|
|
|
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Weather report for primary schools for Thursday 8 February 2001
THE HEADLINES TODAY
Thank goodness for air conditioning in Melbourne. Thank goodness for central heating in Edmonton. Not a bad day for golf in Madagascar. A cloud on Table Mountain. Another beautiful day in the Kenyan Highlands. Flood warnings in the British Isles. Boring weather in Portugal.
THE WEATHER IN THE METLINK WORLD TODAY
Today’s hot-spot was Melbourne, where the sun shone and the temperature topped 40°C. "Lucky we have air conditioners", said the pupils of Southmoor Primary School, Moorabbin. A northerly breeze brought hot air from the interior of Australia to the Melbourne area. The coldest place in the MetLink world today was Edmonton in Canada, where the temperature at 1600 UTC (0900 Local Time) was -18°C and the sky overcast with a complete cover of stratus cloud, out of which ice crystals fell.
Moorabbin was the hottest place in the MetLink world by a considerable margin today. The only other places to report a temperature of 30°C or more were Addis Ababa, where the maximum temperature was 33°C, Ascension Island, where the maximum temperature was 31°C, and Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, where the maximum temperature was exactly 30°C. The American School in Antananarivo on Madagascar recorded a maximum temperature of 29°C and the Jakarta International School in Indonesia recorded 28°C. "Very cloudy but warm", said the students of Ascension’s Two Boats School, where the day was breezy and six oktas of cumulus-type cloud formed. "A beautiful day", said the students in Puerto Vallarta, where there were no clouds in the sky. "Sunny, warm, some clouds, little wind" was the report from Addis Ababa, where the temperature at 1000 UTC was 21°C, a light south-westerly wind of 3 km/h was blowing and the clouds seen were stratocumulus and altocumulus. "Not a bad day for golf", said the students in Antananarivo, where the temperature at 0940 UTC was 28.0°C, a light southerly breeze was blowing and a mixture of cumulus, cirrus, stratus and altocumulus clouds was seen. "Almost continuous rain for the last 24 hours", reported the students of the MetLink school in Jakarta. When they made their observation this morning, heavy rain was falling from nimbostratus cloud, and the rain collected in their gauge amounted to 42.5 mm.
In other parts of the tropics and subtropics that are warm and humid at this time of year, there was a variety of weather. In Bulawayo (Zimbabwe), the weather was cool, overcast and wet this morning. The temperature was 19°C and a rainfall amount of 43 mm was measured. At Marondera (also in Zimbabwe), the weather was overcast and light drizzle was falling. Here, the temperature was also 19°C this morning. In Lusaka (Zambia), the weather was dull with showers and the temperature 22°C. The weather at Hilton College in Kwazulu-Natal (South Africa) was wet this evening, with lighting and thunder reported and heavy rain falling from nimbostratus and cumulonimbus clouds. The amount of rain measured was 14.0 mm and the temperature at 1830 UTC was 20.0°C. The weather at the other MetLink school in South Africa, Micklefield School in Cape Town, was very different this morning from that occurring at Hilton College this evening. Apart from one cloud on Table Mountain, the sky was cloudless. The wind was quite strong, 44 km/h from the south-east, and the temperature was 23°C. The students in Nairobi reported "another beautiful day in the Kenyan Highlands", with two oktas of cumulus cloud and a temperature of 23.3°C at 1245 UTC.
The weather at Leilehua High School on Oahu (Hawaii) was cloudy today. The temperature was 24.0°C at 1300 Local Time (2300 UTC) and the lightest of breezes was blowing from the south-east. The cloud cover (eight oktas) was made up of cumulus, stratocumulus and altostratus clouds.
Central and eastern parts of the Mediterranean had another sunny day. Otherwise, skies were again rather cloudy over Europe today, with rain at Portugal’s Escola Secundária Gabriel Pereira and Spain’s Vicálvaro Primary School in Madrid. The front that brought the rain to these two schools did not reach the other MetLink school in Spain, IES Vidal i Barraquer in Tarragona. The weather there was sunny and quite warm, with a temperature of 16°C at 1045 UTC. The students at Evora have clearly become tired of wet weather. "Boring, always raining", they said in their report today!
There was some mist and a little drizzle in northern Italy and light showers occurred in Strasbourg. The weather was, in contrast, quite pleasant at Geilenkirchen in Germany, where the temperature was 10°C and the sky almost cloudless. At Franeker in The Netherlands, however, rain was falling and the temperature was only 8°C. The students of CSG Anna Maria van Schurman measured 12 mm of rain this morning. The weather was fairly cloudy (six oktas) at Constanta (Romania), where the temperature was 9.6°C at 1100 UTC, and cloudy, too, in Prague, where the sky was completely covered with stratus cloud.
Temperatures were above 0°C in Scandinavia again, with maxima of 3.7°C at Vörå, 3.5°C at Mikkeli, 3.0°C at Jyväskylä and 6.5°C at Värnamo. Rain was falling at Mikkeli, where the students reported that the snow was melting. It was falling, too, at Jyväskylä and Värnamo, but there was no precipitation at Vörå this morning. The temperature at Longyearbyen School on Spitsbergen was again several degrees below 0°C, with -5.8°C recorded this morning, but this was above average and the students considered the weather "mild".
The weather was cool and cloudy but dry at St John’s — Kilmarnock School near Toronto, where the cloud amount recorded was six oktas and the temperature —3.0°C at 1510 UTC (1010 Local Time). The weather was also cool and overcast at Moses Lake in Washington State, where the temperature was -1.7°C at 1800 UTC (1000 Local Time). The temperature was 11.7°C at Pasadena in California at 2046 UTC (1246 Local Time) and the cloud amount small (three oktas of cumulus cloud).
In the British Isles, where winds were from a northerly direction today, temperatures were considerably lower than they were yesterday. A minimum temperature of —2°C was recorded at Clifford Primary School in Herefordshire, and the minimum temperature was also —2°C at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. Heavy overnight rain in southern parts of England raised river levels in the counties south of London, as a result of which flood warnings were issued for several rivers. Some MetLink participants clearly did not like the wet weather. "Steady rain, the playground flooded", said the pupils of Lawford Primary school, Essex. "Horrible", said the students of Norwich Girls’ High School. "Chilly, rainy, windy; a dismal day", said the pupils of Dale Hall Primary School in Ipswich, Suffolk. Snow continued to cause transport difficulties in the north of Scotland, where some roads and railway lines remained blocked by deep drifts.
Where would you like to have been during MetLinkInternational? Please tell us.
NOTES
For central England, there is a monthly temperature series that goes back to 1659. To view the data, click here. For other information about the climate of the British Isles, click here. For monthly rainfall data back to 1766, click here and choose data.
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.
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 Thursday 8 February 2001
PLEASE READ THIS REPORT FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN CONJUNCTION WITH TODAY’S REPORT FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS
ANALYSIS OF TODAY’S WEATHER IN THE METLINK WORLD
EUROPE
Low pressure remained the dominant weather influence over north-west Europe and the north-east Atlantic today, with a complex depression extending from Spain to Spitsbergen. The weather chart for 0000 UTC shows centres of low pressure at 47°N 9°W (990 mb), 49°N 2°W (987 mb), 64°N 11°E (981 mb) and 73°N 17°E (986 mb). The Low that was centred at 49°N 2°W brought heavy rain to a number of places in southern and eastern England overnight, with falls of more than 40 mm measured at several places in the south-east of England. Once again, as has happened all too often in the past four months, flood alerts were issued for rivers in the south-east. The autumn of 2000 was the wettest on record in many parts of England and Wales — and records go back more than 200 years. The ground became saturated many weeks ago and has not been able to dry out, given that low rates of evaporation occur in winter and further precipitation has fallen since the autumn. There is, at the moment, no capacity for rain-water to soak into the ground, so it flows off the surface and causes flooding all too easily.
The Low of 990 mb moved slowly north-eastwards to reach 49°N 5°W by 1200 UTC, when its central pressure was 997 mb. The Low of 987 mb also moved north-eastwards a little, reaching 50°N 1°E by 1200 UTC, when its central pressure was 990 mb. The Low of 981 mb reached 69°N 24°E by 1200 UTC, when its central pressure was 984 mb, and the Low of 986 mb moved to 77°N 24°E by 1200 UTC, when its central pressure was 984 mb. A new Low of 989 mb was present at 58°N 12°E at 1200 UTC, with a central pressure of 989 mb. By 1200 UTC, therefore, the complex depression possessed five centres of low pressure.
From Spitsbergen to the British Isles and the Bay of Biscay, winds were from the north. Over France, Germany, Poland, the Baltic Sea, Finland and the north-west of Russia, they were from the south-west. Over Norway, Denmark and Sweden, winds were light and variable. The warm front from the Low that was located at 49°N 2°W at 0000 UTC brought rain not only to southern England but also to the The Netherlands, northern Germany, northern Poland and southern Sweden. A weak front associated with the Low that was located at 64°N 11°W at 0000 UTC was responsible for the light rain that was reported by the students of the schools at Jyväskylä and Mikkeli in Finland. A trough of low pressure associated with the Low at 47°N 9°W caused the rain reported by the students of Escola Secundária Gabriel Pereira in Evora (Portugal) and Vicálvaro Primary School in Madrid (Spain). The weather was cool and dry over most parts of the British Isles today, once the overnight rain had cleared from East Anglia and the south-east of England.
Today, there were cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds over eastern parts of the Atlantic Ocean all the way from Spitsbergen to the Canary Islands, their formation resulting from the passage of cold air over a progressively warmer surface. For an explanation of the processes that cause these convective clouds, see the report for secondary schools for 7 February 2001.
The ridge of high pressure that has brought sunny weather to North Africa and central parts of the Mediterranean Sea in recent days declined somewhat today, but cloud amounts were again small over central and eastern parts of the Mediterranean today. There was a lot of cloud over Alpine regions and over central Europe, but no rain was reported by MetLink participants in France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Romania or the Czech Republic.
AFRICA AND ASCENSION
Today’s satellite images show that skies were again clear over most of North Africa, apart from a few patches of cirrus and altocumulus cloud. At this time of year, as noted in the reports for 6 and 7 February 2001, descending air in the Hadley Cell keeps the weather dry over almost the whole of North Africa. The ITCZ was fairly active today to the west of 20°W but almost absent over the Gulf of Guinea. Whereas on previous days the ITCZ had a linear nature, today it had a wavy appearance, meandering from about 3°N off the mouth of the Amazon to about 5°S near 30°W. Its influence does not appear to have extended as far south as Ascension Island, though the day there was quite cloudy, with six oktas of cloud reported. There was no rain at Two Boats School today.
There was very little cumulonimbus activity over north-western parts of southern Africa today and only a moderate amount over Zambia, Zimbabwe and Madagascar. Drizzle fell at Peterhouse (Zimbabwe) and showers occurred at the Banani International School in Zambia, but no rain fell at Bulawayo or Antananarivo. The tail end of a cold front from a Low of 985 mb that was centred at 46°S 40°E brought heavy rain to Hilton College in Kwazulu-Natal (South Africa). An anticyclone of 1029 mb that was centred at 39°S 8°E gave the MetLink school in Cape Town a sunny day.
To obtain the latest South African Weather Bureau chart showing fronts and isobars over southern Africa and the Southern Ocean, click here.
AUSTRALASIA
Satellite images show that cumulonimbus activity occurred again today over northern parts of Western Australia and also near Darwin. They show, too, that the ITCZ again existed as a broad band of cumulus and cumulonimbus activity extending from about 75°E to about 160°E. Pressure was low (1000 mb) over Western Australia north-east of Port Hedland and also low (1000 mb) over the Indian Ocean off Port Hedland. It was low, too, over the northern part of the Gulf of Carpentaria, where the depression’s central pressure was 999 mb. This is the monsoonal time of year in northern Australia. Northerly winds on the western flanks of an anticyclone (of 1021 mb) centred midway between New South Wales and the North Island of New Zealand brought very warm air from the interior of Australia to the Melbourne area. A cold front from a Low of 970 mb centred near 60°S 140°E lay between Melbourne and Adelaide, with cool, moist air to the west of it. To obtain the latest chart of isobars and fronts over Australia, click here.
Again today, as on previous days, there was a northerly wind at Keio Girls’ High School in Tokyo. This was consistent with Tokyo being situated between a ridge of high pressure from the winter anticyclone (1050 mb) over central Asia (50°N 90°E) and a developing area of low pressure (999 mb) centred at 39°N 160°E. The fronts associated with this depression lay to the south of Japan. A deep Low (963 mb) was centred at 60°N 179°E and moving north-north-eastwards. The tail end of a front from this Low reached the most northerly parts of Japan but did not affect the weather in Tokyo. To obtain a weather chart that includes Japan, click here. To obtain a chart containing Japan’s plotted weather observations, click here.
Satellite images of southern Asia show that skies were clear over most parts of India. The only significant amounts of cloud were over Kerala, the Madras (Chennai) area and Sri Lanka. This is the season of the North-East Monsoon in southern Asia. Wind-flow charts issued by the India Meteorological Department show that north-easterly winds were present today over both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.
NORTH AMERICA AND HAWAII
At 0000 UTC today, there was a Low of 986 mb off the north-east coast of Newfoundland and another of 1000 mb over western New Mexico. A warm front from this Low stretched north-eastwards almost to the Great Lakes and a cold front ran south-westwards from it to Baja California. A High of 1040 mb was centred near 65°N 102°W (west of Hudson Bay) and a ridge of high pressure from it stretched south-eastwards across the Great Lakes and the Carolinas. Another ridge stretched south-westwards across British Columbia; and there was again a weak trough of low pressure over Hawaii. Again there was sunny, warm weather in Puerto Vallarta, where the dominant influence was a subtropical anticyclone.
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. For weather maps, satellite pictures and precipitation maps supplied by USA TODAY, click here.
NOTES
For central England, there is a monthly temperature series that goes back to 1659. To view the data, click here. For other information about the climate of the British Isles, click here. For monthly rainfall data back to 1766, click here and choose data.
Did you know that hourly measurements of wind, temperature, pressure and sea conditions recorded by the sensors of the automatic weather stations that are aboard data buoys on the North Sea and eastern North Atlantic are available on the web? To obtain the latest observations, click here. When the page has loaded, click on the yellow diamonds to obtain data for individual buoys. Please note that temperatures are by default given in degrees Fahrenheit, pressure in inches and winds in knots. For metric data, choose, on the page containing the data for the buoy you selected, ‘metric’ on the ‘Unit of measure’ drop-down menu and ‘Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)’ on the ‘Time Zone’ drop-down menu. Then press ‘Select’.
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.
For a radar view of the weather over the British Isles, click here.
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.
