Author Topic: The Weather Station Thread (Read 40299 times)

Wowbagger · « **Reply #100 on:** 27 March, 2012, 10:31:44 pm »

I see from the Met Office that Scotland has produced three new records for March maximum temperatures on each of the past 3 days.

22.8°C on Sunday, 22.9°C yesterday and 23.4°C here.

This is mightily pissing off as we are going to southern Scotland next week.

Chris S · « **Reply #101 on:** 27 March, 2012, 10:32:43 pm »

As I observed to fboab at the weekend. It did this last year. Then the summer was shite.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #102 on:** 28 March, 2012, 08:18:54 am »

It was later in the year though. March was cold pretty well throughout.

April & May were very warm last year. September was warmer than June. I thought June, July & August were pretty well close to average, the max. temp. average being 20.9, 21.3 and 21.6 respectively. (Edit: I suspect the Southend average is higher than these figures. I'm pretty sure that we get warmer summers than most of the country.)

In my garden, on an hour-by-hour basis, this month has been about a degree warmer than last March. Last March was even drier though, and there was only 10mm in April. We haven't had the unusually high temperatures this week that lots of others have enjoyed. Typically about 15 or 16 maximum temperature

http://tickfield.thewalkers.org.uk/weather/NOAA/NOAA-2011.txt refers.

why1040 · « **Reply #103 on:** 28 March, 2012, 12:38:30 pm »

I don't know about the rest of the country, but near Slough we had a marvellous summer last summer-to such an extent that we had a drought and lost much of our hay crop (again). Thankfully had good balanced weather through August and September, so the second cutting was better.

mcshroom · « **Reply #104 on:** 28 March, 2012, 09:37:50 pm »

It was definitely warm in Dumfries & Galloway on the third week in March last year as I managed to get sunburnt arms riding from Dumfries to Glentrool. I didn't think I'd need sun cream in Scotland in March

Wowbagger · « **Reply #105 on:** 31 March, 2012, 12:38:16 pm »

I've just noticed that we haven't had a frost at all this month in Southend. The lowest temperature was 1.8°C on 15th.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #106 on:** 25 April, 2012, 09:47:15 am »

Comparison time, April 2011 and April 2012.

TEMPERATURE (C), RAIN (mm), WIND SPEED (kph) DEP. HEAT COOL MEAN MEAN FROM DEG DEG MAX MAX MIN MIN YR MO MAX MIN MEAN NORM DAYS DAYS HI DATE LOW DATE >=32.2 <=0 <=0 <=-17.8 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2011 04 19.1 8.6 13.3 2.1 242.3 0.0 26.1 23 5.5 11 0 0 0 0 2012 04 13.2 4.7 8.5 -2.7 404.0 0.0 17.4 2 -0.7 6 0 0 1 0 PRECIPITATION (mm) DEP. MAX ---DAYS OF RAIN--- FROM OBS. OVER YR MO TOTAL NORM DAY DATE 0.254 2.54 25.4 --------------------------------------------------------- 2011 04 4.1 -16.8 2.0 11 2 0 0 2012 04 41.5 20.6 6.1 23 15 9 0

The mean temperature this month has been 4.8°C lower than the mean temp last April, and we have had more than 10 times as much rain with 6 days still to go.

What crap!

Chris S · « **Reply #107 on:** 25 April, 2012, 09:49:52 am »

To use a rather excellent phrase that fboab and I pinched from this 'ere forum, and have been using a lot whilst getting hailed/rained/sunned or snowed on:

"it is the weatheriest month of the year".

Wowbagger · « **Reply #108 on:** 25 April, 2012, 09:51:30 am »

I'm sitting here with the heating on and still my hands and feet are cold. 7.5°C at the moment.

Asterix, the former Gaul. · « **Reply #109 on:** 25 April, 2012, 10:00:07 am »

Quote from: Wowbagger on 25 April, 2012, 09:47:15 am

....

The mean temperature this month has been 4.8°C lower than the mean temp last April, and we have had more than 10 times as much rain with 6 days still to go.

What crap!

OTOH, almost everything I planted last year, beech hedge, shrubs of various kinds and established fruit bushes such as raspberries were dismal failures. In what was supposed to be spring, the garden looked like a rather hot part of Spain. And the wet weather has incentivised(!) me to plaster the walls of an entire bedroom. Last year we attempted some tiling in 35°C due to deadlines, it was achieved at great cost of great human suffering.

It's an ill wind..

Wowbagger · « **Reply #110 on:** 25 April, 2012, 10:07:57 am »

Indeed. There's no doubt that we needed the rain.

About 5 weeks ago I went to the Hanningfield Reservoir Essex Wildlife Trust visitors' centre for a cup of coffee. There, they keep a whiteboard updated with the current level of the reservoir and it was 77% full. On Saturday we went past and it was as near to 100% as makes no difference.

ferret · « **Reply #111 on:** 25 April, 2012, 11:14:01 am »

we haven't had a summer here for 5 years, it's not unusual for it to start raining in April and stop in September, nobody makes hay around here any more and even silage is a challenge, but thats what you get in the hills,

mcshroom · « **Reply #112 on:** 25 April, 2012, 04:28:37 pm »

We're colder but the rain is pretty much as low as last year. It's hardly rained here for the last couple weeks

Code: [Select]

                           HEAT  COOL                                          
        MEAN  MEAN         DEG   DEG                        
 YR MO  MAX   MIN   MEAN   DAYS  DAYS  HI  DATE  LOW  DATE   
---------------------------------------------------------------
 11  4  14.5   7.7  11.1   220     3  23.8  22   4.9   17    
 12  4  10.6   4.1   7.3   248     0  12.7  23  -0.3    5    

                               PRECIPITATION (mm)

                  MAX        DAYS OF RAIN 
                  OBS.          OVER
 YR MO  TOTAL     DAY  DATE  .2   2   20
-----------------------------------------
 11  4  35.0     10.0    5   10    7   0
 12  4  29.8     11.0   17   13    4   0

Peter · « **Reply #113 on:** 25 April, 2012, 04:37:04 pm »

Just come across this thread.

In Rochdale we've had two dry days this month, so far. Temperature is 5 deg. We're 600 feet up where I live so the cloud that wings in across the Atlantic, without depositing on mcshroom et al, further west, can contain itself no longer by the time it's been forced up into the colder air. Good March, though.

ferret · « **Reply #114 on:** 26 April, 2012, 02:03:26 pm »

This could be the dumbest question ever, but I'll ask anyway, how do you calibrate a container to measure rainfall (in mm)

mcshroom · « **Reply #115 on:** 26 April, 2012, 02:10:28 pm »

There's a few different ways.

The simplest is to have a pot with a flat bottom and straight sides (no curves) and then just measure how high the water level is in the pot in mm using a ruler.

Another way is to have a collecting vessel, pour it into a measuring cyclinder, and divide between the ratio of the cross sectional area of the cyclinder and the cross sectional area of the mouth of the collecting vessel (then you don't need a square sided collecting pot)

A third way is to place the pot on a balance (assuming rain is water with a specific gravity of 1g/cm³) divide the change in mass by the cross sectional area of the collecting vessel.

ferret · « **Reply #116 on:** 26 April, 2012, 02:18:24 pm »

If you use the first method wont the size of the pot alter the depth of water ?

mcshroom · « **Reply #117 on:** 26 April, 2012, 03:23:32 pm »

The measure of rainfall is a set height per unit of surface area, so as long as the pot has the same cross-section all the way down to the bottom, the area is the same so it can be ignored.

If you have a pot with a 10 cm² cross-section, then it will collect ten times as much rain as one with a 1 cm² cross section, but will need ten times as much water to raise the level in the pot 1mm, so it cancels out.

ferret · « **Reply #118 on:** 26 April, 2012, 04:30:18 pm »

oh ok then, better look for a square pot, thanks for that,

Wowbagger · « **Reply #119 on:** 29 April, 2012, 01:21:57 am »

28th April was the wettest day so far this year with 14.8mm.

If Sunday and Monday yield a further 3mm (we've already had 2mm since midnight) then April will have been wetter than January, February and March combined. I suspect that it's very many years since that last happened. Certainly in recent years April has been especially dry. In April 2007, the Essex & Suffolk Water company had at least one weather station which recorded no rain at all and Mrs. Wow and I, on LEJOG, reached Arran before we needed to disturb our waterproofs.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #120 on:** 01 May, 2012, 03:16:59 pm »

April's records.

TEMPERATURE (C) DEP. HEAT COOL MEAN MEAN FROM DEG DEG MAX MAX MIN MIN YR MO MAX MIN MEAN NORM DAYS DAYS HI DATE LOW DATE >=32.2 <=0 <=0 <=-17.8 2011 04 19.1 8.6 13.3 2.2 242.3 0.0 26.1 23 5.5 11 0 0 0 0 2012 04 13.5 5.4 9.0 -2.2 478.1 0.0 17.4 2 -0.7 6 0 0 1 0 PRECIPITATION (mm) DEP. MAX ---DAYS OF RAIN--- FROM OBS. OVER YR MO TOTAL NORM DAY DATE 0.254 2.54 25.4 2011 04 4.1 -38.8 2.0 11 2 0 0 2012 04 82.9 40.0 15.0 29 20 12 0

In Southend, we had more than 20 times as much rain in April 2012 as we did in April 2011 and the mean temperature was 4.3°C lower.

In Norway, more weather stations than ever before recorded a warmer March than April. March 2012 was the warmest ever recorded there.

http://www.yr.no/nyheter/1.8103535 refers.

andyoxon · « **Reply #121 on:** 01 May, 2012, 03:51:40 pm »

That's quite a difference. Is the Jet Stream the main culprit..?

Wowbagger · « **Reply #122 on:** 01 May, 2012, 03:59:58 pm »

No idea. This last weekend was the wettest by far, accounting for more than ⅓ of the monthly total, and that seemed to come from the south-east.

Edit: April 2011 was, for much of Britain, the warmest on record and March 2012 was also a record-breaker for its high temperatures in Scotland.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #123 on:** 29 June, 2012, 05:18:41 pm »

The BBC tells us that the 2012 April to June period is the wettest on record, and already that June is the second wettest June in the UK since 2010. There's always a lot of local variation in these readings, as or Southend, or at least, my bit of it, June 2011 was wetter than this month. June 2011 was boosted by two exceptionally wet days, 6th and 28th. On 6th, 24.2mm fell, whereas on 28th it was 22.5mm. In the latter case, all that rain fell in less than 90 minutes, and 15mm fell in 30 min. This month, the wettest two days were 3rd (13.4mm) and 11th (10.4mm). June 2012 was also quite a bit colder than June 2011.

I read that some poor unfortunate chap died near Ludlow when he was swept away by a swollen stream. I spoke to my brother this morning, who lives further north in Shropshire, and he recorded only 1mm rain yesterday.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #124 on:** 07 July, 2012, 12:16:50 am »

I was talking to someone from Chile but who has lived here since September, they said "The winter was good for us but I'm finding it difficult to understand your summer." I replied that we're all finding it difficult to understand this summer.

Author Topic: The Weather Station Thread (Read 40299 times)

Chris S

Chris S