A random thread for weatherish things that don't warrant a thread of their own.

[ian]

Hmm, I was in northern Ontario once and the cloud of midges was so dense that you couldn't see your hand.

[Basil]

Hurrumph.  A max of 28 my arse.  32.5 at 4pm and still rising.  I've never seen 32+ here before.

[Mr Larrington]

Still 12 degrees with sun, sea-level cloud and drizzle all at the same time.  Fortunately time spent outside tomorrow is limited to we can dress for Gatwick rather than Lerwick.

[JonBuoy]

There was an impressive-looking band of rain running from Oxford to Newcastle on the radar an hour ago.  It looked particularly active as it passed over Leicestershire but not a drop of rain touched the ground.  A load of weird-looking clouds but no precipitation   

[phantasmagoriana]

We had hail, torrential rain, thunder and lightning earlier. Made the last 10 miles of my bike ride somewhat unpleasant.

[T42]

Couple of cyclists died of 'malaise' down south yesterday, one of them in the Dentelles de Montmirail which I know & love.  Cycling up mountains in >>40°C is its own reward.  I had trouble keeping going on the flat 5 years ago when it was 42° on the road, it'll have been >50° on the road down there.

[ElyDave]

Majorca a few years ago I arrived into a >40C heatwave, put the bike together and gave up on the test ride after about 15mins and turned round.  With the wind it was like being a fan oven.

Luckily it broke the next day, and my planned ride days were cool enough if you were back at the hotel by noon for calamari and fries with a nice cool beer.

[Mrs Pingu]

We left Berlin at 6am just in time to miss the forecast 39C. Good timing.

[Kim]

TIL that Young People don't understand what "Scorchio!" means.

[T42]

It was still 28-ish when we went to bed last night, hotter than indoors but we opened up all the windows anyway.  It dropped to ~24° overnight but there was no wind, so it stayed hot & muggy indoors all night.  Cloudy now but heating up and the air outside is thick: we took a stroll round the village this morning and came home sweating.  Needs a dose of rain and a good breeze.

[Jurek]

We've just had the hottest day of the year, and here at work we are printing tat for Christmas.

[andrewc]

Cool & blustery in Liverpool.   Very windy over the weekend.  Someone didn't shut the downstairs door properly , looks like the wind caught it & now one of the glass panes is broken.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's been over 40 degrees in France. High 20s here. Highest in Poland was 38 in the southwest of the country. And last night, in the same region, it was –1.5. Frost in July. Crazy weather.

[Kim]

It's been over 40 degrees in France. High 20s here. Highest in Poland was 38 in the southwest of the country. And last night, in the same region, it was –1.5. Frost in July. Crazy weather.

I just heard that and wondered if they were using Gas Marks...

[Cudzoziemiec]

Negative gas marks? 

[Kim]

Negative gas marks? 

Fairly sure the cooker we had when I was a PSO would have been calibrated in such, if it was in any way calibrated.  Soggy oven chips were a speciality.

(Prior experience has taught me that the equation for converting gas marks, unless handled with tranquillity, can result in considerable stress, ulcers and even death.)

[Cudzoziemiec]

As far as I remember, gas ovens in Poland are just marked high and low. (And what about 'regulo' markings. Were they just another name for 'gas mark n' or were they a separate scale?)

[Basil]

Gosh, I haven't heard the term Regulo for years.  I think my mother used it, so I assume that Regulo and Mark are the same thing.

[Wowbagger]

Gosh, I haven't heard the term Regulo for years.  I think my mother used it, so I assume that Regulo and Mark are the same thing.

It's part of the lexicon of our kitchen!

When my parents moved in with us in 2001 - a few months before my mother's 90th birthday - they were Determined To Make Themselves Useful Around The House. Thus it was that my mother cleaned the cooker so vigorously that she sandpapered all the numbers of the regulo knob and then felt so guilty that she bought us a new cooker.

It was as a pre-emptive measure that we bought our first dishwasher, shortly before they moved in. I knew that they would want to "help" with the washing up, and we also knew what their dishwashing quality control was like, and how it left a good deal to be desired.

[Cudzoziemiec]

That's some sandpapering!

[T42]

MrsT read this out to me last night:

I do think that, of all the silly, irritating tomfoolishness by which we
are plagued, this “weather-forecast” fraud is about the most aggravating.
It “forecasts” precisely what happened yesterday or the day before, and
precisely the opposite of what is going to happen to-day.

I remember a holiday of mine being completely ruined one late autumn by
our paying attention to the weather report of the local newspaper.
“Heavy showers, with thunderstorms, may be expected to-day,” it would say
on Monday, and so we would give up our picnic, and stop indoors all day,
waiting for the rain.—And people would pass the house, going off in
wagonettes and coaches as jolly and merry as could be, the sun shining
out, and not a cloud to be seen.

“Ah!” we said, as we stood looking out at them through the window, “won’t
they come home soaked!”

And we chuckled to think how wet they were going to get, and came back
and stirred the fire, and got our books, and arranged our specimens of
seaweed and cockle shells.  By twelve o’clock, with the sun pouring into
the room, the heat became quite oppressive, and we wondered when those
heavy showers and occasional thunderstorms were going to begin.

“Ah! they’ll come in the afternoon, you’ll find,” we said to each other.
“Oh, _won’t_ those people get wet.  What a lark!”

At one o’clock, the landlady would come in to ask if we weren’t going
out, as it seemed such a lovely day.

“No, no,” we replied, with a knowing chuckle, “not we.  We don’t mean
to get wet—no, no.”

And when the afternoon was nearly gone, and still there was no sign of
rain, we tried to cheer ourselves up with the idea that it would come
down all at once, just as the people had started for home, and were out
of the reach of any shelter, and that they would thus get more drenched
than ever.  But not a drop ever fell, and it finished a grand day, and a
lovely night after it.

- Jerome K. Jerome, 1889

Nothing has changed.