UK Weather - Winter 2013/2014

[Simon Culling]

Yes indeed Stepr, this remarkable spell of weather is showing no signs of ending, with depression after depression lining up for the UK in the next 7-10 days. Currently (11pm, Fri 7th Feb) we have one at 943mb and approx. 500 miles to the west of Eire set to bring more gales and heavy rain tonight and through most of the weekend with the SW looking to cop the worst of it. The last major storm brought a lot more damage and flooding to this area on Weds/Thurs with wind gusts reported by the Met Office of:

92mph at St Mary's (Isles of Scilly)
91mph at Berry Head (Devon)
76mph at RNAS Culdrose (Cornwall)
71mph at Plymouth Mount Batten

With the winds from the south, many coastal areas saw more flooding and erosion, and the main London to Plymouth railway was badly damaged at Dawlish......some great photos from the Daily Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... antic.html

CET for February up to the 6th was 5.8*C (+1.4*C) and the EWR up to the 5th was already 23mm which compares to a monthly average of 65mm. This could easily be beaten by the end of next week. The models show a relentless stream of depressions forming to our SW on a southerly jet, but then curving north as they approach the UK....due to the big blocking high pressure over Russia. There are some signs of it turning cooler next week with a hint of wintry precipitation at times.

[Simon Culling]

The heavy rainfall at the end of last week has now filtered down through to the rivers and even the River Thames is beginning to burst its banks. As the resulting flooding today (with worse to come, unfortunately) is happening in middle class stockbroker belt territory and not some bucolic backwater, there is and will be much more press coverage. The politicians will also now be spurred into action not just to try and fix the problem, but also to try and find someone to blame. Cynical.....unfortunately, not!!!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26111598

[Manukau heads obs]

this is more of the 'stuck jet streams' that seems to be occuring alot now, yes?

[Simon Culling]

Hello Brian. The Met Office have produced a very informative document attempting to put a global context on this long spell of wet and stormy weather and much of the blame (for want of a better word) is the big temperature difference that has existed across Canada/the USA since December and the effect this has on strengthening the jet stream across the Atlantic. They also provide suggested links to tropical rainfall and SST's.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/ne ... and-floods

The full pdf is well worth a read.

[Simon Culling]

A deep depression passed over Eire on Wednesday (12th February) giving very strong winds across the south of the island and up through the Celtic Sea and into NW England by the evening. The attached synoptic map (courtesy of the Met Office) shows the picture at 1200GMT as the low was just about at its lowest central pressure and there is some evidence that a sting jet developed for a time in the afternoon. The highest winds were at exposed sites in Eire and NW Wales with top gusts recorded:

110mph at the Kinsale Energy Platform (off the south coast of Eire)
108mph at Aberdaron (on the Llyn Peninsula, NW Wales)
99mph at Shannon Airport (W coast of Eire)
97mph at Sherkin Island + Mace Head (both W coast of Eire)
96mph at Mumbles Head (S Wales), Needles Lighthouse (Isle of Wight) + Lake Vyrnwy (mid Wales)
92mph at High Bradfield (near Sheffield - but 400m amsl)
79mph at Crosby (nr Liverpool) + St Bee's Head (Cumbria)

A substantial amount of disruption and damage was caused and further heavy rain fell countrywide.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26153889

This evening another storm is hitting the south of England (Low at 1800GMT on 14th Feb was at 958mb over southern Eire) and will give gusts to 60-70mph inland and 80mph+ along the southern coast of England. There has also been another 10-30mm in many parts. The good news is that this will probably be the last of the really deep depression for a while.

[Orion]

"February, fill dyke" indeed
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings ... dyke-33694

[Manukau heads obs]

re my reference to the jet streams:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26023166

[stepr]

Well the end of the month and we leave one of the most famous/infamous winters to rest. I have to say I have not seen such a winter in my life time, in terms of the damage cause, the records broken, lives affected.. in some places the word unprecedented, which is often an overused word, fits the bill perfectly.

[Michael]

High resolution visual spectre of the impressive core of the deep cyclone Christine over south UK today.jpg

Heres storm Christine today,source NASA

[Simon Culling]

I have been away ski-ing in the Alps for the last two weeks and have not had access to a computer......a joy in itself!

The storm on 14/15th February caused a lot of damage in the SE of England and max wind gusts recorded were:

109mph at Old Needles Battery (a very exposed site on the west side of the Isle of Wight)
91mph at Hurst Castle (Hants)
73mph at South Farnborough (Hants)
71mph at Kenley (Surrey - South London)
69mph at RAF Odiham (Hants)
68mph at RAF Wattisham (Suffolk)

The linked article at the BBC gives more details:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26200497

I will look up the final statistics for Winter 2013/14 which was certainly a wet one!

[Simon Culling]

The final CET for February was 6.2*C (+2.4*C) and the EWR was 135mm (207% of the Feb average) making it a very mild and wet winter with little if any snowfall recorded except over the Scottish ski-fields which had a record amount of snow!

The Met Office summary of the winter in the link below shows how miserable the weather was from a rainfall point of view, but also reveals that sunshine was actually just above average - due to the mobile nature of the weather and no high pressure blocks to provide dull cloudy (but dry) weather. The most interesting statistic is the lowest recorded temperature of only -7.7*C at Altnaharra in Scotland....and that did not occur until February 17th.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/ ... 014/winter

[Simon Culling]

Orion, the February Fill Dyke painting is very apposite for the month this year....it was the third very wet month in a row and the dykes would be filled with mud rather than snow. The painting was actually painted to represent a November evening after rain and I am not sure how it got its name. February fill dyke comes from an old country rhyme:

February fill the dyke
be it black or be it white
but if it be white
its the better to like

I presume that means our ancestors preferred snow to rain at that time of the year as the black referes to mud and the white to snow. There is a bit more info on the painter and the painting in this link:

http://mydailyartdisplay.wordpress.com/ ... ms-leader/

[Simon Culling]

There has been much discussion about how wet the weather in the UK was in winter 2013/14, but it depends upon whose statistics you use. The Met Office records start in 1910 as they claim this far back is as far as really accurate records go, but earlier winters were wetter. It depends upon how accurate you think the earlier data is....a familiar theme in weather and particularly climate change circles! The link below to the Centre for Ecology + Hydrology gives a feel for the official (but not necessarily biased) view:

http://www.ceh.ac.uk/news/news_archive/ ... 14_13.html

These Government guys know their subject, but those of a more sceptical nature will find the following statistics useful:

http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpres ... t-winters/

Whichever side of the fence you sit on, trust me, it was very wet!

[Simon Culling]

As I have already mentioned, this past winter has been mild, and particularly at night. With such a mobile weather pattern, there were few calm and clear nights, so radiation was not an important factor in the winter temperatures, and as the winds stayed mostly between south and west no cold air was advected over the country. The lowest temperatures by month for the winter were:

December, -6.1*C at Dalwhinnie on the 7th
January, -6.6*C at Altnaharra on the 5th
February, -7.7*C at Altnaharra on the17th

All of these sites are in Highland Scotland, and many English sites had less than 10 frosts all winter. Unsurprisingly, a lower temperature was recorded in the autumn on 25th November, -8.1*C at Braemar. It is very rare for a winter not to record at least one -10*C somewhere in the UK.

[Simon Culling]

The link below is a good description of the events of winter 2013/14 over the UK and promises a follow up article to discuss the politics of its reporting and how it was/was not linked to climate change.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/uk-winter-2013-14.html

[Simon Culling]

The Met Office have produced a detailed pdf of the events of the 2013/14 winter and some of the global context issues. It is a very good read for anyone interested in temperate latitude weather.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/n ... _07023.pdf