(Bismarck) Don't tell the Met Office - they'll get ideas. Nearly all weather observations are now automated; the numbers go automatically into a computer and a forecast is produced. A sort of human may then intervene and tell the awaiting masses it will feel warmer/colder or whatever, this idiot savant having access to the thermal responses of the entire population, ranging from 6-yr-old boys to old dears of 92.
There's probably been a game like this, but I'd like to suggest a re-run after reading here this comment about Boris Johnson: "It looks to me like he's digging his political grave. It's one to deploy humour and charm and intellect and all these things he has in spades". Anyone interested?
Europe is thinking of getting rid of the hour change. It looks like being one of those weird decisions - if voted on before end October, Europe remains on summer time; if after, winter time. Which should we vote for?
[Bismarck] When Robert Maxwell had disappeared from his yacht, before his body was found, one of his friends was interviewed on the TV and said - utterly without inflection - that "He seemed in a buoyant mood the last time I saw him." I was somewhat delighted...
I read him as saying that it is OK to believe in climate change, as long as you are willing to be blamed for it. To show his acceptance, he is looking for volunteers.
Come on Rosie, you can do better than that. Where's your experience from previous years, observation of migration patterns of sparrows, wind direction causing bunion growth, modern glaciation etc etc to say nothing of the advanced abacus climate models?
The Met Office's Abba Cuss has been given over to accountancy. Helen Willetts will continue to suppress giggles on Radio 4. Tomasz Schaffernaker will say "cunt" on air and become "A" list. An inch of snow will cause widespread points failures. Points mean derailments. What do points mean?
Ha well you'd have thought that a spy plane would know something about it. But on further investigation it's written by a bunch of Irishmen, a nation not known for their atomic status nor for spying prowess.
(Dujon) I don't know if this sort of thing happens in Oz but the barometric pressure in the last few days in the UK has been up to 1045 mb but the weather associated with it has been some of the most boring I can remember. Saw the sun today for the first time since Christmas.
It might, Rosie, but an hPa/mb reading above 1040 at Maison Dujon is unusual, although not unheard of. High pressure systems generally produce settled weather and clear skies, but that's not always the case.
Locally we have been having a short spell of hot weather. Rather than fill this space with data, I refer you to this (rather rough) image.
(Duj) Those curves are quite unlike anything I get, quite apart from the warmth. On a fine day here the temperature rises very rapidly to start with then the rate tails off to a fairly smooth maximum apart from the jagged short-period variations of about one degree. What's the "apparent temperature"? It seems to be about 2° above the actual temperature, day and night. I see something rather dramatic happened in the afternoon of the last day. Cool southerlies taking over? I bet you're relieved.
[Rosie] Apparent Temperature? It's a "feels like" approximation relating to how the human body reacts to current conditions. If you pop off to one of my web sites here and open the INFO section of the menu bar you will find a few other methods of calculating that in the middle "Bio Indexes" [sic] choice. If you bang around the site you will find other data showing local conditions, current and historical. As far as the temperature curves, yes, it tends to trend to maximum and then descend to minimum readings at a fairly rapid rate, although the falling temperature is generally somewhat slower than the the rising one. After two days of relatively cool maxima as I type the outside temperature is a little over 31ºC with a projected maximum of or about 35ºC.
(Dujon) I've only had two 35's in 36 years, 3 Aug 90 and 10 Aug 03. Highest minimum was 20.0°C, lowest max was something I didn't think was possible, viz -9.2°C and on this day in 1987.
