Weather Eye

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From The Times January 6, 2009

A magical winterland

Paul Simons Weather Eye

A magical winterland has descended over much of the country since the new year, as thick frost has turned the landscape as white as snow. Much of this is hoar frost, an old English word meaning white-haired, old and venerable. It is a soft, feathery white layer of ice crystals that covers the ground, branches, wires and most other exposed objects. For hoar frost to form there needs to be clear skies, moist air and freezing temperatures. It also needs calm conditions, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge explained in Frost at Midnight (1798):

The Frost performs its secret ministry,

Unhelped by any wind.

As the ground loses its heat at night, the air grows colder until the moisture contained within it condenses and freezes on twigs, grass or any other exposed object. Once the ice has started to form, the water in the air will freeze directly on the object. This creates interlocking ice crystal needles that sparkle in sunlight as the smooth faces of the crystals reflect the light.

Another sort of frost seen in many places in the past few days is rime. This is a thick mass of white frost that can coat everything like a layer of icing sugar. Rime frost occurs under different conditions from hoar frost – it appears during cold, foggy nights.

Curiously, the water in fog can stay liquid well below freezing, but it instantly freezes on anything it touches below 0C (32F). If the freezing fog blows more droplets on to a tree or another large object the frost freezes on the wind-facing side of the tree, which gives it a surreal lopsided shape.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5454193.ece

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From The Times January 7, 2009

High-pressure system keeps Britain dry

Paul Simons Weather Eye

This winter is not only very cold but also extremely dry, thanks to a high-pressure system stuck over the UK.

Curiously, this weather system has also turned temperatures upside down. Usually if you walk up a mountain it gets colder, which is why mountaintops are often capped with snow.

In December 1784 the naturalist Gilbert White, in Selborne, Hampshire, recorded temperatures that were vastly out of place. He asked an acquaintance who lived on higher ground at Newton Valence to read his thermometer morning and night. White wrote that he had been “expecting wonderful phenomena, in so elevated a region, at two hundred feet or more above my house”, but he was utterly baffled when it turned out that Newton was up to 18 degrees fahrenheit (10C) warmer than his home down below in Selborne.

At Selborne the temperature difference was plain to see in severe frost damage with leaves on many shrubs and trees scorched by the cold. White also described ice needles floating down from a clear sky, the fur of his cat was electric and two of his workmen suffered frostbite. He was so disturbed by this unexpected turn of results that he had both sets of thermometers sent away for checking, but their readings were correct.

It took another 130 years to get a decent explanation for this topsy-turvy weather. Cold air is dense and on calm, clear nights it flows like water down hillsides and collects in pools in valley bottoms and sheltered low ground. These frost hollows have some of the coldest temperatures.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5461580.ece

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From The Times January 8, 2009

The days of the Little Ice Age

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Winters could be so savage in the days of the Little Ice Age, a few centuries ago, that the sea froze over and helped to change the course of history.

In the mid-1600s Sweden was a great military power flexing its muscles in wars against several European countries. But while the Swedes’ attention was diverted on new conquests, Denmark took a swipe at its larger neighbour and declared war against Sweden in 1657. This was a risky strategy and soon the Swedish King, Charles X Gustav, launched a counter-attack. But the mighty Danish fleet held the Swedes back.

Things took a turn for the worse when winter arrived in mid-December that year. In the coldest winter in living memory, the weather turned so severe that part of the Baltic Sea froze over and the Danish fleet became trapped in ice.

On January 30, 1658, in a renewed attack, Charles X marched his army of several thousand troops across the frozen straits between Sweden and Denmark. It was a hazardous operation, with the ice still thin and sagging in places. But the troops successfully traversed the ice and caught the Danes by surprise.

In only two weeks the Swedes swept through a string of Danish islands and eventually put Copenhagen under siege. With their navy imprisoned in ice, the Danes knew the game was up, and in February 1658 they sued for peace. In the ensuing treaty they lost about a third of their territory, while Sweden gained her present territory in the Scandinavian Peninsula.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5469363.ece

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From The Times January 9, 2009

The big freeze

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The southern half of Britain has been in the grip of a big freeze this week. On Tuesday night the frost hollow at Benson, Oxfordshire, recorded minus 11.8C (10.8F), the sea froze off the coast of Dorset and ponds in the fens froze thick enough to skate on them. Unusually, the highest temperatures on Tuesday and Wednesday were in the Hebrides.

The reason for this has been the high-pressure pattern over the UK. As air swirled clockwise around this system, it swept in bitterly cold air from Europe and gave us a shocking taste of a freezing continental winter.

But this week the high-pressure system has slipped southwards, leaving the southern half of the country in the cold, while farther north the door opened for our typical wet and windy Atlantic weather to rush in.

Depressions off the Atlantic also tend to carry milder air swept off the North Atlantic Drift, better known as the Gulf Stream. This is why Britain is several degrees warmer in winter than similar latitudes in Canada. Over recent years, we have got used to unusually mild winters dominated by these warm airflows, but this winter the Atlantic weather has been blocked out by the high-pressure system.

The good news for those tired of the cold snap is that temperatures are rising as the Atlantic takes control of our weather. But with the return of mild conditions will come plenty of rain, in what has been a remarkably dry winter so far.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5477878.ece

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From The Times January 10, 2009

Europe in grip of brutal freeze

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Europe was in the grip of a brutal freeze this week. Huge snowfalls on Wednesday caused widespread travel disruption and were blamed for at least 12 deaths across Europe. While England shivered in temperatures dropping to minus 12C (10F), Berlin froze in minus 21C (-6F) and Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, recorded minus 23C (-9F). This outbreak of intense cold was blamed on a large high-pressure system, stretching from the UK to southern Russia, that dragged down cold Siberian air.

Ice skaters were out on frozen canals in the Netherlands, icebreakers had to clear Rotterdam port, and a rare snowfall on Thursday in southern France left Marseilles with 29cm (11.4in) of snow while Milan was swamped under snow 30cm (12in) deep. But the skiing in the Alps is superb, with cold conditions and fresh snowfalls leaving pistes in great shape.

At the other extreme, heat waves have struck Australia with temperatures soaring above 40C (104F) and a state of emergency declared near Sydney as wildfires took hold. In New Zealand, Christchurch nearly broke its highest temperature record of 35.9C (96.6F) on Thursday.

The rainy season across the Far East has left the Philippines deluged since Tuesday, setting off floods and landslides affecting 46,000 people.

South America is also experiencing a severe wet season, with heavy downpours lashing Peru and Brazil. But weeks of heavy rainfalls in Brazil’s southeastern region has benefited the coffee plantations, which are enjoying a bumper crop.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5484774.ece

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From The Times January 12, 2009

The story of how the temperature was measured

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Three hundred years ago Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit made his first thermometer in his home town of Danzig (now Gdansk in Poland). The thermometer was filled with alcohol and completely sealed, but it was not much use without some sort of scale to measure the temperature.

One story goes that, during the winter of 1708-09, Fahrenheit took a measurement of 0 degrees as the coldest temperature outdoors — which would now read as minus 17.8C. Five years later he used mercury instead of alcohol for his thermometers, and made a top reference point by measuring his own body temperature as 90 degrees. Soon afterwards he became a glassblower, which allowed him to make thinly blown glass tubes that could be marked up with more points on the scale and so increase accuracy.

Eventually he took the lowest point of his temperature scale from a reading made in ice, water and salt, and a top point made from the boiling point of water. The scale was recalibrated using 180 degrees between these two points and Fahrenheit was able to make much more accurate and more consistent measurements of temperature.

But in 1742 a rival challenged the Fahrenheit scale and eventually superseded it. Anders Celsius, in Sweden, invented a scale of 100 degrees between the freezing and boiling points of water and gradually won over many countries. However, the British remained wedded to Fahrenheit until well into the 20th century.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5496379.ece

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From The Times January 13, 2009

Balloon launched to aid climate research

Paul Simons Weather Eye

A new type of super-balloon that looks like a flying pumpkin and, made of material similar to plastic food wrap, has successfully reached the stratosphere and promises a new era in space and climate research.

Nasa and the US National Science Foundation launched the balloon on Dec 28 from Antarctica and it reached its cruising altitude of 33.5km (21 miles) on Jan 8. Unlike conventional balloons, which stay in the atmosphere and last for only up to two weeks, the new design is kept at a constant pressure so that it can cruise at a steady altitude for more than three months. Eventually the balloon will be made big enough to lift a tonne of equipment at a cost some 30 or 40 times cheaper than a satellite launched on a rocket.

Another advantage is that the equipment can be parachuted back to Earth and refurbished for further balloon launches.

By carrying scientific instruments into the stratosphere, astronomers will be able to study the Sun, the solar system and outer space. And scientists will have the chance to study the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere in which the ozone layer helps to shield us from the Sun’s ultraviolet rays. Curiously, the stratosphere is getting cooler as the atmosphere close to the Earth’s surface warms up, and this is partly caused by a loss of ozone. Measurements can also be made of trace greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere, where carbon dioxide gives off heat instead of absorbing it, as in the lower atmosphere.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5504506.ece

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From The Times Jauuary 14, 2009

Is the Coalisland phantom actually mist?

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Spooky things have been going on at night on a remote country road outside Coalisland, Co Tyrone, as reported in the media recently. The figure of a ghostly old woman dressed in a white dress and cape has appeared beside a hollow in the road. According to many accounts, the apparition comes out of the hedges, drifts across the road and stops before slipping away.

But perhaps the crucial part of many descriptions is the word “misty”. Many other sightings of roadside ghosts have been in areas prone to mist and fog, such as Roman soldiers, a distraught woman hitchhiker and a phantom lorry going the wrong way. And it is no coincidence that in A Christmas Carol, Scrooge saw Marley’s ghost when “it was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal.”

Could the Coalisland phantom be something conjured up from mist? The weather over the past three weeks has been ideal for ghost-spotting as cold, clear, calm conditions were ideal for banks of fog to form at night, especially over water, as Henry W. Longfellow wrote in The Song of Hiawatha:

And the fog lay on the river,

Like a ghost, that goes at sunrise.

As moisture in the air condenses into fine droplets of water it forms fog — a cloud on the ground. And on a moonlit night, fog can easily become illuminated into ghostly apparitions. It will be interesting to see whether the phantom appears over the next few days, when mist and fog are unlikely to form in windy, warmer weather.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5511321.ece

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From The Times January 15, 2009

A cold and harsh race

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Last weekend the Dutch went ice skating crazy. An estimated two million people put their skates on and headed for frozen canals and lakes, thick with ice after the long bout of intense cold.

Many hoped that the Elfstedentocht ice-skating race would be held soon. This is a gruelling 200km one-day race between 11 cities and towns across Friesland in the north of the Netherlands. The race can only go ahead with at least 15cm (6in) thick ice along the entire course, which needs temperatures of minus 10C (14F) for seven successive nights. However, the recent run of sub-zero temperatures ended on Monday. Even if the bitter cold returns later this week, the smooth surfaces needed for the race have been lost.

The Elfstedentocht attracts huge crowds and a national television audience, and this year is especially significant because it marks the 100th anniversary of the race, which has been held only 15 times. The most recent race was on January 4, 1997, and had to be organised in two days after a cold front from Russia suddenly froze the country. The race started under torchlight three hours before sunrise and went on until 11pm.

The coldest and harshest race took place in January 1963, at minus 18C (0F), and ended in a ferocious snowstorm. Only 69 out of 10,000 entrants finished the race.

But as winters have tended to grow increasingly mild in recent years, the Elfstedentocht has become an increasingly rare event.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5519314.ece

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From The Times January 16, 2009

Better a live donkey than a dead lion

Paul Simons weather Eye

One hundred years ago a British expedition located the magnetic South Pole in Antarctica. In 1908 the Nimrod expedition, led by Ernest Shackleton, attempted to find the true geographical South Pole, which passes through the Earth’s axis of rotation. The explorers made the first ascent of Mount Erebus, the active volcano of Ross Island in Antarctica, crossed the Trans-Antarctic mountain range and discovered a passage through the Beardmore Glacier – one of the great glaciers of the world. Shackleton came to within 180km (112 miles) of the pole before lack of food and blizzards forced him back.

But another group on the expedition, Douglas Mawson, Edgeworth David and Alistair MacKay, trekked 2,027km (1,260 miles) without dogs or ponies to locate the magnetic South Pole. This is where the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field is vertically upwards, and at that time it was located on land. Unlike the true South Pole, the position of the magnetic South Pole moves about 10-15km (6-9 miles) a year in a northwesterly direction. Since its discovery it has moved more than 800km (500 miles), and now lies off the coast of Antarctica, about 2,800km (1,740 miles) away from the true South Pole.

Of his failure to reach the true South Pole, Shackleton remarked “better a live donkey than a dead lion,” and he returned to the UK a hero. The South Pole was finally reached on December 14, 1911, by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5526360.ece

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From The Times January 17, 2009

Temperatures in Western Europe go crazy

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Temperatures in Western Europe have gone crazy over the past few days. A week ago Madrid was hit by a rare snowfall, and in Germany the temperature plunged below minus 30C (minus 22F) and parts of the River Elbe froze. But temperatures have risen again as the persistent high-pressure system that brought the freeze was shunted away by a high-altitude jet stream. This opened the way for the return of milder, wet and windy weather blowing off the Atlantic. However, colder conditions are now returning, and ski slopes across Europe are being replenished by fresh snowfalls.

Brutal Arctic storms plunged much of Canada and the US into a deep freeze this week. The northeast US has been hit especially hard, but the bitter cold may ease in Washington DC by Tuesday for the President-elect’s Inauguration Day. However, it felt like summer over California as a heat wave broke January temperature records. Santa Ana winds swept down from the mountains, sending temperatures soaring to 29C (85F) in Los Angeles. The region is desperate for rain after two years of intense drought, which may lead to water rationing later this year if supplies do not improve.

In the Philippines unseasonable heavy rains caused floods and landslides that killed 20 people and led 300,000 to evacuate their homes. Fiji declared a state of emergency after relentless downpours over five days dropped up to 91cm (36in) rain as tropical depressions drove in from the South Pacific. Floods left the country’s economically vital sugar crop devastated.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5532737.ece

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From The Times January 19, 2009

Uncovering the mystery of ice circles

Paul Simons Weather Eye

A strange circle of ice formed on the River Otter, Devon, during the recent freeze (report, January 14). The perfect circle of ice was 3m (10ft) across and spun in a complete rotation every four minutes. It is thought the ice may have formed in an eddy in the river. But other types of ice circles found in North America have appeared as thin ice, or a hole in the ice, in an otherwise frozen waterway, pond or lake.

In 2002 a large circular hole opened up in a frozen lake in Brainerd, Minnesota, measuring 2,130ft (650m) long and 400ft wide. At first it was thought to have formed from warm thermal springs, but thorough investigations failed to detect any trace of warm water or unusual currents below.

In February 2001 a circle of thin ice was seen forming on a frozen pond in Greenbelt, Maryland. Office workers from a nearby block had an ideal view of the thin ice circle gradually appearing shortly after the water froze over.

Ice circles have been reported occasionally in Europe, but not in Britain. However, their origins remain unknown. Some people have suggested that – just like crop circles – aliens and UFOs are involved, although in most cases crop circles have been discredited as hoaxes. Scientists, though, can find no signs of fakery in the ice circles, and they are stumped for a rational explanation.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5542500.ece

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From The Times January 20, 2009

Favourable weather for Barack Obama's inauguration

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Conditions for Barack Obama’s inauguration in Washington today will be cold, dry and windy with temperatures just below freezing.

The weather on past inaugural days has been much worse. One hundred years ago William Howard Taft faced a storm that dropped 10in of snow in howling winds. An army of men shovelled 58,000 tonnes of snow from the streets through the night, but trains were halted and trees and telegraph poles fell. Despite that, a large crowd still managed to reach the US Capitol.

On the eve of John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961, thousands of cars were abandoned in an 8in snowfall, despite the use of flame throwers to clear the snow. Amazingly, an estimated one million people braved the elements.

The coldest inauguration day was Ronald Reagan’s second term in 1985. The temperature fell to minus 14C (7F), the parade was cancelled and the ceremony held indoors.

In 1841 William Henry Harrison’s hour-long inaugural speech on a cold, blustery day was followed by a horse ride without a hat or coat. He developed pneumonia and died a month later.

The date of inauguration day was changed from March 4 to January 20 in 1937 so that a president could take office sooner. But that year was the wettest inauguration day of all, when Franklin D. Roosevelt rode back to the White House in an open car in freezing rain.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5548381.ece

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From The Times January 21, 2009

The phenomenon of ice flowers

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Much of the US is in the grip of a savage deep freeze, leading to the strange phenomenon of ice flowers apparently sprouting from the ground. These fragile petals of ice appear wrapped around the dried-out stems of certain plants. They are so thin that they look luminous when the sun shines on them and thedy easily melt or crumble as soon as they are touched. Ranging in size from a golfball to a grapefruit, these delicate ribbons and whorls of ice seem to emanate from plants such as white crownbeard (Verbesina virginica), or the aptly named frostweed (Helianthemum canadense).

For 200 years scientists have been baffled by ice flowers. The astronomer John Frederick William Herschel was fascinated by them and wrote that they “incrust the stalks in a singular manner in voluminous friable masses, which looked as if they had been squeezed, while soft, through cracks in the stems”. It is thought that the sap inside the stem freezes, bursting it like a frozen water pipe. Moisture seeps out from a rupture in the plant stem, and the narrowness of the fissure squeezes the ice into a ribbon-like shape, rather like toothpaste being squeezed from a tube. This ice creates a curling pattern, which shows that the ice is quite plastic, although solid enough to form unbroken ribbons.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5555213.ece

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From The Times January 22, 2009

Hidden benefits of the peasouper

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Charles Dickens called them a London particular and Edward I passed a law in 1272 trying to ban them. These were Londons notorious peasouper smogs, a foul concoction of coal smoke and fog that, in the worst episode of pollution in December 1952, killed an estimated 12,000 people.

The old smogs are gone, thanks to clean air Acts that banned coal smoke in urban areas. The air in cities across Europe became cleaner, visibility became better and public health improved. But there was one unexpected benefit of smog it may have kept climate change at bay. The coal smoke led not only to smog, but also to more haze, mist and fog, all of which helped to prevent sunshine warming the ground. According to a new study published in Nature Geoscience, over the past 30 years the skies over Europe have become far less foggy. In Eastern Europe the number of fogs has halved as dirty industries and coal have been phased out.

French and Dutch climate scientists analysed data from 342 weather stations. They calculated that over the same 30-year period, temperatures in parts of Europe rose faster than the global average. They calculate that up to 20 per cent of Europes warming could be blamed on the improving air quality.

The irony is that one suggestion for reducing global warming is to spray sulphur dioxide, one of the worst pollutants in coal smoke, high into the atmosphere. However, this is such drastic treatment that it is hardly a realistic solution.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5562765.ece

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From The Times January 23, 2009

Mystery of 'UFO attack' on turbine

Paul Simons Weather Eye

A wind turbine in Lincolnshire has had a 65ft-long blade mysteriously wrecked. Strange lights were seen before the damage was discovered, leading to claims that UFOs were involved. However, a nearby fireworks party could explain these. The owners of the turbine, Ecotricity, continue to investigate the possibility of metal fatigue causing the damage, or perhaps a large piece of ice falling from a passing plane.

Two cases of falling chunks of ice were reported this week. On Monday a house in New Malden, Surrey, was hit by a large ice block that made a 6ft hole in the roof. One neighbour described the sound of the crash “like a field gun being fired”, and another witness thought that a gas boiler had exploded.

Huge chunks of ice were left scattered over the roof. And on Tuesday a woman in Guernsey heard the sound of ice chunks crashing into her greenhouse when she herself was struck by a piece of ice. Large shards of ice about 2in thick, and smooth on one side, were found strewn on the ground. These were nothing like hailstones.

In both cases the chunks of ice could have fallen off aircraft, during wintry showers. However, not all large pieces of ice fall from aircraft. The greatest recorded fall of ice was at Ord, near Inverness, in 1849, well before aircraft were invented, and The Times reported that it was some 20 feet across and weighed an estimated half a tonne.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5569939.ece

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From The Times January 24, 2009

Wild Atlantic weather blows away the calm, cold conditions

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Across Europe wild Atlantic weather has blown away the calm, cold conditions that had dominated for about three weeks. A series of storms is sweeping off the Atlantic, driven on by high-altitude jet-stream winds reaching 250mph.

The depressions are tearing a wet and windy path through Europe. Although they have raised temperatures, the ski resorts have had their first significant snowfalls of the year, and with plenty more snow on the way this is turning out to be a good season for them.

Even North Africa has been hit by some stormy weather: in Algeria 15 people were killed during two days of heavy rain; in the Sahara,

El Oued-Guemar was soaked by 94mm (3.7in) of rain, more than its yearly average rainfall of 71mm.

The outlook for western Europe is continuing to be unsettled for the rest of January, although there are signs of high pressure returning to the rest of Europe.

Heavy rains were a welcome sight in California when a Pacific storm on Tuesday brought the first rainfall since Christmas time and broke an unusual winter heatwave.

The eastern side of the US remains in the grip of a big freeze and broke temperature records in parts of the North East as Arctic air invaded from Canada, leaving the President’s Inauguration Day in Washington a cold one. Even Florida suffered frosts, causing problems for orange growers.

The southern hemisphere’s cyclone season is in full swing, and on Wednesday Madagascar was struck by Cyclone Fanele with winds reaching 130mph — equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane — which destroyed hundreds of homes.

The first significant snowstorm of the year hit northern China on Thursday, in temperatures plunging to minus 27C (-17F).

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5576196.ece

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From The Times January 26, 2009

It's horrible outside, but still better than in 1809

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Britain was faced with some of the worst floods on record 200 years ago. In mid-January 1809 heavy rain froze into sheets of ice on the ground, followed by thick snowfalls. On January 24, a terrific gale battered the country, sinking several ships in the Channel.

The storm also brought intense rains that melted the snows and unleashed a deluge of floodwater, which the frozen ground could not absorb. Rivers turned into raging torrents, bridges were destroyed, roads made impassable and several mail coaches were washed away. The total number of people killed is not known, but in Bath several people died when houses collapsed under the onslaught of floodwaters from the River Avon.

Much of the countryside looked like an inland sea. “The whole country is in a most distressing state; it is covered in water,” reported The Times. “The water runs in torrents as high as the parlour windows. Numbers of poor inhabitants have nearly lost all their property, which has been carried away in the streams.” Even George III was left stranded at Windsor.

Conditions grew desperate in London. “In the neighbourhood of Kennington and Vauxhall, a torrent of water has risen, which in its progress has carried away furniture, trunks of trees, cattle etc, and has destroyed a great number of bridges,” wrote Gentleman’s Magazine. But it was not until 1877 that Parliament established river flood prevention measures.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5586885.ece

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From The Times January 27, 2009

Predicting the winter blues

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Weather forecasters are about to help sufferers of the winter blues, or seasonal affective disorder (SAD). In a pilot scheme being started in Cornwall, the Met Office health forecasting unit will send special forecasts of prolonged gloomy conditions to more than 200 people who have signed up for the project. Patients will receive a warning of the poor light conditions by e-mail, text message or phone call, prompting them to use bright light therapy. This involves using a light box fitted with special lamps for 20 to 30 minutes each day, with light far stronger and on different wavelengths than ordinary light bulbs, which helps to counteract the effects of the lack of daylight. “This is the first targeted use of light boxes for SAD based on weather conditions,” explained Wayne Elliott, at the Met Office health unit. If successful, the scheme will be extended to a far larger number of sufferers this autumn.

SAD is a type of depression caused by lack of sunlight from late autumn until early spring, and is estimated to affect about two million people in the UK, causing depression, lethargy and cravings for sweet, stodgy foods. The lack of light may cause an increase in the production of melatonin, a hormone involved in sleep, and a reduction in the mood-regulating hormone serotonin, leading to depression. The condition can become worse farther north in the hemisphere as daylight grows increasingly short in winter.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5594245.ece

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From The Times January 28, 2009

Threat of European avalanches has risen

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The threat of avalanches has risen dramatically across Europe. Three climbers died on Saturday after being swept off a mountain in Glencoe, Scottish Highlands, by an avalanche. And on Sunday ten hikers were killed by an avalanche at a ski resort in Turkey.

Recent heavy snowfalls have heightened the dangers. The weight of the extra snowfall on top of older layers of snow has created an unstable situation. Eventually, the underlying layer can no longer bear the weight of the fresh snow, the snow pack cracks, becomes detached and slides downhill.

However, it is a myth that loud noises set off avalanches because the air pressures in sound waves are far too weak; only very large shockwaves produced by explosions can trigger them.

Another misconception is that avalanches are only triggered high up the slopes. Sometimes skiing on a gentle slope in a valley can trigger an avalanche much higher up the slope, up to several hundred meters away and within a few seconds.

Once an avalanche has begun, a dense core of snow accelerates rapidly, picking up more snow. As its speed increases, the snow sometimes becomes airborne, accelerating even faster. On March 6, 1898, an avalanche at Glärnisch, Switzerland, travelled 6.9km (4.3 miles) in just over a minute, reaching an estimated 349km/h (217mph). It charged down a valley and shot up the opposite slope before slumping back into the valley. Fortunately no one was killed.

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

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From The Times January 29, 2009

When strange winds suddenly blow

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Even during bitterly cold winters in the Alps strange blasts of warm winds can suddenly blow, and on this day in 1704 a spectacular hot wind saved the monastery of Benediktbeuern in Bavaria at the foot of the Alps.

The monastery was surrounded by swamps that made a natural defence against attackers. A new study in the Royal Meteorological Society’s journal Weather describes how a force of 2,000 men from neighbouring Tyrol invaded Bavaria in the depths of a freezing winter, when they could march over frozen rivers, lakes and swamps.

By January 29 they had almost reached the monastery and threatened to sack it. One of the monks, Carolus Meichelbeck, recorded how his fellows prayed for divine help as the invaders drew near – and their prayers seemed to be answered. As the Tyroleans were about to cross the frozen swamps, a powerful warm wind suddenly blasted down from the mountains, melted the ice and left the invaders facing impenetrable boggy land. The monastery was saved.

The miraculous wind is now known as a föhn. As the wind blows down mountain slopes it becomes compressed and often grows so warm that it melts ice and snow. The miracle at the monastery of Benediktbeuern is recorded in a picture, The Anastasia Miracle, by Lucas Zais, the warm föhn wind represented by a burning branch beside the head of Anastasia, the monastery’s saint.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5607648.ece

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From The Times January 30, 2009

A stormy January blasted by gales

Paul Simons Weather Eye

A wet and stormy month, blasted by gales, drenched in rain and buried in blizzards – that was January of 25 years ago, when the UK bore the brunt of furious Atlantic weather.

Blizzards on January 22 in Scotland produced a whiteout more familiar in the Arctic. “People getting out of their cars had found it difficult to breathe,” reported The Times. About 2,000 skiers were stranded and huge snowdrifts up to 20ft high trapped several trains. Snowploughs made little impact on roads and railways as gale-force winds blew the snow back. In one case it was several days before a train was freed from the snow, although the passengers were dug out and put up in local hotels.

The village of Kingussie, south of Inverness, hosted 400 travellers stranded by three trapped trains and blocked roads. In other incidents, RAF helicopters were used to airlift passengers from two trains trapped in the Highlands. The crew of a relief train sent to rescue one troubled train themselves had to be rescued by helicopter. The next day a snowstorm swept across Wales and England with heavy snowfalls.

Another deep depression arrived on January 26 and a tornado and a hailstorm struck Teignmouth, Devon, with the bad weather continuing into February.

Like the weather for the past two weeks, conditions in January 1984 were driven by powerful high-altitude jet-stream winds blasting across the Atlantic.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5614731.ece

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From The Times January 31, 2009

Severe weather benefits few

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Last weekend a deadly storm swept through France, northern Spain and Italy. In the worst storm for a decade, winds gusting up to 110mph ripped roofs off houses, tore down power lines and flattened trees, many of which fell on roads and rail lines.

More than one million homes lost power in southwest France, a sports hall collapsed near Barcelona, and 26 people were killed across southern Europe. Meanwhile, ski resorts in the Pyrenees and Alps reported heavy snowfalls — and more are forecast next week. Scottish ski resorts welcomed the snowfall, although tragedy struck last Saturday when three climbers were killed by an avalanche in Glencoe.

An ice and snow storm paralysed the eastern US last week. Thick coats of ice brought down trees and power lines, leaving more than a million people without power in the Midwest, and 23 people were killed. But ski resorts in the Rockies are enjoying huge snowfalls, with plenty more expected to come in further snowstorms.

The Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne is taking place during the city’s worst heat wave since records began in the 1880s, with temperatures reaching 45C (113F). The heat wave in southern Australia and Tasmania is caused by dominant high pressure, and has led to power cuts and buckled railway tracks.

In Argentina an exceptional drought is affecting the agricultural heartland in the central and eastern and centre of the country.

However, in Peru, an extremely rare rainfall damaged part of the Nazca lines in the desert. Nazca’s dry and windless climate has preserved the mysterious lines for more than 1,000 years since they were etched across the desert sand by ancient people.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5621503.ece

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From The Times February 2, 2009

1859 downpour contributed to dam safety

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Once described as the “most beautiful shortcut in the world”, the nine-mile Crinan Canal was built more than 200 years ago to open up the West Coast of Scotland and improve access to the Western Isles. But after a very wet January in 1859, disaster struck on this day. Reservoirs that fed water into the canal were at full capacity when a torrential downpour struck. At 8pm one of the highest reservoirs burst into a reservoir below, which flooded a third one below that. “With a roar which shook the country for miles round, an avalanche of water, rocks and earth rolled down the mountain side, furrowing a deep watercourse in its way, and instantly obliterating the canal under a mountain of rocks and stones,” described The Times. In only 30 minutes millions of gallons of water swept up vast amounts of rocks, boulders, peat and mud.

A section of the canal was obliterated, and locks smashed into tinder. The people of Lochgilphead near the canal “heard the distant bellowing of the torrent and grating of rocks, and then saw through the darkness the moving flood all around them”. As floodwaters burst out of the canal they swept across the countryside, washing away farms and houses, although, miraculously, no lives were lost.

This was one of many dam failures of the 19th century; it was not until 1930 that legislation improved reservoir safety in the UK.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5634604.ece

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From The Times February 3, 2009

Why is Britain so badly prepared for snow?

Paul Simons Weather Eye

This week’s snowfalls in Britain have been a rude shock, causing huge disruptions, but why is this country so badly prepared for snow? In large cities used to heavy snowfalls, the costs of clearing snow from the roads are huge. For example, Montreal receives about 225cm (88in) of snow on average each winter and spends more than C$50 million each year to remove it using snow ploughs and gritters spraying sand and salt. And across the US, clearing snow and ice from roads costs an estimated $2 billion a year. However, there is another problem afterwards. Damage from the salt used in the gritting operations is reckoned to cost another $2.5 billion a year in corrosion to vehicles, roads and bridges. In fact, so much salt is used for clearing roads that it has changed the ecology of many roadsides, killing trees, polluting streams and even encouraging the growth of salt-loving plants that normally grow on salt marshes or along coastlines.

The weight of wet snow can be so large that the roofs of big buildings can cave in. On January 18, 1978, a huge snowstorm dumped up to 1m (38in) of wet snow on New England. Only hours after an evening basketball match at the Civic Centre arena in Hartford, Connecticut, the weight of snow from the day’s storm proved too much for the structure. At 4am a loud crack was heard as the arena’s roof collapsed and fell 25m (83ft) on to the floor. Fortunately, the building was empty and there were no injuries.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5644841.ece

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From The Times February 4, 2009

The return of the Snowman

Paul Simons Weather Eye

One of Britain’s most endangered species made a sensational revival on Monday. Snowmen sprouted up across the country, rising from heaps of fresh snow, just moist enough to roll into big, plump balls.

The origins of snowmen are lost in antiquity, but occasionally they have reached a high art form. In January 1494, snow fell heavily in Florence and the ruler of the city, Piero de’ Medici, commissioned the youthful Michelangelo to make a snowman. It could have been taken as an insult, but Michelangelo created something which, observers of the time remarked, was the most beautiful snowman ever made. Unfortunately there is no record of what it looked like.

Bob Eckstein, author of The History of the Snowman, discovered the earliest known illustration of a snowman in an illuminated manuscript dated 1380, and now in the Royal Library at The Hague. He also revealed how in 1511 the people of Brussels constructed hundreds of snowmen in scenes depicting some politically charged and highly lewd activities.

On February 8, 1690, a force of French and Native American raiders attacked the stockade of Schenectady, New York State. The guards on lookout had bunked off to get warm and instead built snowmen holding rifles to look like soldiers. The attackers were not fooled and ransacked the settlement

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

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From The Times February 5, 2009

The folkloric forecasting of Candlemas Day

Paul Simons Weather Eye

In all the drama this week, one notable weather date went unnoticed. Monday was Candlemas Day, marking the end of the three months with the shortest day lengths. Now the days are growing lighter it feels as if spring is around the corner, but the land and seas around Britain are reaching their coldest of the year. This is why Candlemas Day marked a turning point in folkloric weather forecasting across Europe.

“If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, Winter will have another flight.

But if Candlemas Day bring clouds and rain, Winter is gone and will not come again.”

The Germans looked to badgers for their Candlemas Day forecast – a badger that stayed in its sett would predict more winter weather. German immigrants to North America replaced badgers with a groundhog – if it saw its shadow then winter would return.

But badgers, groundhogs and the weather on February 2 all give a hopeless forecast. This year’s Candlemas Day was cloudy, but there is no sign of any let-up in winter for the rest of the month.

However, there is one consolation for all the snow this week: “February fill dyke, be it black or be it white, But if it be white, it’s better to like.”

The “white” could mean snow – better than “black”, which is possibly rain. In much of the UK February is one of the driest months of the year, so filling a dyke with snow is good for soaking the ground ready for springtime.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5662893.ece

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From The Times February 6, 2009

The brutal winter of 1947

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Buses and trains were buried in snowdrifts up to 30ft deep, ports were frozen solid and towns were cut off by snow. That was the brutal winter of 1947, far worse than anything we have had so far this year.

Blizzards cut all transport links between the North and South of Britain. As power stations ran out of coal supplies, there were power cuts of five hours each day, leaving the nation shivering in the dark. To conserve power the television service was closed down, radio output reduced, newspapers shrank in size and magazines such as The Economist and Spectator were ordered to stop publishing. Traffic lights were dimmed or went out, and gas pressure reduced so low that consumers were warned to watch out for weak flames that could blow out and cause gas poisoning or explosions. Food rationing grew worse than during the war; even potatoes were rationed for the first time in the nation’s history. Fishing fleets that could get to sea found their nets and catches frozen solid when they hauled them aboard.

The nation remained frozen for seven weeks. The huge damage to the economy led to savage cuts in public spending, and contributed to the devaluation of sterling the following year; thousands of people simply gave up and emigrated. Many historians believe the winter of 1947 was a milestone in the decline of Britain as a world superpower.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5671468.ece