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School Weather News 1999
From:
education@royal-met-soc.org.uk
Subject: MetLinkInternational Day 4
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 21:30:52 -0000
Dear MetLink friends
Today, let us start in the middle of the South Atlantic, where the
weather appears to have been very nice indeed.
Tristan da Cunha seems to
have been an idyllic place -- calm, sunny, pleasantly warm (at least
for those in the UK and Scandinavia), blue sea, sun high in the sky,
superb scenery -- right in the centre of an anticyclone (1023 mb), as
you will have seen if you have found the weather chart for the
South Atlantic which John Harris
(Radley College) has so
kindly provided for us among the MetLink Web pages. For the URL (Web
address), see the e-mail he sent out to everyone today. Tristan da
Cunha appears to me to have been the perfect place to relax today.
Has my imagination run riot, St Mary's, or was it even nicer than
I imagine?
Thousands of km to the south of Tristan da Cunha, between 60 deg S
and the coast of Antarctica, there is a string of depressions.
Between 40 and 60 deg S, there is a region of strong westerly winds,
driving along the great current of the Southern Ocean, the West Wind
Drift. The romantic streak in me must have taken hold today, for I
picture the albatrosses and shearwaters using these winds to soar
effortlessly over the ocean.
http://www.wndrland.demon.co.uk/tristan_da_cunha/tristan_history.html
Over southern Africa, there's more cloud than yesterday and it's
clear that many of the clouds are of the cumulonimbus type, as they
appear as white patches (which are the tops of the anvils of the
clouds) on the IR (infra-red) and WV (water vapour)
Meteosat Image (also available from the
Nottingham University). The cloud systems do not appear to be as
intense as yesterday, however, and that is borne out by today's
weather and rainfall reports from southern Africa. For details of
rainfall in Zimbabwe, see
http://weather.utande.co.zw/dbase/rainfall.idc
http://weather.utande.co.zw/dbase/latest.idc
http://weather.utande.co.zw/dbase/zim-weather.idc
For details of rainfall in Zambia, see
http://www.zamnet.zm/zamnet/zmd/zmd.htm
Along the coast of south-west Africa today, there has been a clear
strip, parallel to the coast and extending some way inland from the
coast. The feature was not there at 0600 GMT but it was at 1500 and
1800. The feature would appear to be a well-developed sea breeze. As
I said yesterday, the sea-surface temperature off south-west Africa
is quite low for the latitude. The land gets heated strongly by the
sun, this being summer in the southern hemisphere and the sun high in
the sky. Thus, the air over the sea is cool and the air over the land
hot, which is ideal for the development of a sea breeze.
In my last two daily reviews, I have referred to the near-equatorial
rain belt, the Intertropical Convergence Zone. This is more distinct
today than yesterday (DTOT Meteosat
Image) and the previous day. Why, you may be wondering, am I
drawing attention to the ITCZ? Well ..... it's time to tell you: I
wonder if there is a link between the intensity of the ITCZ and the
weather elsewhere. When the ITCZ is weak, is thundery activity over
Zambia and Zimbabwe strong, and vice versa? Is there any relationship
between ITCZ activity and the vigour of the weather in middle
latitudes? Why not ponder this one and see when we come to the review
phase of MetLink if you have noticed anything.
Over Spain, there have been northerly winds today, and over Malta
north- westerlies, with temperatures a pleasant 15-17 degrees. Does
anyone know if there was a mistral through the Rhone Valley
yesterday? The mistral of southern France can be really strong. Some
years ago, one of my colleagues was on holiday in the south of France
in August and encountered the mistral when driving northwards through
the Rhone Valley. The mistral was blowing - from the north - and it
was so strong that he could not make his car go faster than 50 miles
per hour (80 km/h) with his foot pressing as hard on the accelerator
as possible! He wasn't driving a high-powered car, but it was
normally capable of a great deal more than 80 km/h!
In the British Isles today, the weather has not been very exciting at
all. There has been a ridge of high pressure to the west of the
British Isles and low pressure over northern Germany, with north to
north-westerly winds in between. There have been some showers in
Scotland and some showers and occasional rain in Ireland - and we had
a few brief showers in Reading this morning - but the rain and snow
has today been mostly over Germany, Austria, the Low Countries and
eastern France, where the day has probably been quite unpleasant.
As you will have seen from
Christer's e-mail from Varnamo
(southern Sweden), the intense cold in northern parts of
Scandinavia has continued and has started to spread southwards.
Indeed, colder weather is forecast for south-east England by the
weekend, but certainly not as cold as they have been experiencing in
Lapland. At 1200 GMT today, i.e. not far off the warmest time of day,
temperatures were below -30 deg C over a wide area of northern Sweden
and Finland, and the temperature was no more than about -15 deg C in
Oslo. In the British Isles, midday temperatures ranged from +8 deg C
in the north of Scotland to about 12 deg C in southern England, but
let's see what the weekend brings! As Christer and our friends in
Finland have said, very low temperatures are not pleasant and bring
practical difficulties.
When I was in Canada in the early part of 1991, I experienced
temperatures below -10 deg C several times and -27 deg C one morning
(at Thunder Bay, at the western end of Lake Superior). My ears
suffered if I didn't cover them with the flaps of my hat, but the
greatest problem I had was that condensation formed on my spectacles
immediately I went inside a building. I was surprised that the cold
was not as unpleasant as I had expected. The air was dry and fairly
still. A cold winter's day in south Wales (where I have lived for
many years) is generally very unpleasant when the temperature is much
higher - for example, just below freezing- point. The reason is that
the cold in south-west Britain is raw. The air in south Wales is much
damper and the wind generally stronger than in central Canada.
Finally for today, I thought you would like to know that four of us
who are involved in MetLinkInternational will be attending a
conference in Australia in July. The four are John Harris (Radley),
Colin Prowse (Bedales), George Meldrum (Gillespie's) and me. We are
attending the 5th International Conference on School and Popular
Meteorological and Oceanographic Education, which is being held in
Ballarat on 5 and 6 July and Melbourne (at a school) on 8 and 9 July,
with visits to science centres and other educational attractions on
the 7th. John will be presenting a paper about last year's
MetNetEurope and this year's MetLinkInternational and I shall be
helping him publicise our MetLink activities whenever opportunity
arises. The conference is called EWOC'99. To find out why, visit
http://www.shm.monash.edu/ewoc99
Alfred Mifsud in Malta has told
you about his trip to the Meteorological Office. I shall be
publicising that, too, in a factsheet-cum-newsletter called 'Primary
Rainbow', which I produce for primary schools. The January issue has
just been sent out to schools, but I won't forget to include his
piece in the April issue.
That's all for now.
Best regards Malcolm
