MetLink 2001 - Daily Weather Report

Day 4: Thursday 1 Feb, 2001

MetLink Home

Weather Reports Home

Schools in Europe	Schools in UK & Ireland	Schools worldwide
Europe today	UK & Ireland today	World today

MetLink students at Bor School, Sweden with a digital thermometer which they made. We made an electronic thermometer which was supposed to show air temperature. It functions like this: You take an ampere meter with a scale in milliampere. Then you alter the scale into degrees centigrade by warming the circuit card with a hot air gun. When the warmth reaches the thermistor it gives a response on the ampere meter. Simultaneously we measured the temperature on a common thermometer and marked the centigrades on the amperemeter. For the circuit card we needed the following materials: thermistor, transistor BC584, transformator and cables. Some mishaps during the project: we wrecked two thermometers and one amperemeter and soldered wrongly twice. We really enjoyed the work and to solder was especially fun according to a voting within the group. It was a pity that so much was destroyed. With a little bit more care we could have managed better. But the main thing is that it is great fun, isn't it ? Miralem, Thomas and Anders, Bor School, Sweden

Anemometer This is how we built an anemometer by means of components of a standard cycle computer. An anemometer is a meter with a propeller that measures the speed of the wind. We took an iron tube and attached a ball bearing on which we fixed three rods with halves of table tennis balls at the ends. We started with a long iron rod (1) and drilled a hole in it. Then we fastened a thinner rod (2). Then we formed a wooden plug which we put into the tube (1). We drilled another hole in the plug and fastened a third peg (3). On that peg we put two ball bearings. Then we turned a plastic piece which we put on the bearings. On that plastic roll we fixed three thin metal rods and at the ends we glued three halves of table tennis balls. On one of these rods we attached a magnet. Then we attached a sensor with a transmitter on rod no 2. At the very end of rod no 2 we fastened the bicycle computer, receiving wireless signals from the transmitter. Finally we calibrated the anemometer and then we read the windspeed in km/h at the computers display. By Daniel, Carl and Henric Bor School, Sweden

TODAY'S WEATHER IN THE METLINK WORLD:

Weather report for primary schools for Thursday 1 February 2001

THE HEADLINES TODAY

Gorgeous in Nairobi. Sunny in South Africa. Hot in Melbourne. Snow in Värnamo. Drizzle in Ohio. Cold in Finland. Freezing fog in England. Stratus in Mexico. Contrails in Hereford.

NB: There is a lot of important information in the notes at the end of this report.

THE WEATHER IN THE METLINK WORLD TODAY

An apology first to the students and teachers of the MetLink schools in South Africa. You were not mentioned in the weather report for 31 January. So let us begin today’s report with the weather in your part of the world. And what a change in the weather there has been at Hilton College from yesterday to today, from cool and overcast with slight drizzle yesterday to warm and sunny today. The weather has been wet in Kwazulu-Natal lately, with 39.4 mm of rain measured yesterday and 23.0 mm measured this morning, so today’s fine weather must have been a very pleasant change. At Micklefield School, in a suburb of Cape Town, there was a change in wind speed and direction from westerly 3 km/h yesterday to south-easterly 15 km/h today. Otherwise, the weather in Cape Town today was much the same as it was yesterday: sunny and warm.

For the first day back at school after the long summer vacation, the weather was also sunny and warm in Melbourne, but isn’t it always the case that the weather improves when you go back to school? Maybe not! Maybe it’s only an impression! At Trinity Grammar School today, after overnight rain, the temperature at mid-day was 29°C and the relative humidity very low, 35%. That sounds very pleasant.

The weather was fine again today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the sun shone and a north-easterly breeze of 15 km/h blew. It was fine, too, in Nairobi, where the sky was almost cloudless and the temperature at mid-day 22°C. "An absolutely gorgeous day in paradise" says today’s report from the International School of Kenya. At the American School in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, the weather does not appear to have been as nice today as it has been on previous days. The sun was hidden by a sheet of stratus and the day was warm and humid, with a temperature of 24°C and a relative humidity of 94%. Another place that was warm and humid today was Antananarivo (Madagascar), where the temperature just before mid-day was 27.0°C and rain showers occurred. Jakarta was yet another place where the weather was very warm and humid today. When the observation was made at the International School (at the beginning of the school day), the temperature was 23.5°C, the relative humidity 96%, slight rain was falling and the wind was calm. This weather sounds quite oppressive.

At both of the MetLink schools in Zimbabwe, the weather was cool and cloudy this morning. At Peterhouse (Marondera), slight rain was falling at 0830 Local Time and the temperature was only 18.3°C. At the Christian Brothers’ College (Bulawayo), the weather was dry, but the temperature was only 19°C and the students considered this rather cool. The weather was also rather cloudy and wet in Zambia, with 50 mm of rain measured at the Banani International School, Lusaka. Satellite images show a broad band of cloud containing scattered cumulonimbus clouds extending across central parts of southern Africa from Angola to Madagascar, with the cloudiest areas northern Mozambique and northern parts of the Mozambique Channel. At Two Boats School on Ascension Island, eight degrees south of the equator, the sun shone and the weather was hot (a temperature of 26°C at 1230 UTC).

The coldest places in the MetLink world today were in Finland, the coldest of the three being the Vörå-Oravais-Maxmo Högstadieskola, where a minimum temperature of —15.8°C was recorded and the temperature had risen only to —13.1°C by the time the day’s observation was made. The temperature was about the same at Jyväskylä (-13.0°C when the day’s observation was made) and only a little higher at Mikkeli (-10°C when the day’s observation was made). At all three places, maximum temperatures well below 0°C were recorded, but the weather was quite sunny and the students of the three schools did not seem to mind the weather being so cold. Indeed, the weather report from Vörå said: "It’s getting colder — at last!". Across the Baltic Sea in southern Sweden, there was also cold weather, with a temperature of —1.2°C at Bor School at 0800 Local Time. Here, the sky was completely covered with nimbostratus cloud and snow was falling. The depth of snow reported by the students of Bor School was 10 cm. Far to the north, at Longyearbyen, Spitzbergen, the sky was cloud-covered and a strong south-westerly wind was blowing, bringing mild air from over the Norwegian Sea. At +1.4°C, the temperature was well above average for the time of year. The wind speed of 33 km/h caused a considerable wind chill effect, so the weather felt cold, as the students said in their report.

In eastern parts of England, there was freezing fog in many places early today. Several MetLink participants mentioned this in their weather reports (for example: Pitsford Hall in Northamptonshire, the Royal Meteorological Society in Reading, Norwich High School for Girls in Norfolk, Sutton-on-Sea Primary School on the Lincolnshire coast and the William Lovell School in Lincolnshire). After the fog cleared, there was some wintry sun for a while in a few places, and aircraft condensation trails were seen at Hereford and Reading. At most places in the British Isles, however, today was another cloudy, damp, dismal day, with rain in Edinburgh and drizzle at Stone in Staffordshire, Rothesay on the Isle of Bute and Cashel in Ireland.

The weather was cold but dry at the MetLink schools in The Netherlands, northern Italy, France and the Czech Republic. Indeed, the weather appears to have been particularly nice in northern Italy, for the sky was almost cloudless all day at Bozen and the 1110 UTC weather report from Udine said it was "a beautiful day" with "good visibility". The weather was also fine at the MetLink schools in Spain, with temperatures at Madrid and Tarragona above 10°C, but the weather was wet and windy in Malta.

The weather was again sunny and warm today in Mumbai (Bombay) and New Delhi, but the hourly weather reports from the airports in these two places indicated that levels of air pollution were high. The weather in Tokyo today was a little warmer than it has been recently, with a temperature of 11°C recorded, but the students of Keio Girls’ High school reported that rain was forecast, so the weather does not appear to be very settled at the moment. At Leilehua High School on Hawaii, the weather was again very pleasant, with a temperature of 26°C, light north-easterly trade winds and the sky partly covered by stratocumulus clouds.

At Edmonton in Canada, the weather was overcast today after a light ‘dusting’ of snow overnight, and snow flurries were reported by the MetLink students in Illinois. It was cold, overcast and chilly in Ohio as well, though the precipitation there was drizzle, not snow. In the west of the USA, at Moses Lake, the weather was also cold and chilly, but at Pasadena, in California, there was very nice weather, with high clouds (cirrus and cirrocumulus) and a temperature of 18.4°C.

Where would you have liked to be today? If you had been able to fly away to the place of your choice, where would you have gone, and why?

NOTES

One of the primary schools that is taking part in MetLink 2001 is the Sutton-on-Sea Community Primary School in Lincolnshire, UK. This school has an excellent weather website. To go to it, click here.

There is material for teachers and pupils in primary schools on the Education pages of the United Kingdom’s Met Office. To go to the Education home page, click here. To go to the Curriculum Learning Centre, click here.

There is a great deal of material suitable for primary schools on the website of the BBC Weather Centre. For the basics of weather, things to do, weather games, stunning weather photographs and much more, visit the Weatherwise, Fact Files, Do-it-yourself (DIY) Weather and Weather Games pages. The Education Officer of the Royal Meteorological Society helped develop these pages.

For a wealth of information about the weather, including the current weather in the USA, visit the website of USA TODAY.

To obtain climatic data for hundreds of places around the world, visit the Worldclimate.com and Washington Post websites. From these sites, you can obtain average temperatures, extreme temperatures, rainfall amounts, average humidities, average wind speeds, and much more. Thus, you can find out if the weather during MetLink is warmer, colder, wetter, windier than average.

Do you want to find climatic statistics? If so, visit the Royal Meteorological Society’s Climate on the web site.

Do you want to find weather charts, satellite images or current weather data? If so, visit the Royal Meteorological Society’s Weather on the Web site.

top

Weather report for secondary schools for Thursday 1 February 2001

THE HEADLINES TODAY

Gorgeous in Nairobi. Sunny in South Africa. Hot in Melbourne. Snow in Värnamo. Drizzle in Ohio. Cold in Finland. Freezing fog in England. Stratus in Mexico. Contrails in Hereford. Trade winds in Hawaii.

NB: There is a lot of important information in the notes at the end of this report.

THE WEATHER IN THE METLINK WORLD TODAY

An apology first to the students and teachers of the MetLink schools in South Africa. You were not mentioned in the weather report for 31 January. So let us begin today’s report with the weather in your part of the world. And what a change in the weather there has been at Hilton College from yesterday to today, from cool and overcast with slight drizzle yesterday to warm and sunny today. The weather has been wet in Kwazulu-Natal lately, with 39.4 mm of rain measured yesterday and 23.0 mm measured this morning, so today’s fine weather must have been a very pleasant change. At Micklefield School, in a suburb of Cape Town, there was a change in wind speed and direction from westerly 3 km/h yesterday to south-easterly 15 km/h today. Otherwise, the weather today was much the same as it was yesterday: sunny and warm. A weak ridge of high pressure lay over Kwazulu-Natal today; and a cold front lay not far to the south of Cape Town (this front from a Low of 960 mb centred near 60°S 20°E). To obtain weather charts issued by the South African Weather Bureau, click here. These charts cover much of the South Atlantic Ocean, the Southern Ocean from South Africa to Antarctica and the south-western part of the South Indian Ocean. Between the parallel of 40°S and Antarctica, in the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties, there have been depressions and fronts galore this week, and the chart for today showed a tropical cyclone a few hundred kilometres east of Mauritius.

For the first day back at school after the long summer vacation, the weather was also sunny and warm in Melbourne, but isn’t it always the case that the weather improves when you go back to school? Maybe not! Maybe it’s only an impression! At Trinity Grammar School today, after overnight rain, the temperature at mid-day was 29°C and the relative humidity very low, 35%. That sounds very pleasant. The dominant weather influence in the Melbourne area today was a ridge of high pressure from an anticyclone of 1029 mb centred between New South Wales and New Zealand. To obtain weather charts covering Australia, click here. Today’s chart for 1200 UTC shows that Tropical Cyclone Terri is now no more than a weak tropical depression over the northern part of Western Australia.

The weather was fine again today in Addis Ababa, where the sun shone and a north-easterly breeze of 15 km/h blew. It was fine, too, in Nairobi, where the sky was almost cloudless and the temperature at mid-day 22°C, a little above average. "An absolutely gorgeous day in paradise" says today’s report from the International School of Kenya. At the American School in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, the weather does not appear to have been as nice today as it has been on previous days. The sun was hidden by an overcast of stratus and the day was warm and humid, with a temperature of 24°C and a relative humidity of 94%. Another place that was warm and humid today was Antananarivo (Madagascar), where the temperature just before mid-day was 27.0°C and rain showers occurred.

Jakarta was yet another place where the weather was very warm and humid today. When the observation was made at the International School (at the beginning of the school day), the temperature was 23.5°C, the relative humidity 96%, slight rain was falling and the wind was calm. This weather sounds quite oppressive. For charts showing air flows over Indonesia, click here. For satellite images that cover Indonesia, Australia, Japan and the western Pacific Ocean, click here. Today’s image showed that the ITCZ was active from southern India across Indonesia, northern Australia and Papua New Guinea to Fiji and Tonga. For an image that covers North America and the Caribbean, click here. Today’s image showed a band of high cloud from northern Florida to central Mexico (possibly cirrus associated with the subtropical jet stream). It also shows widespread low cloud over Mexico. Puerto Vallarta was under both the cirrus and the low cloud.

At both of the MetLink schools in Zimbabwe, the weather was cool and cloudy this morning. At Peterhouse (Marondera), slight rain was falling at 0830 Local Time and the temperature was only 18.3°C. At the Christian Brothers’ College (Bulawayo), the weather was dry, but the temperature was only 19°C and the students considered this rather cool. The weather was also rather cloudy and wet in Zambia, with 50 mm of rain measured at the Banani International School, Lusaka. Satellite images show a broad band of cloud containing scattered cumulonimbus clouds (the ITCZ) extending across central parts of southern Africa from Angola to Madagascar, with the cloudiest areas northern Mozambique and northern parts of the Mozambique Channel. At Two Boats School on Ascension Island, eight degrees south of the equator, the sun shone and the weather was hot (a temperature of 26°C at 1230 UTC). The ITCZ was very weak over the Atlantic Ocean today and what activity there was on it was a little to the north of the equator. For satellite images covering Africa, click here.

The coldest places in the MetLink world today were in Finland, the coldest of the three being the Vörå-Oravais-Maxmo Högstadieskola, where a minimum temperature of —15.8°C was recorded and the temperature had risen only to —13.1°C by the time the day’s observation was made. The temperature was about the same at Jyväskylä (-13.0°C when the day’s observation was made) and only a little higher at Mikkeli (-10°C when the day’s observation was made). At all three places, maximum temperatures well below 0°C were recorded, but the weather was quite sunny and the students of the three schools did not seem to mind the weather being so cold. Indeed, the weather report from Vörå said: "It’s getting colder — at last!". Across the Baltic Sea in southern Sweden, there was also cold weather, with a temperature of —1.2°C at Bor School at 0800 Local Time. Here, though, the sun was not shining. The sky was completely covered with nimbostratus cloud and snow was falling. The depth of snow reported by the students of Bor School was 10 cm.

Far to the north, at Longyearbyen, Spitzbergen, the sky was cloud-covered and a strong south-westerly wind was blowing, bringing mild air from over the Norwegian Sea. At +1.4°C, the temperature was well above average for the time of year. The wind speed of 33 km/h caused a considerable wind-chill effect, so the weather felt cold (as the students said in their report). An anticyclone with a central pressure of 1048 mb covered northern Scandinavia today, giving north to north-easterly winds over Finland and Sweden. North of Longyearbyen, there was low pressure; and the isobars over Spitzbergen were fairly close together, hence the wind speed of 33 km/h. Today was a good day on Spitzbergen to confirm that Buys Ballot’s Law is correct. If you stand with your back to the wind in the northern hemisphere, low pressure is on your left, high pressure on your right. You do not stand with your face to the wind in high latitudes. It can be dangerous when temperatures are low.

In eastern parts of England, there was freezing fog in many places early today. Several MetLink participants mentioned this in their weather reports (for example: Pitsford Hall in Northamptonshire, the Royal Meteorological Society in Reading, Norwich High School for Girls in Norfolk, Sutton-on-Sea Primary School on the Lincolnshire coast and the William Lovell School in Lincolnshire). After the fog cleared, there was some wintry sun for a while in a few places, and aircraft condensation trails were seen at Hereford and Reading. At most places in the British Isles, however, today was another cloudy, damp, dismal day, with rain in Edinburgh and drizzle at Stone in Staffordshire, Rothesay on the Isle of Bute and Cashel in Ireland. A very weak warm front from a complex Low south-west of Iceland gave drizzle in western parts of the United Kingdom and a weak cold front gave drizzle and rain in western Ireland. The fog and light winds over eastern England were associated with a col that was centred over northern France and the English Channel. For today’s weather chart covering Europe and the eastern Atlantic, click here.

The weather was cold but dry at the MetLink schools in The Netherlands, northern Italy, France and the Czech Republic. Indeed, the weather appears to have been particularly nice in northern Italy, for the sky was almost cloudless all day at Bozen and the 1110 UTC weather report from Udine said it was "a beautiful day" with "good visibility". The weather was also fine at the MetLink schools in Spain, with temperatures at Madrid and Tarragona above 10°C, but the weather was wet and windy in Malta. Pressure was low from southern Italy to the Ukraine, high over Spain.

The weather was again sunny and warm today in Mumbai (Bombay) and New Delhi, but the hourly weather reports from the airports in these two places indicated that levels of air pollution remain high. For charts showing air flows over southern Asia and the Indian Ocean, click here. The existence of the ‘North-East Monsoon’ over the Arabian Sea can clearly be seen. The weather in Tokyo today was a little warmer than it has been recently, with a temperature of 11°C recorded, but the students of Keio Girls’ High school reported that rain was forecast, so the weather does not appear to be very settled at the moment. The dominant influence on Japan’s weather today was a depression with two centres, one (of 1004 mb) over the Sea of Japan, the other (of 1007 mb) over the Pacific Ocean immediately to the east of Kyushu. At Leilehua High School on Hawaii, the weather was again very pleasant, with a temperature of 26°C, light north-easterly trade winds and the sky partly covered by stratocumulus clouds.

At Edmonton in Canada, the weather was overcast today after a light ‘dusting’ of snow overnight, and snow flurries were reported by the MetLink students in Illinois. It was cold, overcast and chilly in Ohio as well, though the precipitation there was drizzle, not snow. In the west of the USA, at Moses Lake, the weather was also cold and chilly, but at Pasadena, in California, there was very nice weather, with high clouds (cirrus and cirrocumulus) and a temperature of 18.4°C. Pressure was high over Texas and the western states of the USA today. It was also high over Saskatchewan in the morning, Manitoba in the afternoon. A weak warm front gave the snow flurries that occurred at Edmonton and this front travelled eastwards during the day. Pressure was low over the Great Lakes, and the fronts of this depression were responsible for the unsettled weather that occurred at the MetLink schools in Illinois, Ohio and the Toronto area.

Where would you have liked to be today? If you had been able to fly away to the place of your choice, where would you have gone, and why?

NOTES

One of the secondary schools that is taking part in MetLink 2001 is Northamptonshire Grammar School, UK. This school has an excellent weather website. To go to it, click here. Another school with an excellent website is King’s School, Worcester, UK. To visit the site, click here.

There is material for teachers and pupils in secondary schools on the Education pages of the United Kingdom’s Met Office. To go to the Education home page, click here. To go to the Curriculum Learning Centre, click here.

For satellite images of superb quality, click here and follow the links for the images you wish to see. From this website, maintained by the United Kingdom’s Met Office, you can obtain satellite images covering Europe, Africa, The Americas and Asia/Australasia.

There is a great deal of material suitable for secondary schools on the website of the BBC Weather Centre. For the basics of weather, things to do, stunning weather photographs and much more, visit the Weatherwise, Fact Files and Do-it-yourself (DIY) Weather pages. The Education Officer of the Royal Meteorological Society helped develop these pages.

For a wealth of information about the weather, including the current weather in the USA, visit the website of USA TODAY.

For upper-air soundings made at stations in Europe, click here. For soundings from other regions, scroll down the Europe page and follow the appropriate links. Each sounding is provided in tabular form or as a Postscript file or as a GIF image.

To obtain climatic data for hundreds of places around the world, visit the Worldclimate.com and Washington Post websites. From these sites, you can obtain average temperatures, extreme temperatures, rainfall amounts, average humidities, average wind speeds, and much more. Thus, you can find out if the weather during MetLink is warmer, colder, wetter, windier than average.

Do you want to find climatic statistics? If so, visit the Royal Meteorological Society’s Climate on the web site.

Do you want to find weather charts, satellite images or current weather data? If so, visit the Royal Meteorological Society’s Weather on the Web site.

top