Rubbish weather thoery

[Stevie816]

Here in North Essex the weather has been rubbish for most of this year. I have only been observing for a forth (cant spell quater) of the time i spent last year.

How are you doing ?

Is this due to increased sun activity ? Global warming ? some other cyclic effect , What theory do you have ?. Or is it just Essex and everyone else is having a great time.

I am considering leaving the garden and travelling further afield but where?

Stevie

[summerstars]

Up in Middlesbrough, we've had rubbish weather too. Although, I braved most of it when the skies were clear. It's now too light for me to go out with my scope. Too tired by the time it gets dark enough. Damn summer.

I've been toying with the idea of going to the Yorkshire Moors, but would require plenty of planning.

Vikki x

[Ant]

It's been the same for the entire UK I think. The general consensus is that it's the position of the Jet stream that is causing the UK the problems.

It isn't confined to the UK, Central Europe have had a really bad time of it with flooding etc.

What isn't so clear (or agreed on) is the cause of the jet stream issues.

Cheers

Ant

[Stevie816]

So That's two votes for rubbish weather

Note to self "must leave planet earth as soon as possible"

[crashtestdummy]

Most of it seems to be theorised as down to the jet stream being lower(i think its lower) than normal due to various reasons.ive had so.e good sessions this year,definately more than last year so i think the weather has been better this year.

Some good sites on the moors

[ronin]

Personally not sure about solar activity, think that yes the solar activity alters but think that the change is small and so donates little change to us. We are getting warmer, lets leave otu the arguements why, so that adds more moisture in general to the atmosphere, it also adds more energy to it so our general unsettled weather is more unsettled and chaotic.

There is also some Atlantic cycle that we are close to the peak of, the Atlantic is warmer so again that adds more moisture to the prevaling weather.

There is also the simple fact that we have never really had good settled weather, and even if it is clear it has to be clear at the right time. It might clear at 2.00 or 3.00 in the morning and although that is a time I could be observing there is not a chance that I will be up and checking the weather on the off-chance to take advantage of it. I have woke several morning to clear skies when the previous night was cloudy, at some time it changed. Basically if not clear at around 10:00 PM I do not wait in hope.

[Spaced Cadet]

Well, weather looks good for this weekend!

[K3ny0n]

Another one from Middlesborough and I've actually put away the scope for a while. Weather is nuts.

Rob.

[Stevie816]

come on guys and Vikki ,

wer'e supposed to be developing a theory here, not just a weather report. !!!

If the weather doesn't clear up by the time the comet gets here I'm off.

[summerstars]

I'm not bothered about the weather, unless it's raining, I just need light nights! I don't mind wearing loads of layers to go look at the sky. :-)

[Pig]

Up in Middlesbrough, we've had rubbish weather too. Although, I braved most of it when the skies were clear. It's now too light for me to go out with my scope. Too tired by the time it gets dark enough. Damn summer.

I've been toying with the idea of going to the Yorkshire Moors, but would require plenty of planning.

Vikki x

Vikki hiya, I am going to try the Moors toward the end of August when its a little darker, My better half has family in York so this will be my base, York also happens to be quite a favourite of mine so this should help should the clouds roll in.

[K3ny0n]

Vikki, Pig, I've heard heard Sutton Bank is pretty decent, just outside Thirsk I think. Has a car park too which would be great for access. Only negative I've heard about is a snall farm nearby sometimes has outside spot lights on.

Rob.

[wxsatuser]

Here in North Essex the weather has been rubbish for most of this year. I have only been observing for a forth (cant spell quater) of the time i spent last year.

How are you doing ?

Is this due to increased sun activity ? Global warming ? some other cyclic effect , What theory do you have ?. Or is it just Essex and everyone else is having a great time.

I am considering leaving the garden and travelling further afield but where?

Stevie

Who really knows.

Weather patterns are may be long term and we don't see the whole picture.

Many things affect weather, sun, our orbit, precession and man etc.

[SteveNickolls]

I have just been checking my observing log for last year (April-June) and there just were 4 occasions when I was able to observe at night. This year it has been a similar number but that's using 10x50 binoculars for fleeting views this year otherwise the number would be less. At least were past the longest day now and the weekend is meant to be fine. Ought to take up solar observing but regrettably that does not interest me which is a shame. As for the cause(s) I put it down to natural changes, by that I mean the earth has in the past gone through climatic changes and man wasn't even around then to blame himself. This bad weather is good for astro-sales as we all compensate for the lack of viewing with new purchases for when we hope we can. On a tangent does anyone else find they can only type on one line in the forums and cannot start a new paragraph on another line? Also sometimes I can't type at all in the message box. Cheers, Steve

[K3ny0n]

Things also could be looking up for the next few weeks, "Forecasters predict the longest period of warm sunshine in July since 2006. It starts today with a high of 24C and could rise to a record 33C later in the month"

It goes on to say a giant high pressure zone from the Azores is blocking out soggy Atlantic low pressure.

Key word = Forecast

Rob.

[ollypenrice]

Fourth.

Low sunspot activity has been linked, in the past, with very cold weather such as seen in London's 'mini ice ages' when the Thames froze and the boatmen had to turn into ice guides in order to make a living. Basically they made people pay them to take them over the ice, the alternative being a beating-up!

I think that low solar activity is also associated with a southerly drift in the position of the jet streams coming towards europe from the west. These drive aside the cold polar airflows, but this year the jetstreams have been a long way to the south so the cold air comes further south before being diverted. Here in S France (lat 44) we have had a relatively poor six months, though not the catastrophe of the UK. The winter wasn't particularly cold (rather the opposite) but the hot summer weather has arrived very late indeed. When it did arrive it came all at once, changing in a couple of days from 'fires in the evening' to 'get inside out of the afternoon heat!' Very odd.

One thing to remember, though, is that the weather isn't what it used to be. It never has been. Humans live long enough to see perceptible changes in their lifetimes so few people will have lived thier lives without seeing systematic change of some kind.

Atacama or bust!

Olly

[LukeSkywatcher]

On a positive note, at least its been a pretty dry summer so far. Just too damn cloudy.

[Joe_L]

Another key fact to consider is the severe thinning and subsequent loss of arctic sea ice in the last few years, which does appear to be new. This has a significant impact on the North Atlantic which in turn affects the jetstream. Of course things can be counter-intuitive e.g. warming generates more icebergs further sourth in the atlantic as the greenland glaciers calve more frequently.

We had 3 awful summers in the northwest, I hope this doesn't turn out to be a 4th! Last year we only got 1 nice week and a smattering of isolated single clear days from 1st April until the end of the year. The previous year we only had 15 days of 20C or above in the same period.

[Bluey]

I read something the other day that the Atlantic has warmed slightly, which in turn has increased the amount of cloud coming our way

Perhaps we all need to go down to the coast and start chucking ice cubes in, that may help!

[Peter Drew]

That's disappointing, my understanding was that The Only Way Is Essex! (Someone explain to Olly )

[Jase_v2]

seems to be always peeing down here in Cumbria - least its stopped for now! Were not the lakes for nowt I suppose - get hacked off when the only place raining in the entire country is cumbria though! Least you lot over the Pennines seem to have an easier time of it - my SWMBO is from Middlesbrough and likes nothing more than saying - if you moved over to me you'd be dry now etc etc - but then again , she had never seen the milky way til she met me !

On the plus side - BBC long range showing clear(ish) skies fo rme well into next week - fingers crossed

[Joe_L]

Jase,

Would you mind keeping your clouds in order. I'm just over the mountains from you in South Cumbria. Every time we have a nice afternoon as it starts getting dark the low clouds start spilling over the Old Man and into our area.

Last night I could see a sea of it over in the west waiting to spread, little tendrils seeping round the edges of Dunnerdale. Its happened again tonight so we've organised a south east wind to blow it back again!

Joe

[Jase_v2]

Apologies Joe !

Couldnt stop em last night - but looking promising for Saturday & Sunday. . I can see the isle of man from my place and we usually say that, if you cant see it, its raining and if you can see it, its going to rain !

[AlexB67]

We mostly tak about global warming these days, but let us not forget that if the gulf stream stops, which could be any time soon, or far into the future expect an ice age. Not sure how severe that problem is, suffice it to say a few years ago there was a lot of talk about this topic, and evidence to suggest it is constantly slowing down all the time.

As for a weather model, Who knows , we can't even predict it a few days into the future, it is a complex ( and very nonlinear ) problem. Yet long term climate change can exhibit cyclic behaviour, so often what comes around comes around but I am not a climatologist to say what will happen, or have a precise idea how robust some the models used are to make some of long the term predictions. That being said, the slowing down of the gulf stream is not just some idea based on theory and calculations, it has been measured experimentally.

I just do what my parents told me, look at the sunset the night before, a nice red one means you going to have nice weather the next day, probably a myth

[Joe_L]

Jase,

No problem mate, I'm sure you get some of our clouds from time to time!! It interesting there do seem to be some very localised costal effects around here - sometimes Cartmel or Furness peninsulas are clear when the rest is cloudy, and vice versa sometimes the The west coast and Keswick gets the clearance instead.