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Weather report for primary schools for Tuesday 30 January 2001
THE HEADLINES TODAY
Hot and sticky in Zimbabwe. Rain again in Jakarta and Kwazulu-Natal. Damp and chilly in the British Isles. Rain in Ohio. Christmas-weather in Finland. Snow in Prague. Sunny in California. Mild in Romania. A cyclone off Australia.
THE WEATHER IN THE METLINK WORLD TODAY
What a difference a day makes! The weather was dry in all parts of the British Isles yesterday, but a band of cloud brought rain and drizzle to most parts today. As the weather reports from MetLink schools show, temperatures were quite low and conditions overcast almost everywhere, with nimbostratus cloud reported from many schools. Some comments on the weather paint the picture of Britain’s weather today: "cool, damp feel" (Clifford Primary School, Hereford); "cold and damp" (St Oswald’s Primary School, Sheffield); "wet, cloudy, miserable" (Edgbaston High School, Birmingham); "damp, drizzle and chilly" (Sutton-on-Sea Primary School, Lincolnshire); "very dark wet day" (The Dragon School, Oxford); "dull, raw and damp" (George Hannah, Isle of Bute, Scotland). At 1200 UTC (mid-day Local Time), temperatures were only 4 or 5°C in eastern England and eastern Scotland and not many degrees higher in Ireland, Wales and the west of England. There was rain and drizzle at Udine in Italy today and snow in Prague, but the weather was better elsewhere in Europe, with sunshine in Spain and Switzerland and temperatures above 10°C in Romania.
The weather was hazy and cold at the MetLink school in Sweden (near Värnamo), with the temperature just above 0°C at 0700 UTC. Indeed, the students there reported that the ground was free of snow. At Jyväskylä in Finland, where the temperature was -7°C at 0900 UTC, frost was reported; and at Mikkeli in Finland, where the temperature was —5°C at 1100 UTC, there was, to quote the school’s weather report, "nice Christmas-weather" with "frost on the trees". At Vörå in Finland, however, where the temperature was also —5°C at 1100 UTC, the weather was not so nice, with light snow falling and the sky grey and dull. The temperature in Longyearbyen was lower today than yesterday (-11.1°C compared with —8.3°C) but the sky was almost cloudless and the students were able to report that the sky was blue and the light returning. The long period of winter darkness will soon be over.
At the MetLink schools in the USA and the MetLink school at St John’s, Breslau, Ontario, temperatures were above freezing when today’s weather observations were made. There was drizzle at Divernon Middle School in Illinois, however, with the weather "cloudy, cold, wet, muggy, dark". It was much the same at Forest Hill Parkway Academy in Ohio and at Moses Lake in Washington State, where, at both places, the weather was rainy and windy. At Pasadena, California, however, the sun shone and the temperature at 2100 UTC (1300 Local Time) was 15°C. At James Gibbons School in Edmonton (Alberta, Canada), the temperature was well below freezing (-6°C) at 1600 UTC (0900 Local Time) and the sky was only partly cloudy. North America covers a large area, so it is not surprising that considerable variations of weather occur over the continent. Today, southerly winds (i.e. winds from the south) brought mild weather to the eastern part of the USA and northerly winds brought colder conditions to central and western parts of the USA. Temperatures were very low in northern parts of Canada (-25°C on the eastern side of Hudson Bay and below —35°C in the North-West Territories).
Readers in warm regions of the globe must be shivering by now, so what has the weather been like today in the tropics and subtropics?
There has been rain again in Jakarta, Indonesia, though not as much as yesterday (‘only’ 11.6 mm measured today). The maximum temperature the students recorded this morning was 33°C (compared with 30°C yesterday), and the humidity was very high (94% when the MetLink team made their observation). In Indonesia, the wettest months of the year are January and February, with Jakarta receiving an average of 300 mm of rain in January and another 300 mm in February. Today, there was rain again in Kwazulu-Natal, in the east of South Africa, with 14 mm measured at Hilton College. On the other side of South Africa, at Micklefield School near Cape Town, drizzle fell for a while but the amount of precipitation that fell was too small to be measurable. At both schools in South Africa, temperatures well above 20°C were recorded. Temperatures above 20°C were recorded at the MetLink schools in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Madagascar, too, and all of these schools lay under a band of cloud that extended all the way across the central part of southern Africa from Angola to northern Madagascar. The rain that fell at Hilton College, however, came from a front associated with a weather system that was centred about 1,500 km south of South Africa. The weather was dull and overcast at Two Boats School on Ascension Island today but nevertheless warm, with a temperature of 22°C at 1230 UTC.
At the MetLink schools in Uganda and Kenya, which both lie close to the equator, there was no rain today and the report from the Lincoln International School in Kampala was that "the dry season appears to have started". As mentioned in yesterday’s report, these places are wettest in April and May. The near-equatorial belt of cloud and rain tends to lie some way to the south of Kampala and Nairobi in January and February, which is the wettest time of year in Zambia and Zimbabwe and the driest in Ethiopia, where, at the MetLink school in Addis Ababa, the temperature was close to 20°C and the clouds were mostly fair-weather cumulus.
To quote the weather report from the MetLink school on Hawaii, today was a "typical trade-wind day". The wind blew from the north-east and the predominant cloud type was cumulus. Over the tropical parts of the North Pacific Ocean (the latitude of Oahu is about 21°N), north-east trade winds blow day after day and the clouds are called ‘trade-wind cumulus’. These clouds characteristically lean backwards with height, because the wind speed decreases with height. Their bases are about 600 m above sea level and their tops about 2,000 m.
There was sunny weather today at Keio Girls’ High School (Minatoku, Tokyo, Japan), but the temperature was not much above 0°C and the students reported that snow was still to be seen on the ground. The weather was sunny in New Delhi (India), too, but very hot for the time of year, with a maximum temperature of 30°C. This is the dry season in India, when winds generally blow from the north-east. Air pollution is a problem in the large cities of India, as the hourly weather reports from the airports at New Delhi and Mumbai (Bombay) indicate. Hour after hour, "smoke" is reported.
The weather was fine today at Trinity Grammar School, near Melbourne, Australia. There, in the words of the students, there was "a pleasant sunny day with light winds". Just off the coast of north-west Australia, however, there was a tropical cyclone called ‘Terri’. This was bringing heavy rain and strong winds to Port Hedland and places nearby. The occurrence of cyclones over the South Indian Ocean at this time of year is not unusual, the cyclone season over north-west and north-east Australia being from December to March/April.
None of you reported aircraft condensation trails or optical phenomena today. Please tell us if you see any.
Did you wear hot-weather clothes today or cold-weather clothes? Did you wear thick boots or light shoes? Did you wear a hat? If so, was it to keep you warm, to keep the rain off or to protect you from the sun? How differently from you do you think people in other parts of the MetLink world dressed today for the weather where they live?
Do you want to find climatic statistics? If so, visit the Royal Meteorological Society’s Climate on the web site.
Weather report for secondary schools for Tuesday 30 January 2001
THE HEADLINES TODAY
Hot and sticky in Zimbabwe. Rain again in Jakarta and Kwazulu-Natal. Damp and chilly in the British Isles. Rain in Ohio. Christmas-weather in Finland. Snow in Prague. Mild in Romania. Trade winds in Hawaii. A cyclone off Australia.
THE WEATHER IN THE METLINK WORLD TODAY
What a difference a day makes! The weather was dry in all parts of the British Isles yesterday, but a band of cloud brought rain and drizzle to most parts today. As the weather reports from MetLink schools show, temperatures were quite low and conditions overcast almost everywhere, with nimbostratus cloud reported from many schools. Some comments on the weather paint the picture of Britain’s weather today: "overcast and dank" (Wells Cathedral School, Somerset); "cloudy and damp" (BBC Weather Centre, London); "dull and wet" (Radley College, Oxfordshire); "damp, drizzle and chilly" (Sutton-on-Sea Primary School, Lincolnshire); "foggy, misty, dank, damp, cold" (Delabole Primary School, Cornwall); "cold, wet, grey skies, light rain" (Castle Hall Language College, Yorkshire). At 1200 UTC (mid-day Local Time), temperatures were only 4 or 5°C in eastern England and eastern Scotland and not many degrees higher in Ireland, Wales and the west of England. A weak occluded front from a Low centred near southern Greenland brought the rain and drizzle. For the 0000 UTC weather charts on 30 and 31 January, click here and here.
There was rain and drizzle at Udine in Italy today and snow in Prague, but the weather was better elsewhere in Europe, with sunshine in Spain and Switzerland and temperatures above 10°C in Romania. Fronts from a depression centred over the Tyrrhenian Sea (between Naples and Sardinia) brought the rain and snow to northern Italy (for a weather chart, click here). Winds were southerly over the countries between the Adriatic and Black Seas, on the eastern flanks of this depression. To obtain the latest chart showing isobars and plotted weather observations over Europe and the eastern Atlantic, click here.
The weather was hazy and cold at the MetLink school in Sweden (near Värnamo), with the temperature just above 0°C at 0700 UTC. Indeed, the students there reported that the ground was free of snow. At Jyväskylä in Finland, where the temperature was -7°C at 0900 UTC, frost was reported; and at Mikkeli in Finland, where the temperature was —5°C at 1100 UTC, there was, to quote the school’s weather report, "nice Christmas-weather" with "frost on the trees". At Vörå in Finland, however, where the temperature was also —5°C at 1100 UTC, the weather was not so nice, with light snow falling and the sky grey and dull. The temperature in Longyearbyen was lower today than yesterday (-11.1°C compared with —8.3°C) but the sky was almost cloudless and the students were able to report that the sky was blue and the light returning. The long period of winter darkness will soon be over.
At the MetLink schools in the USA and the MetLink school at St John’s, Breslau, Ontario, temperatures were above freezing when today’s weather observations were made. There was drizzle at Divernon Middle School in Illinois, however, with the weather "cloudy, cold, wet, muggy, dark". It was much the same at Forest Hill Parkway Academy in Ohio and at Moses Lake in Washington State, where, at both places, the weather was rainy and windy. At Pasadena, California, however, the sun shone and the temperature at 2100 UTC (1300 Local Time) was 15°C. At James Gibbons School in Edmonton (Alberta, Canada), the temperature was well below freezing (-6°C) at 1600 UTC (0900 Local Time) and the sky was only partly cloudy. North America covers a large area, so it is not surprising that considerable variations of weather occur over the continent. Today, southerly winds (i.e. winds from the south) brought mild weather to the eastern part of the USA and northerly winds brought colder conditions to central and western parts of the USA. A Low of 990 mb was centred over Missouri and Kansas. Temperatures were very low in northern parts of Canada (-25°C on the eastern side of Hudson Bay and below —35°C in the North-West Territories).
Readers in warm regions of the globe must be shivering by now, so what has the weather been like today in the tropics and subtropics?
There has been rain again in Jakarta, Indonesia, though not as much as yesterday (‘only’ 11.6 mm measured today). The maximum temperature the students recorded this morning was 33°C (compared with 30°C yesterday), and the humidity was very high (94% when the MetLink team made their observation). In Indonesia, the wettest months of the year are January and February, with Jakarta receiving an average of 300 mm of rain in January and another 300 mm in February. Today, there was rain again in Kwazulu-Natal, in the east of South Africa, with 14 mm measured at Hilton College. On the other side of South Africa, at Micklefield School near Cape Town, drizzle fell for a while but the amount of precipitation that fell was too small to be measurable. At both schools in South Africa, temperatures well above 20°C were recorded. Temperatures above 20°C were recorded at the MetLink schools in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Madagascar, too, and all of these schools lay under a band of cloud that extended all the way across the central part of southern Africa from Angola to northern Madagascar. The rain that fell at Hilton College, however, came from a front associated with a weather system that was centred about 1,500 km south of South Africa. The weather was dull and overcast at Two Boats School on Ascension Island today but nevertheless warm, with a temperature of 22°C at 1230 UTC. The visible and infra-red satellite images show clearly the cloud patterns over Africa and the South Atlantic.
At the MetLink schools in Uganda and Kenya, which both lie close to the equator, there was no rain today and the report from the Lincoln International School in Kampala was that "the dry season appears to have started". As mentioned in yesterday’s report, these places are wettest in April and May. The near-equatorial belt of cloud and rain (the ITCZ) tends to lie some way to the south of Kampala and Nairobi in January and February, which is the wettest time of year in Zambia and Zimbabwe and the driest in Ethiopia, where, at the MetLink school in Addis Ababa, the temperature was close to 20°C and the clouds were mostly fair-weather cumulus.
To quote the weather report from the MetLink school on Hawaii, today was a "typical trade-wind day". The wind blew from the north-east and the predominant cloud type was cumulus. Over the tropical parts of the North Pacific Ocean (the latitude of Oahu is about 21°N), north-east trade winds blow day after day and the clouds are called ‘trade-wind cumulus’. These clouds characteristically lean backwards with height, because the wind speed decreases with height. Their bases are about 600 m above sea level and their tops about 2,000 m.
There was sunny weather today at Keio Girls’ High School (Minatoku, Tokyo, Japan), but the temperature was not much above 0°C and the students reported that snow was still to be seen on the ground. The weather was sunny in New Delhi (India), too, but very hot for the time of year, with a maximum temperature of 30°C. This is the dry season in India, when winds generally blow from the north-east. Air pollution is a problem in the large cities of India, as the hourly weather reports from the airports at New Delhi and Mumbai (Bombay) indicate. Hour after hour, "smoke" is reported.
The weather was fine today at Trinity Grammar School, near Melbourne, Australia. There, in the words of the students, there was "a pleasant sunny day with light winds". Just off the coast of north-west Australia, however, there was a tropical cyclone called ‘Terri’. This was bringing heavy rain and strong winds to Port Hedland and places nearby. The occurrence of cyclones over the South Indian Ocean at this time of year is not unusual, the cyclone season over north-west and north-east Australia being from December to March/April. For information about cyclones over the seas near Australia, visit the website of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
None of you reported aircraft condensation trails or optical phenomena today. Please tell us if you see any.
To obtain information about the weather around the world, click here. For information about unusual weather, scroll down the page to ‘World weather news’. For detailed coverage of the weather in different parts of the world, click here or here.
Do you want to find climatic statistics? If so, visit the Royal Meteorological Society’s Climate on the web site.
