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School Weather News 1999
From:
education@royal-met-soc.org.uk
Subject: MetLinkInternational Week 2 Wednesday
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 00:02:18 -0000
Dear MetLink participants
Let's start with the weather over the Britain today. The story is one
of westerly winds over the whole of the British Isles, with stronger
winds than of late. Winds have reached gale force around the north of
Scotland and over northern parts of the North Sea today. As you will
see from the data base, there has been a lot of cloud over the
British Isles --- 8/8 at many of the schools in Britain. Consistent
with there being westerly winds, there is low pressure (970 mb) to
the north (near Iceland, in fact) and high pressure to the south (a
High of 1042 mb over the Bay of Biscay at 1800 GMT). The forecast
chart for tomorrow shows a cold front lying from the Celtic Sea
(south of Ireland) to Denmark at 1200 GMT, with
Pennar,
Northamptonshire Grammar
School and Casterton
almost on the front itself. That could be interesting. Keep your eyes
skyward at these places for evidence of the cold front. It would be
interesting to know what time the front reached you (if it does!).
The front should reach the southernmost parts of Britain later
tomorrow. The anticyclone which has given such high pressures over
Britain these past few days has drifted south-westwards and
maintained its pressure values, with 1044 Mb forecast for the sea
area immediately to the west of the Bay of Biscay.
In Scandinavia, the battle between the cold air over Finland and
western Russia and the warmer air over Sweden and Norway continues.
Fronts have brought snow to some places in Finland and there has been
a large area of snow and drizzle between the Black Sea and the
Baltic. There has been rain and drizzle over Denmark and northern
Germany, and snow and rain farther south. There have been
north-easterly winds over
Malta and eastern Spain
today, giving temperatures lower than average. The weather appears to
have been fine at Tarragona but still a bit showery over Malta.
The ITCZ looks something like the textbook model for January/February
today, with the belt of convective clouds apparently linking up with
the convective systems over southern Africa. Once again, the coastal
strip of south-west Africa was free of cloud, suggestive of a
sea-breeze circulation. Again, too, there were medium-level and
high-level clouds across central and eastern North Africa. I asked
yesterday if anyone has any information about wind speeds in the
upper troposphere over the Middle East. Has anyone found any
information about these winds on the Web?
Our friends in Madagascar
said it was cool today. Well ... all I can say is that 'cool'
is a relative term. I would consider a temperature of +21 deg C more
than acceptable here just now!!!
The weather battle going on around
Tristan da Cunha appears
to have been won by a trough of low pressure which is now lying a
little to the east of the island. The cold front in this trough
extends from an area of low pressure (971 mb) which is centred well
to the south of Tristan da Cunha, at 50 deg S. There is high pressure
1019 mb north-west of Tristan da Cunha and to the east (1022 mb
centred at 40 deg S 12-15 degrees East). Maybe high pressure will win
tomorrow.
Thanks for the very interesting
windchill information that
Moritz Royr, Kristelig
Gymnasium, Oslo, sent us yesterday. As he noted, severe wind
chill and the practicalities of measuring snowfall are matters which
do not concern some MetLink participants. In fact, snowfall is
something that has not often troubled weather observers in many parts
of Britain in recent years. One question I was asked more than once
at Pinewood School
(England) on Monday was "Why doesn't it snow any more?". Does
anyone have an answer, please?!
Also please note that eastern parts of Scotland experienced the foehn
(fohn) effect yesterday. The temperature reached 14 deg C in Aberdeen
and 13 deg C at a number of places around the Moray Firth. These are
high temperatures for early February in Scotland. Having said that,
though, I should mention that the Moray Firth is one of the places in
the British Isles that experiences the foehn effect quite often.
Rainfall totals at Inverness, for example, are very much lower than
at places on the western side of Scotland. If you are in an area
which often experiences the foehn effect, please let us know and send
us details.
That's all for today.
Best regards Malcolm
