Weather Eye

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From The Times March 12, 2009

Swept away by the Severn Bore

Paul Simons Weather Eye

This morning one of Britain’s most impressive natural phenomena is due to appear on the River Severn. At about 8.30am a surge of water will thrust up the river as a tidal wave known as the Severn Bore.

The Severn Estuary has the second-highest tidal range in the world, and around the spring equinox, in late March, the tides become particularly large. As a high tide drives through the estuary it becomes funnelled into the narrow channel of the river and is forced up as a wave of seawater that rides over the river’s surface. Apart from an exceptionally high tide, a good bore also needs a lift from low atmospheric pressure and a southwesterly wind piling Atlantic water into the Severn Estuary. The river level also needs to be fairly low to avoid pushing against the incoming tide. Today’s bore will be helped by westerly winds, although these will be fairly weak and atmospheric pressure is high. However, the bore will return tomorrow at about 9.20am on an almost equally high tide.

The Severn Bore also has a long history. In about 47AD the Romans launched an attack across the Severn to catch the British chieftain Caractacus, who was leading guerrilla raids from South Wales. Roman infantry and cavalry crossed from the English side of the channel and reached a large sandbank in mid-river. But they were trapped on the sands by the changing tides and, legend says, a bore swept them away.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5891052.ece

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From The Times March 13, 2009

Remembering General Barclay of Tolly

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The Barclays of Scotland are best known for the bank set up in their name, but another branch of the clan settled in the Baltic and 100 years ago General Barclay de Tolly became a Russian war hero.

During a bitter winter in 1809, Russia invaded Finland and on March 13 attacked Sweden. Conditions were so cold that the Gulf of Bothnia froze and General Barclay used the frozen sea to lead 4,000 men and cannon across 75km (47 miles) of ice from Finland. It was a treacherous crossing, as an officer, F. Bulgarin, described. “The cruel wind, which had been blowing all winter, had broken the thick ice, throwing it up into enormous blocks, like huge cliffs. They rose on all sides, sometimes barring our path, sometimes running along it. From a distance these mountains of ice were an extraordinary sight. It was as if the waves of the sea had suddenly froze in a moment of intense cold.”

There were warnings that the ice could suddenly crack up in a thaw, so the Russians took regular thermometer readings, possibly the first temperature measurements made under battle conditions. These revealed temperatures about minus 15C (5F).

General Barclay reached the Swedish mainland on March 22 and captured the fortified city of Umeå almost unopposed. Barclay was promoted to field marshal and in 1812 masterminded the defeat of Naopleon’s invasion of Russia during another notoriously cold winter.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5897774.ece

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From The Times March 14, 2009

Australia is again in the disaster firing line

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Australia was again in the firing line for disasters this week.

Tropical Cyclone Hamish skirted the Queensland coast with winds of 150mph, a powerful Category 4 storm. It narrowly missed a direct hit on the mainland but forced thousands of residents and tourists to evacuate offshore islands. And after reeling from weeks of heat waves, drought and lethal bush fires, Melbourne was hit by an earthquake last Friday, measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale.

Homes were shaken and some power lines cut, but no casualties were reported.

The skiing season in Europe carries on with some superb conditions.

The past week brought fresh snowfalls to many resorts, although an avalanche near Valmeinier, France, killed four skiers. Temperatures are rising, though, as spring arrives and for Scottish resorts the snows are melting, but this winter’s cold and snowfalls have been a tremendous boost.

Despite the cold winter over much of Europe and North America, the extent of Arctic ice fell far below average. At about this time of year the ice has reached its maximum extent for winter and from now on will now start melting.

This is the sandstorm season over northern hemisphere deserts. A massive storm engulfed Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in orange-brown dust on Tuesday, closing airports, bringing chaos on roads and halting oil exports from Kuwait. Greece and Turkey also were hit by dust storms blown across from the Sahara in Libya. In fact, so much sand is swept off the Sahara at this time of year that it sometimes reaches the UK and other parts of northwestern Europe if the winds blow in the right direction.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5904344.ece

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From The Times March 16, 2009

Just how likely is a climate apocalypse?

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The film The Day after Tomorrow (2004) showed a climate apocalypse, when so much ice melted from the Arctic that it shut down the Gulf Stream, leaving the UK and a large part of the world frozen over. But how likely is that to happen in reality?

The Gulf Stream delivers the heat equivalent of about one million power stations to Western Europe. But most experts are confident that the Gulf Stream is not going to stop, although there are lingering fears that a huge Arctic ice melt may divert its heat away from the UK, leaving us in the cold.

To find out what is going on, measurements have been made from buoys fixed at various locations in the Atlantic. But now a new robotic underwater glider has been developed at the National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton. The gliders are like miniature submarines that can roam the seas for up to 100 days at a time and beam back information on sea temperature, salinity and currents. Scientists can then instruct the gliders to investigate other locations, or dive down to 1km deep into the ocean. This gives a much more flexible and relatively cheap way of sampling the ocean.

Last year the gliders patrolled the seas off the West Coast of Africa. There they measured the effects of the trade winds, which have a huge impact on the amount of heat given off by the Atlantic, even thousands of miles away.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5913842.ece

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From Times Online March 17, 2009

Artificial lights are blotting out the stars

Paul Simons Weather Eye

This week promises some good star-gazing in clear night skies. However, artificial lights are increasingly blotting out the stars in many places, and to find out how bad the light pollution has become we are invited to take part in a star-counting study any night over the next 12 days (March 17-28).

The exercise is to count how many stars can be seen in the portion of the sky around the constellation Orion, the great hunter in Greek mythology. Orion is one of the easiest constellations to find and even from towns and cities its brilliant stars can be seen without a telescope or binoculars, although a clear night is needed.

To make a measurement, you need to wait for astronomical twilight, approximately 20.30 this week in the UK, when the sky is properly dark. Look towards the southwest and search for Orion’s belt, three bright stars close together in a straight line.

By counting the number of stars in the night sky around Orion you can tell how much the night sky is affected by light pollution. Measured on a scale of 1 to 7 — magnitude 1 is for only a few visible stars, normal in urban sprawls such as London, and magnitude 7 is when there are many stars, possible only in the countryside.

Records of the star count can be entered at www.globe.gov/GaN/

For more advice on tips on finding Orion visit globe.gov/GaN/learn_findorion.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5920182.ece

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From The Times March 18, 2009

Beward the winds of March

Paul Simons Weather Eye

March has a reputation as a windy month, and on this day in 1286 Alexander III, King of Scotland, came to grief in a particularly violent gale.

Alexander ruled his realm during a relatively peaceful time in what became known as the golden age of Scotland. Across the border though, Edward I laid claim to Scotland and on March 18 Alexander held a meeting of his noblemen at Edinburgh Castle to discuss the English threat. As the day progressed it grew increasingly dark and stormy, with a bitter northerly wind and driving snow. Indeed, the storm was so ferocious it battered the entire East Coast and in Suffolk the port of Dunwich partly collapsed into the sea.

The nobles urged Alexander to stay in Edinburgh until the storm had passed, but the King was determined to return to his castle at Kinghorn on the other side of the Firth of Forth. By the time he and his travelling party crossed the waters darkness had falled. As they continued the journey through the stormy night Alexander became separated from his companions, his horse fell down a rock face and he was killed.

The death of the King was a turning point in Scotland’s fortunes. Alexander’s only heir was a young granddaughter, but when she died a few years later Scotland was left even weaker. Eventually Edward I invaded Scotland, an act of aggression that led to decades of fighting between the two nations.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weat...icle5927246.ece

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may 26th

Weather Eye: Met Office unveils weather forecasting supercomputer

Paul Simons

Last week the Met Office unveiled a £33 million supercomputer for weather forecasting, capable of 125 trillion calculations per second and one of the most powerful computers in the world.

By a quirk of history, this year is the 50th anniversary of the first computer at the Met Office. Nicknamed “Meteor”, it could perform 3,000 calculations per second and revolutionised forecasting. In the previous decade, the forecasters had had to rely on an electrical desk calculator, not capable of automatic multiplication, and operated by a mathematician.

The first glimpse of what a computer could do for weather forecasting came from a surprising source. The catering company J Lyons, best known for its tea shops, had invested in a computer named “LEO”, short for Lyons Electronic Office. In 1951 this pioneering machine ran the world’s first real business computer programme. An early task was to collate daily orders phoned in each afternoon by the shops and to work out the overnight delivery schedules. This was possibly the first computerised call centre.

The success of LEO caught the attention of the Met Office, and a small number of forecasters were given access to it. Impressed by its speed and accuracy, they realised that a computer had great potential to improve the efficiency of their calculations, crucial for making weather forecasts.

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To those of you who were readers of the 'Weather Eye'

articles, and have missed them while I have been away, please

accept my sincere apologies.

I'm delighted to inform you that I am now in a position to

post these fine articles, once again, on a regular basis

Thanks for your patience

Regards

Brian :lol:

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From The Times November 3, 2009

Rising land could offset rise in sea levels

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Britain is tilting as Scotland rises and southern England sinks, all thanks to the last ice age. Huge icesheets covered the North of Britain, pressing so hard that the land beneath was pushed down. But when the ice melted about 10,000 years ago, the enormous pressure was lifted and northern Britain slowly rose up. However, the country also tilted like a seesaw and southern Britain sank down.

A research team at Durham University has drawn up the most detailed map to date of the way the land is rising or subsiding across the UK, and what to expect in the future. “The action of the Ice Age on our landmass has been like squeezing a sponge which eventually regains its shape,” explained Professor Ian Shennan, who led the research.

Reporting in GSA Today, the scientists predicted that some parts of Scotland will rise by up to 10cm (4in) a century, and could offset the rise in sea levels expected from climate change. North Yorkshire, Cleveland and Mid-Wales will see little change in land levels. But across South Wales, southern and eastern England, the land is expected to sink by up to 5cm (2in) over the next century, adding to the problem of rising sea levels. Those rising seas will have an enormous impact on coastal buildings, roads, beaches, seaports, wetlands and much else. However, the new map can be used to better manage sea and flood defences.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6899859.ece

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From The Times November 4, 2009

Bizarre catches in the seas around Britain

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Something strange is stirring in the seas around Britain. Last week fishermen in the West Country hauled up an enormous catch of anchovies, a fish usually seen in the warmer waters of the Bay of Biscay at this time of year (Report, Oct 31).

An angler using a rod and line in the Bristol Channel recently caught an almaco jack, a fish normally found in the Caribbean or off Florida. And grey trigger fish from the Mediterranean were caught off the West Coast of Scotland only a fortnight ago.

Bizarre as these catches are, they only add to a growing list of other exotic creatures found off the coast of Britain in recent years. Tuna, red mullet, angel fish, pilchard, squid, John Dory, sea horses, leatherback turtles and other warm-water sea life are becoming more familiar visitors off our shores.

The warmer waters of the North Atlantic are encouraging this mass migration, but this is more than just a blip in sea temperature. In the North Sea, our usual cold-water fish such as cod and whiting have been moving northward or deeper as the sea has warmed over the past 25 years. And on the other side of the Atlantic, a similar shift in fish has been happening over the past 40 years off the northeast coast of the US. It all suggests that the seas are being warmed by a profound climate change, driving fish populations further northwards.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6901257.ece

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From The Times November 5, 2009

Autumn has arrived

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Autumn is definitely here. Big beefy cumulus clouds are scudding across the sky, leaves are flying through the air and on Tuesday a tornado ripped through Hampshire.

The season is summed up by an old proverb about November: “Let the thresher take his flayle, and the ship no more sayle.” In the days of sailing ships, this was the time of year when merchant shipping and the Royal Navy came home to safe harbours for the winter out of harm’s way as gales raged on the high seas.

November has a windy reputation because cold polar air collides with warm air from the tropics and the seas, which are still warm after soaking up the summer’s heat. That clash of the air masses sets off a titanic battle, driving a furious band of wind a few miles high in the atmosphere — the jet stream.

The bigger the contrast in temperature between the cold and warm air, the more furious the jet-stream winds blow. And a fast jet stream helps to spawn and drive storms eastwards across the Atlantic.

At present the UK is in the firing line of the jet stream, which is why the wind, rain and clouds are sweeping through the country so fast this week. It looks as if there could be some wet and blowy conditions for weekend bonfires and fireworks, and it stays much the same for the rest of November — typical autumn weather. But at least the rain is good news for wild fungi, which are thriving after the dry September and October.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6903448.ece

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From The Times November 6, 2009

The moon in all its glory

Paul Simons Weather Eye

About the only good thing about the clocks going back is that the dark evenings reveal the Moon in all its glory, as long as the skies are clear enough. This Monday a full moon, called the Hunter’s Moon, loomed up like a great big glowing ball as it rose above the horizon.

In fact, it appeared unusually large thanks to a trick of the eye called the Moon Illusion. Psychologists say it is because the brain becomes confused as it calculates distances of objects on the horizon, such as trees or buildings, but cannot make sense of anything much farther away, such as the Moon, and overcompensates by making it larger. But if you look at the Moon through a cardboard tube the illusion disappears because you can no longer see the horizon and the Moon seems smaller.

The low-hanging Moon this week also appeared to be slightly pink or orange. Dust, smoke and pollution in the atmosphere scatter the moonlight and make it coloured, just as the Sun turns orange and red as it sets.

Much rarer was a lunar rainbow caught by the photographer Chris Walker, in Richmond, North Yorkshire (Times Online, Nov 4). Only at or about full Moon is moonlight bright enough to create a rainbow. In the same way that sunlight makes a normal rainbow, the moonlight is bent by raindrops, splits up into the colours of the spectrum and is reflected into a bow

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6904999.ece

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From The Times November 6, 2009

Tropical storms, floods and hurricanes

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Tropical storms in the Caribbean, floods in East Africa and a typhoon in the Philippines — only the skiers get good weather news. This year’s hurricane season has been unusually quiet, but just as it was coming to an end Tropical Storm Ida blew up in the Caribbean.

Nicaragua’s remote Miskito coast and Honduras were battered with cascades of rain that set off landslides, before the storm headed towards the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. The storm could then turn more ferocious as it feeds off the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and possibly hits the US next week.

East Africa has gone from one extreme to another. After years of drought, torrential rains have set off floods in Kenya and Somalia. Although this is the rainy season, this year’s rains are unusually heavy, boosted by a growing El Niño in the Pacific. Homes and roads have been swamped, and there are fears of disease spreading in the floodwaters.

The Philippines are reeling from the fourth typhoon in a month. Last week Typhoon Mirinae dumped even more rain on an already swamped landscape, killing at least 12 people. Mirinae went on to hit Vietnam as a tropical storm on Monday, dropping 338mm (13in) of rain and killing about 100 people.

Last Friday was one of the hottest days on record in Argentina, when the town of Catamarca recorded 47C (117F). This is close to the record for Argentina of 49C (120F), set in 1905, which is also the highest temperature record for South America.

There is good news for skiers. The skiing season got off to a flying start when decent snows fell on the Alps last month. Last week saw some good snowfalls, and heavier ones are expected this weekend and into next week.

How long this sort of weather will last is anyone’s guess, but a good base of snow this early bodes well for the rest of the season.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6906704.ece

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From The Times November 9, 2009

Arctic geese under threat as polar bears are no longer able to hunt seals off shore

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Flocks of barnacle geese migrated from the Arctic to Scotland last month, but over the summer many of their eggs were stolen by hungry polar bears Paul Simons Recommend? One of the biggest wildlife spectacles of autumn happened last month. Huge flocks of beautiful black and white barnacle geese migrated from their Arctic summer home in Spitsbergen, far to the north of Norway, to their winter lands on the Solway Firth, Scotland. About 30,000 birds flew down, taking advantage of good northerly winds.

But the numbers of geese arriving from the Arctic have come under pressure from an unexpected threat. Polar bears have been stealing the eggs and goslings of the barnacle geese from their nests on the ground in Spitsbergen. Usually the polar bears hunt seals offshore among the pack ice and leave the geese alone. But the Arctic sea ice has dwindled and many bears could not reach their hunting grounds and were stranded onshore. Without seals to hunt, the hungry bears turned to picking off the eggs and goslings. “Although a single clutch of eggs is not much food for a hungry polar bear, vast numbers can be hoovered up in a single short visit by the bears,” explained Dr Larry Griffin at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust at Caerlaverock, Solway.

As a result, thousands of goslings have been lost and the numbers of birds migrating to Solway were hit hard, although numbers were made up to some extent by geese nesting in cliffs in Spitsbergen, out of reach of the polar bears. But if the change in polar bear hunting continues in future years, the ground-nesting barnacle geese of Spitsbergen could face a bleak future.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6908622.ece

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From The Times November 10, 2009

Sudden storm surges after a quiet hurricane season

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Hurricane Ida seemed to come from nowhere, beginning in the Caribbean on Wednesday and rapidly turning into a hurricane before hitting the remote Miskito coast of NicaraguaPaul Simons Recommend? Hurricane Ida seemed to come from nowhere. It began in the Caribbean on Wednesday and, fuelled by warm seas, rapidly turned into a hurricane shortly before hitting the remote Miskito coast of Nicaragua. As the storm passed over land into Honduras it was starved of warm sea water and weakened.

There is some confusion, though, about the impact of Ida on El Salvador. Ida passed to the east of El Salvador and was not directly responsible for the rains, floods and landslides there, which were set off by a separate storm system from the Pacific.

But Ida’s presence in the Caribbean may have helped to draw the Pacific storm towards El Salvador. Ida emerged from Honduras and rejuvenated itself as a hurricane in the warm waters of the Caribbean before sweeping into the Gulf of Mexico. It is now a dangerous storm again, and is expected to hit the Gulf coast of the US today or tomorrow. Powerful storm surges up to 1.8m (6ft) high with high waves are expected, and rainfall up to 20cm (8in).

The surprising thing is that this year’s hurricane season had been very quiet. A growing El Niño in the Pacific killed off many storms with high-altitude winds that ripped hurricanes apart. And it is also near the official end of the hurricane season, on November 30. But some late season hurricanes can be very destructive. In October 1998 Hurricane Mitch dropped rainfalls over Nicaragua and Honduras that killed almost 20,000 people.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6909920.ece

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From The Times November 11, 2009

The wettest November of the 20th century

Paul Simons Weather Eye

If there seems to be no end to the lashings of rain this autumn, at least things are not as bad as they were 80 years ago. There had been a prolonged drought throughout much of 1929, and early autumn was gloriously warm, but all that changed in November when storms and rains crashed down. On November 11 Wales was deluged by the sort of rainfall expected from a monsoon cloudburst, with 211mm (8.3in) at Lluest Wen Reservoir, at the head of the Rhondda Valley. This is the highest 24-hour rainfall total yet recorded in November in the UK. A few miles away in the coalmining town of Treherbert, about 625 houses were flooded, the flooding made worse by subsidences from the colliery workings. Rivers of mud poured down the steep valley slopes, swept through homes and shops and lay several feet thick on roads. Hundreds of people had to be evacuated from their homes.

And the rains carried on for the rest of the month. In the village of Porth, The Times on November 21 reported: “People are still besieged in their bedrooms, and are only able to leave by crawling along planks placed from their bedroom window sills to the railway embankment opposite.” By the end of the month large areas of the Midlands, West Country and South England were flooded. It was the wettest November of the 20th century, and to add to the relentless bad news, the Wall Street Crash reached a new rock bottom on November 13. And December brought no relief, with furious gales and more rain.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6911288.ece

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From The Times November 12, 2009

The season for railways to slip to a halt

Paul Simons Weather Eye

This is the season for the railways to grind, or rather slip, to a halt. It comes as no surprise that leaves fall off the trees in autumn, but for years train services were plunged into chaos by dead leaves on rail lines.

The problem is especially bad after a gale has blown down lots of leaves in heavy rain. When the leaves drop on to rails, the train wheels mash them into a sludge that sets into a thin, slippery coating, and so the train loses traction rather like ice on roads.

The situation was very bad seven years ago when a big storm brought down cascades of leaves. And Eurostar train services also came to a halt when sea spray was blown far inland in France and encrusted overhead power cables with salt.

The solution to the leaves on the line has been to blast the rails clean with water cannons, or a gritting mixture known as sandite, to give the trains more grip. In one case, though, excessive sandite created such intense friction on the wheels that one train caught fire.

This year Network Rail has taken drastic measures to reduce the leaf problem. It has pruned the trees alongside railway lines to prevent leaves from falling on the lines, although this has destroyed woodland on the embankments that provided important corridors for wildlife. Another, less destructive, measure has also been taken some train operators have introduced a slower timetable in the autumn.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6912462.ece

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From The Times November 13, 2009

Jet stream to supply electricity

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Recommend? One of the most imaginative schemes for making renewable energy is to harness the power of high-speed winds racing around the globe a few miles overhead (report, Nov 12). This is the jet stream, and tapping into these winds could supply enough electricity for the world. The problem is how to harness it.

In 1924 the Japanese meteorologist Wasaburo Ooishi discovered that weather balloons launched high into the sky were swept eastwards on strong winds the jet stream. He published his findings, but was largely ignored. The Japanese military, though, took a great interest. During the Second World War it developed a new weapon, the Fugo, a balloon loaded with bombs designed to ride the jet stream, to attack North America. The first Fugos were launched in November 1944 and it was calculated that they would take three days to reach their destination before automatically dropping the bombs. About 9,000 Fugos were launched, of which about 300 reached their destination, even reaching Michigan and Texas. They caused little damage, although one did bring down a power line to the nuclear reactor at Hanford, Washington, where plutonium was being produced for the atom bombs that eventually would be dropped on Japan.

However, the Allies knew nothing of the jet stream and and only learnt about how the Fugo attacks worked after the war.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6914416.ece

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From The Times November 14, 0009

A week of devastating rains

Paul Simons Weather Eye

This was a week of devastating rains. El Salvador was pummelled by a relatively weak storm from the Pacific that killed at least 150 people in floods, landslides and rivers of mud. At first, news reports blamed the disaster on Hurricane Ida, but that had passed by three days earlier, although it may have helped to pull the storm into El Salvador.

Hurricane Ida was also a very unusual storm. Tropical storms this late in the hurricane season tend to be very weak, but Ida was the first November hurricane for 24 years. The storm battered the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua before sweeping into Honduras and re-emerging in the Caribbean, where it grew into a Category 2 storm. Despite considerable weakening in the Gulf of Mexico, Ida still swamped the US Gulf Coast and set off record rainfalls and floods across Florida, the Carolinas and southern Virginia. The remains of the storm are sweeping up the US East Coast with howling winds and damaging storm surges, and could turn into a severe Atlantic gale next week.

In separate incidents, heavy rains and floods also struck Mexico’s Gulf Coast, Tanzania, India and the Italian island of Ischia. One of the week’s worst storms was blamed for plunging Paraguay, a third of Brazil and 60 million people into a power blackout. Strong winds, heavy rain and lightning brought down power lines in Brazil and shut the Itaipu dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric power plant.

A giant iceberg the size of two Olympic stadiums was spotted near an island south of Tasmania and heading towards New Zealand. Icebergs rarely reach this far in warmer waters north of Antarctica and could pose a threat to shipping. The iceberg probably split off a large Antarctic ice shelf that collapsed nine years ago.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6916275.ece

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From The Times November 16, 2009

The savage November snows of 1919

In an extraordinary snowstorm across the whole country, many villages in Scotland were cut off and even the Isle of Wight was covered in thick snow

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The wild weather this month has come as quite a shock after such a balmy first half to autumn — but 90 years ago the weather was far more savage.

November 1919 brought snowfalls that felt like the depths of winter had arrived. The first snows fell early in the month, but an extraordinary snowstorm erupted on November 11, the sort of weather expected in the depths of winter.

Arctic winds drove snow across the entire country, cutting off many villages in Scotland, with 8in of snow on the ground in Edinburgh. Even the Isle of Wight was covered in thick snow. On November 14 the Highland village of Braemar sank to minus 23.2C (-10F), the lowest UK temperature on record for November. “Many enthusiasts of the ski and the toboggan are already having excellent sport,” reported The Times. “Ski and toboggan parties were out till late at night in the brilliant moonlight.” During a snowstorm at Dalton-in-Furness, Cumbria, lightning struck the shaft cable at a coalmine and knocked two men unconscious underground.

It was the coldest November of the century and there were fears that the freeze would last all winter. But a cold snap in November does not necessarily herald a hard winter — an old saying goes: “If there’s ice in November that will bear a duck, the rest of the winter will be sludge and muck.” And the folklore forecast came true, because the winter of 1919-20 was mild and wet.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6917700.ece

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From The Times November 16, 2009

Signs of trouble to come

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Sunday was simply a lull in the stormy weather, as higher pressure squeezed in to give the clear blue skies - but by late afternoon there were tell-tale changes in the sky. Has the weather gone mad? On Saturday hurricane-force winds blew and there were big downpours over southern Britain. But Sunday was a perfect autumn day — clear skies, sunshine and temperatures rising to a balmy 15C (59F) in London.

In fact, Sunday was simply a lull in the stormy weather, as higher pressure squeezed in to give the clear blue skies. And the very mild conditions came from air streaming up from the south of the Atlantic. But by late afternoon there were telltale changes in the sky. Silky filaments of high cirrus clouds began to stream in from the southwest, followed by puffs of cumulus below. And big cumulus clouds billowed up on the horizon, boosted by warm seas in the Channel, and which sparked off some thunder and lightning in southern England.

Another sign of trouble was the shape of the clouds. The wisps of cirrus were all being stretched in the same direction, as if an invisible paintbrush had been dragged across the sky. Even contrails were drawn out in the same direction. This was a sign of the jet stream at work, a river of wind a few miles above our heads. The jet stream has steered storms our way this month and brought more foul weather yesterday. And it looks like the pattern of the jet stream remains much the same for the rest of this week, bringing more wet and windy weather.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6919220.ece

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From The Times November 18, 2009

Remants of Hurricane Ida sset to bring heavy rain

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Be warned if you are feeling battered and bruised from the recent onslaught of gales, there is more to come. Another gale is due to lash the western side of Britain hard today and tomorrow with strong winds and heavy rainfall up to about 100mm (4in) or more could fall on higher ground. Those downpours have been beefed up by the remnants of an old tropical storm, Hurricane Ida, which recently pummelled the US with record rainfalls in many places.

Although Ida died out days ago, its cargo of warm, wet tropical air has become wrapped up in the Atlantic gale, adding to the rainload about to drop on the UK.

There is also something strange about this recent outburst of stormy activity the very mild weather. Today or tomorrow we may see temperatures climb to 17C (63F) several degrees above normal. That warmth is being pumped up on southwesterly winds from the sub-tropics at latitudes equivalent to North Africa. And the heat may last into next weekend, which could make for some magnificent weather, provided the wind and rain stay away. Figures for the month so far from the Met Office reveal that up to November 15, inclusive, temperatures in England and Wales averaged 8.1C (46.6F), which is 1.6C (2.9F) above average, one of the highest temperature anomalies of any month so far this year. In contrast, average rainfall for England and Wales was 88.8mm (3.5in), more than 50 per cent above the norm.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6920362.ece

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From The Times November 19, 2009

Fierce gale helps Admiral Sir Edward Hawke launch attack

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Stormy weather helped to win a crucial naval battle 250 years ago. It was during the Seven Years War and Admiral Sir Edward Hawke commanded a force blockading the French fleet in Brest, Brittany. But in November 1759 a gale blew up and Hawkes ships were forced to take refuge in Torbay, Devon.

Seeing that the coast was clear, the French slipped out and sailed south to Quiberon Bay, near St Nazaire, to rendezvous with their army invasion force.

Learning of the French escape, Hawke set sail in the teeth of another fierce gale and launched a most audacious attack. On November 20 he caught up with the enemy outside Quiberon along a treacherous coast strewn with rocks, reefs and sandbanks. At midday the French spotted the sails of the Royal Navy coming over the horizon and made for the shelter of Quiberon Bay, expecting Hawke to call off the chase. But Hawke took a huge risk and pursued the French into the rocky coastline in the fading light of the evening, with severe winds blowing the ships towards shore. Many of the French battleships were run aground, captured or destroyed, and the rest took no further part in the war.

Nothing but the tempest joined to the shortness of the days saved their whole fleet from total destruction, The London Chronicle exclaimed. The French Navy was crippled and the invasion of Britain was averted it was one of the Royal Navys greatest victories.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6921853.ece

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From The Times November 20, 2009

Manipulating the weather the $64,000 question

Paul Simons Weather Eye

China was recently covered in snow, the earliest snowfall since 1987 and also the heaviest in decades. Thousands of buildings collapsed and about 32 people were killed. But could this disaster have been man-made? Earlier in the month, Chinese meteorologists in Beijing sprayed clouds with silver iodide, a chemical said to encourage rain to form, although a cold front turned the rain into heavy snow.

But would it have snowed without the chemical spray? That is the $64,000 question about trying to manipulate the weather.

It recalls a classic case at the turn of the last century in the US. Charles Hatfield claimed to make rainclouds using special smoke from tall chimneys. Even though meteorologists branded him a fraud, in 1916 Hatfield was hired by the city of San Diego to break a long drought that had left two reservoirs empty. Within days of Hatfield belching his smoke out it started raining in torrents, but with unforeseen circumstances. The reservoirs filled so high that the dam burst and swept away houses and bridges, killing 20 people.

A long list of residents sued Hatfield, but the courts ruled that the rains were an act of nature and not the work of the defendant. It was one of the very few occasions when a conman has been saved by the law.

Perhaps Hatfield’s crowning glory was the film The Rainmaker starring Burt Lancaster in 1956, inspired by his story.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6923809.ece

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From The Times November 21, 2009

The Pineapple Express comes to British Columbia

Paul Simons Weather Eye

It's not just parts of the UK that have been mopping up after heavy rain - 200mm of rain had fell in the southeast of Vancouver Island, Canada. It is not yet the height of summer Down Under but already it has been exceptionally hot for the time of year. Temperatures have been well above 40C (104F) across many parts of southeastern Australia in the past few weeks and in the Adelaide suburbs 45C (113F) was recorded on Thursday.

However, a big and no doubt welcome change is already well under way as the passage of frontal systems and cooler maritime air combine to bring some respite from the high temperatures. Next week top temperatures are likely to be much closer to the seasonal average of about 30C (86F). The current strengthening of El Niño could well be to blame as scientists have for a long time observed a link between heat waves and droughts in Australia combining with El Niño events in the Pacific Ocean.

Meanwhile, in northwest Europe a succession of seasonal low- pressure systems have meant that it has been rather draughty in the past week. Gusts of more than 100mph were reported in exposed western areas last weekend and widespread heavy rain has been falling in the UK.

It's not just parts of the UK that have been mopping up after heavy rain either. On Vancouver Island, Canada, heavy rain tied up with a slow-moving frontal system brought a day and a half of persistent rain earlier in the week. By Monday night more than 200mm (8in) of rain had fallen in parts of the southeast of the island. Flooding was aggravated by melting snow in the mountains and led to power cuts and washed-out roads.

The rain was brought along by a weather system nicknamed the Pineapple Express, a flow of very warm, very moist air all the way from Hawaii that regularly drops its payload of heavy rain on the British Columbia highlands.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6925845.ece

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From The Times November 23, 2009

Huge Atlantic trough is to blame for run of bad weather

Paul Simons Weather Eye

After widespread flooding in the past week the rain looks set to continue, but things may settle down in December. Atlantic weather systems have been queueing up out to the west of the UK for the past ten days and there is little wonder that after such a passage of fronts that flooding has been widespread in many parts of the country.

In these types of situations it tends to be high ground that gets the lions share of the rain and this time around it is no different. In three days from Wednesday to Friday last week, many of the towns and villages in the higher parts of Cumbria and southwestern Scotland had more than 180mm (7in) of rainfall.

The culprit for this latest succession of bad weather is a huge trough in the upper atmosphere several hundred miles to the west of the UK. At this time of year there is still a lot of heat left over from the summer drifting around in the mid-Atlantic but at the same time polar regions are starting to cool off rapidly. This contrast in temperatures is fuelling the latest succession of Atlantic depressions.

With rivers swollen and the ground saturated, parts of the country can expect to see further heavy rainfall up until about Wednesday this week, as yet more frontal systems continue to barge their way in from the west. After that, the forecast is for the low-pressure systems to slowly start to lose their punch. There are hints from the long-range charts that by the beginning of December things will settle down to lighter winds and a brief period of overnight frosts.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6927413.ece

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From The Times November 24, 2009

Weather eye: One of the biggest American storms in history

Jeremy Plester

On November 23, 1950, a depression developed across the Carolinas and then intensified very rapidly as it began to move north This week marks the anniversary of one of the biggest American storms in history. On November 23, 1950, a depression developed across the Carolinas and then intensified very rapidly as it began to move north then northwestwards over the coming days. The pressure drop in the centre of the storm was huge and a ferocious gale was whipped up along the Eastern Seaboard, causing coastal flooding, taking out power cables and knocking over tens of thousands of trees. Wind speeds of more than 100mph (160km/h) were widespread and on the top of Mount Washington reached 160mph at the storm’s peak.

As the storm centred itself over the Great Lakes by November 26, snow had already been falling for several days and much of Ohio had ground to a halt. More than a metre of level snow had fallen in the worst affected areas with drifts of 7m (24ft). At one point the army was called in to clear the snow with tanks.

At the same time record low temperatures for November were reported in Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia and Florida, with many of these temperature records still standing today.

By the time the storm had passed, more than 300 people had perished, millions of homes were left with no power and crops had been destroyed by the frost. The devastation was so bad that insurance companies were facing the biggest weather-related payout in their history.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6928659.ece

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From The Times November 25, 2009

Weather Eye: The wettest habitable place in Britain

Last week’s rainfall at Seathwaite, Cumbria, broke the UK record for a day of rain — 314mm (12.36in). But Seathwaite is no stranger to downpours. This small community in the Lake District is the wettest habitable place in Britain, averaging 3,552mm (139.9in) of rainfall each year. The area is surrounded by steep fells and the River Derwent running through it can turn into a raging torrent in heavy downpours, with rocks strewn along its banks.

From Seathwaite there is a path up to Styhead Tarn towering above, the wettest uninhabited place in Britain. This scores an even more impressive 4,391mm (172.9in) a year average rainfall. And Sprinkling Tarn near by set a UK annual record of 6,527mm (257in) in 1954.

Wordsworth wrote about the chapel at Seathwaite:

“Mother of love! for this deep vale, protect/ Truth’s holy lamp, pure source of bright effect,/ Gifted to purge the vapoury atmosphere/ That seeks to stifle it.”

Seathwaite is especially wet in autumn when the sea is relatively warm and southwesterly winds stream in. The mountains lift the warm, wet air condensing it into clouds and the rain pours down. The valleys of the Lake District help by funnelling the damp air up over the mountains.

One result is a lush rainforest of wet oak woodlands. These contain some of Britain’s rarest ferns, such as Wilson’s Filmy Fern, which need permanent dampness.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6930121.ece

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From The Times November 26, 2009

Weather eye: Wren's ingenious rain gauge

Paul Simons Weather Eye

It is thanks to Sir Christopher Wren that the record-breaking downpour in Cumbria was measured so accurately and without anyone getting wetPaul Simons Recommend? The rain gauge at Seathwaite Farm, Cumbria, was tested to the extreme last week when a new UK 24-hour rainfall record of 314mm (12.4in) was set. It is thanks to Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St Paul’s Cathedral, that this downpour was measured so accurately and without anyone getting wet.

Wren was a prolific scientist and fascinated with weather instruments. He was particularly interested in a longstanding problem with rain gauges. During heavy rainfall they tended to overflow, but in droughts they dried up. In about 1662, Wren solved the problem with an ingenious tipping bucket design. Rain was collected in a funnel and fed down into one of a pair of small buckets, pivoted in the middle like a see-saw. When one bucket was full with a certain amount of water it tipped over and emptied out. The other bucket then took over, collecting rainwater before it, too, filled up and tipped over. The buckets could rock backwards and forwards indefinitely and the number of times they tipped over measured the rainfall.

Wren was rather ahead of his time because there was no convenient way of counting the number of times the rain buckets tipped from one side to the other. Today, an electrical switch records automatically the number of bucket tips and the results are sent by radio signal to a recording centre without the need for a human observer.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6932003.ece

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From The Times November 25, 2009

Cockermouth flood victims 'like those in a war zone'

Russell Jenkins

Householders and shopkeepers caught up in the Cumbria floods are like the victims of war zones, an expert in disaster medicine working in the town has suggested.

Dr John Howarth, who has also worked in Angola, Rwanda and Chechnya, made the comparison as the county was expected to be lashed with further heavy rain overnight.

The Environment Agency warned that more flooding was very likely in Cockermouth, Workington and Keswick, bringing more misery and hampering clean-up operations.

It is only a matter of time before the Calva Bridge, a vital link for Workington, collapses into the Derwent. It was declared unsafe by Cumbria County Council after it dropped several inches.

Dr Howarth once worked for Médecins sans Frontières and now works in a training practice in Cockermouth. He said at Cockermouth Hospital that post-flood depression was a potential problem.

He said: “I have worked in war zones and flood disasters before in the past, but I did not think I would need those skills here.

“It is difficult mentally and physically for the victims of the floods. They have to pick themselves up off the ground. It can cause excess mortality. We have to be careful that no-one else dies as a result of this major catastrophe. Depression is a major issue in these situations”.

Dr Howarth said that the isolation of residents in Workington has brought enormous problems for the health services. There were now 8,500 people in the Northside district cut off from patient services

He said that there was a train line running extra passengers into the town, but no other ease of access across the River Derwent.

“You cannot pass by boat and it is now an 80-mile round trip to cover a distance that used to be around 400 yards,"said Dr Howarth.

“These floods are going to make a large part of the county poorer and over the next one to two years it will have a significant impact on the health of people living here. They will have great difficulty picking themselves up again”.

The collapse of the Calva Bridge will mean that 1,000 homes north of the river will lose their telephone connections.

The clean-up continued under leaden skies, and intermittent driving rain, yesterday.

Peter Gibson, a father of two, who lives besde the Cocker, spent much of the day clearing out sludgy debris from the house. He said that possessions that remained above the water line are now damp. He said: “I honestly did not think the waters would ever rise all this way. When Carlisle flooded in 2005, it also flooded here but nothing like this.”

Alison Watson, 37, owns Al’s Toys on Cockermouth High Street, which was devastated by the floodwater. She found cuddly toys, board games and Christmas gifts strewn all over the floor. There is no electricity or water and she is waiting for a clean-up team, provided by her insurers, to help remove the debris. “It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. It’s Christmas and we’re a toy shop,” she said.

The Environment Agency warned that the overnight rains could run off already saturated ground overwhelming the river system. A spokesman said: “It is likely there will be more flooding. However, it is not likely to be as severe as we saw last week.”

David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader, visited the flood zone. He echoed the words of Tony Cunningham, Labour’s Workington MP, that the floods were of biblical proportions.

Mr Cameron toured Main Street before meeting rescue workers at the makeshift headquarters at the town’s fire station.

He said: “These were completely horrific floods. When you walk down Main Street in Cockermouth you can just see that it was a flood of biblical proportions and there wasn’t any set of flood defences that could have really withstood what happened.”

He pledged the support of a future Conservative government before adding: “The most overwhelming sense you get today, a few days afterwards, is just this incredible community spirit of people coming together, helping each other and working together to sort through these problems and to try to get their lives back together and it’s truly impressive and humbling to see.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6930325.ece

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From The Times November 28, 2009

Snowfall in Europe, floods in Saudi Arabia and icebergs near New Zealand

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Weather patterns have been stuck in a rut this month but the high pressure is giving way and will soon lead to snowfalls in central Europe. It has been another week of wild weather in the UK. After last week’s record rainfall in Cumbria. The same area of the North of England was hit again by heavy rain, although not quite so severely. Ireland also had to cope with severe floods as the River Shannon burst its banks and left dozens of homes at risk in western areas.

A big change in the weather is sweeping through Europe. Weather patterns have been stuck in a rut this month, blocked by a large high-pressure system over the Mediterranean, which has sent barrages of storms on a detour around the UK and Scandinavia, But the high pressure is giving way and will soon allow belts of wet Atlantic weather to hurtle across Europe. Along with much cooler temperatures, this will also drop big snowfalls over the Alps and give a boost to ski resorts, just in time for the new season.

A strange downpour of rain drenched Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. A cold front dropped 70mm (2.76in) rain on Jedda, more than a year’s worth of normal rainfall. Intense flooding in the city triggered what witnesses said looked like a tidal wave, killing at least 83 people, who were mostly trapped in cars and buses or in buildings that collapsed. Winter is the rainy season in this region and light showers are quite common, but such a heavy downpour is extremely rare.

Another rare event has turned into a tourist attraction off the southern tip of New Zealand. A flotilla of hundreds of icebergs is drifting past and could pose a risk to ships in the South Pacific. The icebergs are thought to have split off massive Antarctic ice shelves that cracked up a few years ago because of rising air and sea temperatures along the coast of the continent.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6935159.ece

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From The Times November 30, 2009

The perils of winter warfare

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The Soviet invasion of Finland 70 years ago was almost thwarted by blizzards and temperatures of minus 49C, despite the difference in size of the two forcesPaul Simons Recommend? On this day 70 years ago, the Soviet Red Army invaded neutral Finland. Stalin expected that it would take two weeks to overrun the tiny Finnish Army, but he reckoned without the winter of 1939-40, one of the coldest on record. The Russians were unprepared for blizzards and temperatures of minus 49C (-56F). Their fuel froze, weapons seized up, artillery shells failed to detonate and they lacked white camouflage against the snowy landscape. The Finns were well equipped to launch guerrilla attacks on the Russian encampments, aiming to hit their food supplies and starve them out.

After 105 days’ fighting, the vast Russian army of 1.5 million men overran 77,000 Finnish troops by sheer force of numbers, at enormous cost. More than 1,000 aircraft and 2,300 tanks and armoured cars were lost. Well over 250,000 Russians died, the highest rate of attrition of any fighting in the Second World War.

Some 25,000 Finns were killed and 55,000 wounded — a huge loss in a population of four million. The eastern territory of Karelia was seized by the Soviet Union and many Finnish civilians were made homeless.

The Winter War of 1939 had wider repercussions. Stalin’s army was reorganised and re-equipped for winter warfare. When the German Army invaded Russia in 1941, it made the same mistake of underestimating warfare in winter.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6936783.ece

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From The Times December 2, 2009

Waste coal tar leads to rubber waterproofs

The Weather Eye

The British have a long history of trying to keep dry in the rain using waterproof clothing. The first breakthrough came in 1823 when a Scottish chemist, Charles Macintosh, used waste coal tar left over from gasworks to dissolve rubber and paint in between sheets of cloth.

This set solid into a waterproof material — and so the macintosh coat was invented. Unfortunately, the rubber tended to deteriorate, to become stiff in the cold and sticky in hot weather and was smelly. But after the invention of vulcanised rubber by Charles Goodyear in 1839, the new type of rubber made a far superior waterproof coat. It later made a very good tyre.

But rubber waterproofs remained extremely cumbersome and something lighter was needed. Thomas Burberry in Hampshire noticed that the closely woven linen smocks of local shepherds and farmers helped them to stay dry. He experimented with cotton and found that by using a tight weave in a diagonal pattern, plus a chemical treatment, water droplets were repelled but still allowed the cloth to breathe. In 1879 Burberry patented gabardine, a lightweight waterproof fabric that made a comfortable, water-resistant raincoat. It became a phenomenal success and during the Boer War officers preferred wearing their own Burberry raincoats to the standard-issue rubber macintosh. At the beginning of the First World War Burberry designed the classic trench coat, with about half a million worn by officers.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6939767.ece

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From The Times December 3, 2009

Buckets of rain set to hit the UK

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Is December going to follow November by setting a record for the month’s rainfall across the UK?

The current weather pattern looks set to fire more depressions across the Atlantic and hit the UK with buckets of rain for at least the next week or so. And that wet weather will ride in on another mild airflow, putting an end to the cold, frosty spell at the beginning of this week.

In fact, this is a similar weather pattern to the first half of December 2006. It was unusually mild but very wet, windy and, most shocking of all, a powerful tornado ripped through Kensal Rise, northwest London, on December 7. But around mid-December the weather turned very dry, cold and foggy, and a deep frost on Christmas Day was so thick in places that it looked like a white Christmas.

Whether this month repeats the same pattern remains to be seen. But over the years December has tended to become one of the wettest months of the year in western parts of the UK, although the rain is often broken up by short, sharp cold snaps.

Things were very different in the 19th century, however. December in those days was often one of the driest months of the year, although often bitterly cold. And to add to the misery, it was also a very gloomy month, probably because of the thick smogs from coal smoke.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6941419.ece

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From The Times December 4, 2009

A curious spectacle

Paul Simons Weather Eye

A curious spectacle was seen near Maghera, Northern Ireland, recently. “There was a faint rainbow arcing through the crystal-clear blue sky,” said an observer, Martin McKenna. The puzzle is that rainbows are only supposed to happen when sunlight shines through a shower of rain, so a rainbow in a clear sky should be impossible. In fact, there were showers away in the distance, and the rain was blown over on strong winds.

A correspondent for the Journal of Weather in 1951 wrote of a similar strange experience in Yorkshire as thunderclouds quickly broke up over the Pennines. “At Sheffield was a continuous light rain or drizzle and bright sunshine with, at the most, a few fragments of the disintegrating cloud. A pleasing result was an almost perpetual rainbow over the drab roofs of the city.”

But danger can also come out of the blue. In June 2007 a man was killed in Florida by lightning without any sign of a thundercloud. The discharge was probably a positively charged lightning bolt from a distant thunderstorm. Positive lightning is much more powerful than the usual negative type, carrying up to ten times the current, reaching 300,000 amps and one billion volts. These intense lightning bolts also can travel more than 16km (10 miles) away, which is why they can seem to strike out of a clear blue sky. That’s why golfers and anyone else outdoors need to keep up to date with a good local weather forecast.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6943160.ece

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From The Times December 5, 2009

Storm clouds race through Arabian peninsula

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Saudi Arabia is hardly known for wet weather, but, after a deluge a week ago in Jedda, more than 130 people were killed in flash floods that surged through the city and the surrounding highways. The thunderstorms returned last Wednesday and more downpours are expected in the coming days as high-altitude winds continue to race through the Arabian peninsula, dragging storm clouds with them.

Rain is still pouring down on the UK after the wettest November on record. The vigorous jet stream is to blame, sweeping wet and windy depressions off the Atlantic. Some of that precipitation has fallen as snow over high ground, and the Cairngorm ski resort opened for the first time this season. The same Atlantic storm clouds are also dropping heaps of snow over much of the Alps — about a metre in some ski resorts last week. With many resorts opening this weekend, the new season should get off to a flying start. However, the best snow conditions in Europe are currently in Scandinavia, where temperatures have dropped as low as minus 20C (-4F).

The last day of November marked the official end of the Atlantic hurricane season, which has been the quietest for 12 years. Only nine big storms appeared, of which three reached hurricane strength. But one of those was unusually late: Hurricane Ida struck in November, causing widespread flooding in Nicaragua, Honduras, the Gulf Coast and the East Coast of the US.

The lack of storms was caused by El Niño, a warming of the tropical waters of the Pacific towards South America, which caused high-altitude winds to sweep across the Atlantic and tear tropical storms to shreds. El Niño is expected to flex its muscles over many other parts of the world in the coming months

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6945197.ece

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From The Times December 8, 2009

Bumper crop of holly berries

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Although an abundance of holly berries is supposed to be a folklore sign of a bitterly cold winter on the way, it is actually the result of an excellent early summerPaul Simons Recommend? There wasn’t much sign of a barbecue summer, and autumn turned into a giant washout, but this year’s weather has produced a bumper crop of holly berries.

“It’s probably been the best crop of holly berries I’ve ever seen in 30 years of growing holly,” reported Geoff Gilbert, of Woods Christmas Tree Farm, Solihull. “Even the lack of frost helped because the birds usually start picking the berries as soon as it starts to get cold.”

Since the recent cold snap, though, the birds have started feasting on the holly berries and growers have had to put nets over their plants to stop them from being stripped bare. And although an abundance of holly berries is supposed to be a folklore sign of a bitterly cold winter on the way, it is actually the result of an excellent early summer. “The very hot, dry spell in June was just when the holly was in flower and pollinated by little flies, so the rates of pollination were very high and set lots of berries,” explained Dominic Price, of the charity Plantlife. “And the sunshine and showers over the rest of summer helped to swell the berries, and the sunny September helped them to ripen.”

Holly is also growing rampant thanks to climate change. “In olden days, with harsher winters, rabbits and deer would be forced to eat holly and brambles as a last resort, because they’re pretty unpalatable. But now in milder winters the deer and rabbits are eating grass in the fields,” explained Mr Price.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6947818.ece

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From The Times December 9, 2009

Good growing season for christmas

Paul Simons Weather Eye

This autumn was the sixth- warmest across the UK, in records going back almost a century, and the mild weather has continued into December.

But tomorrow temperatures are set to tumble, with widespread frost. There is at least one benefit to this, though — it will help Christmas trees that are outdoors. “Our biggest concern is to get enough frost because that’s needed to stop the trees growing and retain their needles better,” explained Geoff Gilbert, of Woods Christmas Tree Farm, Solihull.

And the rains over November and December also helped, by keeping Christmas trees well watered. “The trees are full of moisture, so they’ll last longer indoors, which means fewer needles dropped on the floor,” added Mr Gilbert. “I recommend that customers pick up a tree when they’re buying one and feel its weight, because a really dry tree won’t last long.” The only problem with all the rain, though, has been very wet conditions in the fields during the harvesting of the trees.

In fact, pretty much the whole growing season this year has been good for Christmas trees. A hot and sunny late spring and early summer stimulated good growth, followed by plenty of sunshine and showers through the rest of the summer, which kept the trees well watered and warm. To finish the year, all we need now is a good snowfall in a fortnight’s time, although it’s too far ahead yet to predict the chances of a white Christmas.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6949007.ece

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From The Times December 10, 2009

Kelvin-Helmholtz appears in Wiltshire

Paul Simons Weather Eye

There was a magnificent sight in the sky over Wiltshire last Saturday morning. The day had begun clear before a blanket of grey stratocumulus cloud gradually swept in from the south west. The low cloud was partly broken up with some beautiful ripples, created by a wavy motion in the atmosphere. But what really caught the eye was a row of near-identical waves over one edge of the cloud sheet. It looked like breaking waves in a sea caught in suspended animation, each wave cresting in a perfect curl.

This was a rare sight, known as a Kelvin-Helmholtz cloud, which develops between two different layers of air travelling at different speeds. These clouds are a sure sign of turbulence aloft, and not something you would want to fly through. Similar sorts of waves happen in many different places, such as when giant storms sweep across Jupiter or Saturn.

The cloud is named after two Victorian physicists, Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz. Kelvin is probably best known these days for the temperature scale named after him, based on absolute zero, minus 273C (-459F), the coldest temperature theoretically possible. He was also the first scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords, after his success in overcoming huge technical problems to lay the first submarine telegraph cable across the Atlantic. The German scientist von Helmholtz studied how two different liquids behave when a wave passes between the liquids.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6950462.ece

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From The Times December 11, 2009

Just in time for christmas

Paul Simons Weather Eye

The season for kissing under the mistletoe has got off to a good start with a bumper English-grown harvest. Early spring was mild, when the flowers were pollinated by tiny flies, and the berries swelled up in the summer sunshine and showers. But autumn’s lack of frost meant that many trees hung on to their leaves well into November, and the mistletoe berries were shaded and late to ripen. Only now are they turning into a ghost-like transparency, just in time for Christmas.

Mistletoe grows particularly well in Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, perhaps because of the local climate. The botanist Jonathan Briggs, who runs Mistletoe Matters Consultancy, also believes that the plant may be getting an indirect boost from a new visitor. The berries were traditionally eaten and their seeds spread by the mistle thrush, but now another bird is making a more efficient job of it. The blackcap is a small warbler that used to be a summer visitor here, but recently blackcaps from Germany have begun migrating here for the winter instead of Spain, possibly because of milder winters and also food left out on bird tables (report, Dec 4). “Blackcaps are much fussier eaters than mistle thrushes, and they tend to wipe every mistletoe seed off on to a tree branch, where the seed later germinates and burrows into the tree to suck out its water as a parasite,” Mr Briggs explained.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6952037.ece

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From The Times December 12, 2009

All change

Paul Simons Weather Eye

Snow and high pressure in Europe, while North America is battered by Pacific storms caused by El NiñoPaul Simons Recommend? (2) What a difference a week makes. Europe had enjoyed an unusually mild start to winter before a blast of freezing cold weather swept in, as strong high pressure drove cold air down from the Arctic and brought plenty of snow for many places. For skiers in the Alps the snow and freezing temperatures are impressive for so early in the season.

North America has been hit by even worse conditions. A massive storm battered much of the western side of the continent, drenching southern California with rain, and dropping big snowfalls over the western mountains, with more than a metre (39in) of snow over the Sierra Nevada, California, helping to boost the water supplies in this drought-stricken region. Ski resorts in Colorado were stranded in deep snow, and in western Canada resorts faced temperatures down to minus 40C (-40F). The storm then ploughed eastwards with snowfalls in the deserts of Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, before sweeping through the central US with blizzards piling up snowdrifts up to 4.6m (15ft) high and killing 17 people.

Such a big winter storm from the Pacific is typical El Niño weather, when the tropical seas towards South America turn unusually warm. The current bout of El Niño is growing stronger, and has been blamed for torrential rains over Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay over the past two weeks. Flooding and mudslides have killed more than 30 people, and a state of emergency has been declared in more than 130 towns and cities.

The Pacific also produced a big storm that caused a sensation in Hawaii. Mountainous waves 15m (50ft) high pounded the north shore of Oahu and allowed a rare big-wave surfing competition.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6953806.ece