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Weather report for primary schools for Monday 5
February 2001
THE HEADLINES
TODAY
Blizzards in Scotland. Floods in England. Minus thirty in Scandinavia. Cool in Hawaii. Dull and cool on Ascension Island. Warm and sunny in Cape Town. Sunny, too, in Malta (at last!).
NB: Letters from pupils in a primary school appear at the end of this report.
THE WEATHER IN
THE METLINK WORLD TODAY
Throughout the weekend and again today, Spitsbergen was the warmest place in Norway. At Longyearbyen School today, only 1,350 km from the North Pole, the temperature remained close to -2°C all day. This was very much higher than at several places in southern Norway, where minimum temperatures below -30°C were recorded this morning! Even in coastal areas of southern Norway, the warmth of the sea failed to stop temperatures falling well below 0°C. At Stavanger, for example, in the far south-west of Norway, the temperature at 0600 UTC was —7.4°C, whereas the temperature of the sea nearby (the northern part of the North Sea) was about +6°C. Throughout the weekend and today, a south-westerly wind was responsible for Spitsbergen’s mild weather, for it brought maritime air that had travelled across the Norwegian Sea (which has a surface temperature of about +4°C near Spitsbergen at this time of year).
Throughout the weekend and again today, the weather has been bitterly cold in Finland, Sweden and Norway. At Jyväskylä this morning, the temperature was —27.4°C, having fallen to -29.1°C overnight. Indeed, the maximum temperature was only —25.0°C. At Mikkeli this morning, the temperature was -21°C, having fallen to —30°C overnight; and at Vörå this morning, the temperature was —23.8°C, having fallen to -27.6°C overnight. At Bor School in southern Sweden, the temperature was —13.6°C at 0730 UTC (0830 Local Time), having fallen to —14.9°C overnight. At only one of these four places was any precipitation reported or measured. Light snow was falling at Jyväskylä this morning. How much lower than average were temperatures in Scandinavia today? To begin your investigation, click here. For a feature on the cold weather in Finland, sent by Erkki Katainen of Rantakylan normaalikoulu, Mikkeli, click here and then on ‘Finland — wind chill’.
In the British Isles, many children in the Shetland Islands and eastern parts of Scotland were unable to go to school today because of deep snow. Blizzards occurred over much of Scotland and the north of England yesterday and today. The depth of level snow in the Shetland Islands was today 25 cm, and strong easterly winds caused severe drifting. In some places in the east and Highlands of Scotland, drifts were six metres deep. Many roads in Scotland and the north of England were blocked by snow. Farther south, in the southern half of England, heavy rain over the weekend caused flooding, though nothing on the scale of the floods that occurred in October, November and December. Rain fell again in many parts of England today, with heavy rain reported from St Oswald’s Primary School in Sheffield and Chelmsford County High School. Rain of medium intensity was reported from Grantham’s Isaac Newton Primary School, as well as from Sutton-on-Sea Primary School in Lincolnshire and Delabole Primary School in Cornwall. The greatest rainfall amount measured in the British Isles this morning was 39.0 mm at Chaldon Primary School, Surrey.
There was a very considerable north-south temperature contrast over the British Isles today. Over the whole of Scotland and northern England, temperatures were close to 0°C (a little above 0°C in some places, a little below in others). In southern England, temperatures rose above 10°C at many places. The boundary between the cold and mild air was quite narrow, as reports from MetLink schools show. The temperature at St Theresa’s School in Ireland was only +2°C at 1030 UTC, and the temperature was also +2°C at Norwich Girls’ High School at 1300 UTC. It was 4°C at Sheffield at 1300 UTC. Not far to the south, however, the weather was warmer. At Casterton Community College in Rutland, for example, the temperature was 6°C at 1300 UTC, while at All Saints’ Primary School in Wiltshire at the same time it was 10°C. In the far south-west of England, at the Richard Lander Technology College in Cornwall, the temperature was already 11°C by 1030 UTC.
In the cold parts of the British Isles, winds blew from the east. In the mild parts, they blew from the south-west. For the passengers on a car ferry sailing from Shetland to Aberdeen, the weather caused considerable inconvenience. Waves and swell generated by the easterly winds over the North Sea prevented the ferry from entering Aberdeen Harbour, so the passengers had to stay on the ship out at sea off Aberdeen waiting for conditions to improve.
In middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere today, there were some large temperature contrasts. In the British Isles, temperatures ranged from +10°C in southern England to 0°C and just below in Scotland. Not far to the east, in Scandinavia, temperatures were in many places below -20° at mid-day Local Time. In central and eastern Asia, temperatures were even lower, with temperatures below —50°C in Siberia. Yesterday (4 February) at 2100 UTC, indeed, the temperature at Ojmjakon in Siberia was —56°C!
Today at Keio Girls’ High School in Tokyo, Japan, the temperature at 0000 UTC (0900 Local Time) was 8.0°C. The students reported that the wind was cold. Otherwise, though, the weather appears to have been quite pleasant, with only two oktas of high cloud and a low relative humidity (only 41%). In Hawaii, where the temperature at mid-day was 22°C, the weather was a little cooler than average today, and in Bombay, at the American School, it has also been cooler than average today for the time of year, with a temperature of 24°C this morning. For Bombay’s climatic data, click here. At both Bombay and New Delhi today, the weather has been sunny, with the relative humidity low at both places. At Springdales School in New Delhi, the temperature was 24°C at 0700 UTC (1230 Local Time), after an overnight minimum of 7.8°C. Is the weather in Delhi warmer or colder than average at the moment? To find out, click here. For a feature on Hawaii’s recent weather, received today from Leilehua High School, click here and then on ‘Drought in Hawaii’.
At the MetLink school in The Netherlands (CSG Anna Maria van Schurman, Franeker), the weather does not appear to have been very pleasant today. The temperature at mid-day was +1°C, the sky was overcast and snow was falling. At Geilenkirchen, the weather was significantly warmer than at Franeker, with a temperature of 9°C, but heavy rain was falling when the students made their observation (at 1400 UTC). At Prague, too, the temperature was 9°C when the students made their observation. Here, though, the weather was dry. At Ljubljana, Slovenia, the temperature was 10.3°C at 1200 UTC, and at Constanta in Romania it was 12°C at 1300 UTC, after an overnight minimum of +0.8°C.
At last, the weather has turned pleasant in Malta, where the temperature today was 15°C at 1000 UTC and the sun shone. The weather was also nice in Tarragona on Spain’s east coast, with a temperature of 18.2°C at 1200, a north-westerly breeze of 15 km/h and only one okta of high cloud. The weather was colder at Madrid, though, where the temperature was only 8°C at 0905 UTC, after an overnight minimum of 3.5°C. We tend to think of Spain as a hot country, because it generally is when we go there for our summer holidays, but the plateau of Spain can be very cold in winter. At Udine in Italy, rain fell today and the temperature was only 5° or 6°C. There was no rain at the other MetLink school in Italy, Bozen Realgymnasium, but there was quite a lot of cloud (eight oktas at 0700 UTC, seven oktas at 1000 UTC) and the temperature was only a few degrees above 0°C. At the Collège du Léman, Versoix, Switzerland, the weather was cloudy and windy (44 km/h) with a temperature of 12°C.
There was slight drizzle in Ohio at 1353 UTC (0853 Local Time) and a temperature of —1.7°C, so conditions underfoot must have been quite slippery. This was probably so at Moses Lake (Washington State), too, for the temperature there was —1.1°C at 1800 UTC (1000 Local Time) and the school’s weather report spoke of a "damp, dreary weekend, with fog this morning". The weather was overcast but dry with a breeze from the north-west at James Gibbons School, Edmonton, Alberta, where the temperature was —6°C at 1600 UTC (0900 Local Time). Conditions in California seem to have been very pleasant indeed. At Pasadena, near Los Angeles, the temperature at 2021 UTC (1221 Local Time) was 27°C, the lightest of breezes was blowing and the sun was shining.
Nice weather appears to have deserted Ascension Island today, for the school’s weather report said the weather was "dull and cool". ‘Cool’ is a relative term, though, for the temperature was 26°C at 1230 UTC, making Two Boats School more than 50°C warmer than many places in Scandinavia! The weather over Ascension Island today was cloudy with slight drizzle. The temperature was also 26°C at Antananarivo on Madagascar, where there was, for a change, no rain and, indeed, very little cloud. At both MetLink schools in South Africa, too, there was a lot of sunshine today, with temperatures at both places in the low twenties Celsius. For a feature on the weather of Madagascar, written by the students of the American School Antananarivo, click here and then on ‘Madagascar weather news’.
At Peterhouse in Zimbabwe, the weather was wet. Heavy rain was falling from nimbostratus cloud when the students made their observation at 0630 UTC (0830 Local Time) and 60 mm of rain was measured. The students said in their weather report that rain had fallen all night. At the other MetLink school in Zimbabwe, the Christian Brothers’ College, Bulawayo, the weather was cloudy, with eight oktas of stratus, stratocumulus and cumulus cloud, but no rain fell. The students spoke in their report of the weather being "pleasantly cool", which it undoubtedly was, with a temperature of only 16°C and a breeze of only 9 km/h. At the Banani International School in Lusaka (Zambia), the temperature was 23°C at 0800 UTC (1000 Local Time) and the weather quite pleasant, with sunny intervals and a wind strength of Force 1.
At Trinity Grammar School (Melbourne, Australia), the weather was cooler than it was at the end of last week, and slight rain fell this morning. The temperature was 21°C when the students made their observation (at 0100 UTC, 1200 Local Time) and a breeze of 24 km/h was blowing. At Jakarta (Indonesia), the temperature was 24.5°C at 0100 UTC (0800 Local Time), with eight oktas of cumulus and altocumulus cloud and no wind. The students’ description of their weather was "refreshing".
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? Have you taken John Harris’s webcam tour of the world? If not, click here. Have you taken his radar tour of the world? If not, click here.
LETTERS FROM ST OSWALD’S PRIMARY SCHOOL, SHEFFIELD, UK
The Education Officer of the Royal Meteorological Society was delighted to receive today three e-mail messages from pupils of St Oswald’s Primary School, Sheffield, UK. Here are the three letters:
1 … from Leoma and Danielle
We have summer, winter, spring and autumn. These are the kind of seasons we have in Sheffield. In Sheffield we have all different kinds of weather. Winter time it is cold. We have frost, snow and rain. Summer time is a lot warmer. We have sunshine and sometimes it rains. In spring time it rains and it’s a little warmer than winter. Autumn time it gets a bit cooler and we usually get high winds that blow leaves off trees. Different times of year we get storms when we have thunder and lightning with heavy rain and hail stones.
2 … from Bianca and Nicholas
The weather in Sheffield at the moment is cold, windy, snowy, rainy, foggy, a bit sunny, lightning nd medium. On some days it has been snowing. The weather that we are having now is the worst we have had. The weather sometimes is a pain because the frost goes all over the car and we have to wipe it off. My favourite weather is sun and snow. The weather in Sheffield is also dull and grey.
3 … from Jack and Jordan
In Sheffield we have all different kinds of weather. We have sun, rain, snow, wind and fog. In winter we have cold weather. Often it is frosty and icy in the mornings. Even when the sun is out it is still very cold. In the spring time the weather can still be quite cold. There are often grey clouds in the sky and it can be very windy. Sometimes the sun shines brightly. During the summer it can be extremely hot with a bright blue sky. Sometimes it rains and when it does, it makes you feel cold. We don’t have very good summers. In autumn there is often some fog. The weather can be dull and miserable or it can be warm.
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.
At Adventdalen on Spitsbergen, 4 km from Longyearbyen, there is an automatic weather station that provides readings of temperature, wind speed, wind direction and barometric pressure. The webpage that shows these readings is updated every five minutes.
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.
Weather report for secondary schools for Monday 5 February 2001
BEFORE READING THIS REPORT FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS, PLEASE READ TODAY’S REPORT FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS
ANALYSIS OF TODAY’S WEATHER IN THE METLINK WORLD
EUROPE
The chart of fronts and isobars over Europe and the North Atlantic at 0000 UTC today (click here) shows that pressure was high over southern Scandinavia, the Barents Sea and the Greenland Sea to the north of Jan Mayen, though not as high as it was at the end of last week, when pressure values reached 1050 mb over northern Norway. Today, the highest pressure shown on the chart, 1028 mb was found off the Kola Peninsula, this being within a ridge of high pressure that extended from a High of 1057 mb over central Asia. A pressure maximum of 1027 mb was shown on the chart between Spitsbergen and Jan Mayen, and a pressure value of 1021 mb was shown over southern Norway. During today, this ridge of high pressure from the anticyclone over central Asia continued to decline. By 0600 UTC, the pressure between Jan Mayen and Spitsbergen had fallen to 1024 mb and the pressure over southern Norway to 1016 mb. Over Spitsbergen, which lay to the north of the ridge, winds were from the south-west. Over mainland Norway, Sweden and Finland, there was a light easterly flow.
In mid-Atlantic, at 51°N 34°W, there was today a deep depression, with a central pressure of 962 mb. Fronts from this depression extended eastwards towards the Celtic Sea (the part of the ocean off southern Ireland) and the Bay of Biscay. The clouds associated with these fronts can clearly be seen on the images obtained from NOAA’s polar orbiting satellite NOAA 14 (for an infra-red image obtained at 0606 UTC, click here). The weather chart for 0000 UTC shows a secondary Low of 984 mb over south-east England, with fronts giving rain over England and Wales, snow over Scotland. During the day, this Low moved slowly north-eastwards. To the north of the Low’s centre, winds blew from an easterly point. To the south of it, they blew from the south-west. This depression’s warm and occluded fronts brought rain and snow not only to the British Isles but also to Denmark, The Netherlands, southern Sweden and many parts of central and eastern Europe.
Pressure was high over northern parts of North Africa, with a maximum of 1030 mb over north-east Libya. Winds blew from a westerly point over the Mediterranean Sea, immediately to the north of this anticyclone, and the weather over the Mediterranean was fair. A cold front from the Low over south-east England extended across France, central parts of Spain, and southern parts of Portugal to the Atlantic Ocean south of the Azores. During the day, the front moved slowly eastwards, bringing, for example, the light rain that was reported from Strasbourg and the south-westerly winds of 44 km/h reported by the students of the MetLink school in Switzerland.
The NOAA 14 satellite image for 0606 UTC today shows that cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds were present over the sea to the north and north-west of the British Isles. The cloud patterns have a distinctly speckled appearance, typical of convective activity. Cumulonimbus clouds have a diameter of about 10 km and often occur in clusters containing several to a dozen or more clouds. These clusters may have diameters of several tens of kilometres, or even 100 km or more The air flowing westwards out of Scandinavia recently has been very cold. When this air passed over the sea, it was warmed significantly from below and thus became convectively unstable. For a chart of sea temperatures over the North Sea, eastern parts of the North Atlantic Ocean and the waters north of the British Isles, click here.
AFRICA AND ASCENSION
Todays’ infra-red satellite image for 1200 UTC shows that skies were clear over most of North Africa, as confirmed by the observation received today from the International Community School at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) can be seen extending eastwards from the mouth of the Amazon to the Gulf of Guinea and then south-eastwards across Zaire and Zambia to the Mozambique Channel. Today, as noted in the report for primary schools, Madagascar had a day with not much cloud.
Cumulonimbus clouds show up on this satellite image as bright white patches. Two patches in particular, near 3°N 22°E, show clearly that the wind at cloud-top level (approximately 15 km) was from the south-east. The anvils of the clouds, which are the parts of the clouds ‘seen’ by the satellite, can be seen streaming away north-westwards.
The satellite image shows a band of cloud running south-eastwards from southern Mozambique. The weather chart for 0600 UTC issued by the South African Weather Bureau shows that the cloud is associated with an area of low pressure (1003 mb) centred over the southern part of the Mozambique Channel and with a cold front that extends many hundreds of kilometres south-eastwards to a deep depression at 65°S 85°E, near the Antarctic continent.
The satellite image shows that skies were generally free of cloud over southernmost parts of Africa. Today’s weather chart from the South African Weather Bureau shows that high pressure was centred near 40°S 40°E and near 30°S 10°W, with a col between.
The reason for the cloud over Ascension Island today is not clear from satellite images and weather charts but may have been that a weak trough of low pressure from the ITCZ extended as far south as Ascension (8°S).
To obtain the latest South African Weather Bureau chart showing fronts and isobars over southern Africa and the Southern Ocean, click here.
AUSTRALASIA
Today’s 1230 UTC satellite image of Australia, eastern Asia and the western Pacific shows that scattered cumulonimbus clouds occurred over Australia’s Northern Territory, as well as over northern parts of Western Australia and western parts of Queensland. It also shows that cumulonimbus activity on the ITCZ was widespread over Indonesia. The ITCZ shows up as a broad band of cloud extending from Sri Lanka eastwards to about 160°E, the centre of the band lying a few degrees south of the equator. The North-East Monsoon was the dominant weather feature over northern and central India today.
Today’s weather chart for 1200 UTC issued by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology shows that pressure was high over Tasmania (1029 mb) and low (1000 mb) over north-west Australia. To obtain the latest chart of isobars and fronts over Australia, click here.
The northerly wind reported by the students of Keio Girls’ High School in Tokyo occurred on the eastern side of a ridge of high pressure that extended eastwards from the High over central Asia. The polar front lay a little to the south of Japan today. To obtain a weather chart that includes Japan, click here. To obtain a chart containing Japan’s plotted weather observations, click here.
NORTH AMERICA AND HAWAII
Today’s 0600 UTC chart from Environment Canada shows that pressure was high (1030 mb) over south-western parts of the USA (southern Rockies) and low (1008 mb) over central Canada (Manitoba). It was also low (1014 mb) over Ohio and Michigan. The fronts associated with these depressions brought cloud and precipitation to the MetLink schools in Ohio and Ontario. Farther west, on the western flanks of the Low over Manitoba, winds were from the north-west and cloud amounts quite large over Alberta, but precipitation amounts over Alberta were small (with no precipitation at all at James Gibbons School, Edmonton). In the west of the USA, the weather situation was that the MetLink school at Moses Lake (Washington State) lay in the cool northerly flow between a High of 1038 mb centred near 45°N 140°W and the low pressure over central North America. The school at Pasadena enjoyed warm south-easterly winds from the interior of California.
To obtain a recent weather chart from Environment Canada, click here and then choose the chart you require. For charts of North America made available by a German source, click here.
Finally, we turn to the cool weather that has occurred recently in Hawaii. This was associated with the passage of a cold front, which is unusual for Hawaii, as cold fronts generally do not extend into the tropics. The latitude of the MetLink school on Oahu is 21°N. The Low from which the cold front extended was centred at 30°N 150°E and had a central pressure of 1006 mb. This Low was a secondary depression that had developed on the cold front a depression that was centred over British Columbia but was now very weak and well-occluded.
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? Have you taken John Harris’s webcam tour of the world? If not, click here. Have you taken his radar tour of the world? If not, click here.
NOTES
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.
For upper-air soundings made at stations in Europe, click here. For upper-air soundings made at stations in the USA, click here. For soundings from other regions, scroll down either the Europe page or the USA page and follow the appropriate links. Each sounding is provided in tabular form or as a Postscript file or as a GIF image.
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.
To read news stories sent in by MetLink schools, click here. For pictures of MetLink activities, 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.
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, 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.
At Adventdalen on Spitsbergen, 4 km from Longyearbyen, there is an automatic weather station that provides readings of temperature, wind speed, wind direction and barometric pressure. The webpage that shows these readings is updated every five minutes.
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.
DID YOU KNOW?
Did you know that Anders Celsius was born 300 years ago? The man who was an astronomer but is chiefly remembered for the centigrade scale of temperature that bears his name was born at Uppsala in Sweden on 27 November 1701. He proposed his temperature scale in 1742, in a memoir read before the Swedish Academy of Sciences.
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.
