigued by this curious behaviour, Haslett had temperature readings taken up the radar mast at the Bombay base and found that when the air grew warmer higher up, the radar travelled longer distances.

Usually the atmosphere behaves the exact opposite way – it steadily grows colder the higher it gets, which is why hills or mountains are usually colder. But sometimes a layer of warm air sits on top of cooler air. This is known as a temperature inversion and it can bend the radar signals, just as beams of light bend through water or glass. And when the radar beam is bounced up and down between the temperature inversion and the ground or sea, it can leap over great distances. The same phenomenon also explains why UHF TV sets or VHF radios can pick up foreign stations far away.

Using this strange property, Haslett searched out allied shipping convoys in the Indian Ocean, where they maintained radio silence to avoid enemy detection. Once radar picked up the convoys, their distance could be measured and plotted.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5218626.ece