Stormy Weather

[amateur51]

Many good things happened in 1961

Indeed so Caliban - cracking year for Bordeaux!

[BBMmk2]

I was 6 back then! :)

Another stonking day down here, in the wilds of West Sussex. Had a great time(not), with the wiofe and the company of the NHS, at our Royal Sussex County Hospiutal! Ah well such is life!

[Serial_Apologist]

Many good things happened in 1961

The year in which Caliban made his entry into the world???

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/the-tempest/critical-essays/caliban-and-the-natural-world

"A freckled whelp, hag-born - not honoured with a human shape"

Someone with a legal mind should sue Shakespeare for defamation against his mother...

[EdgeleyRob]

Another sweltering day in Manchester, mostly spent sitting at a desk.

[Serial_Apologist]

Some places just west of London had some lively thunderstorms this evening - I spotted the clouds building up in that vicinity just as I went out to do the watering. Shame we don't seem to have anyone living in that area to report for us.

Seems like if anything strenous needs doing, Friday's the best day.

[Anna]

Why is it that when there's been a breeze all day it suddenly disappears once it gets dusk and by half-ten you can light a candle outside with not a flicker of a flicker?! Yesterday evening was so still that it was impossible, with windows, back and front doors open, to get any air movement.

We got to 28.8° and at midnight it was still 18°, the open window, which is about 3ft from the bed, offered no relief. However, here it will be a couple of degrees cooler Saturday and Sunday with rain showers from Monday onwards but with promised temps of 32° I suspect the humidity will be awful. Some of my runners are not setting, evidently this happens when nighttime temps are above 16° However, the BBC reports that so far Wales has been the sunniest place in the UK in July with 155 hours of sunshine.

[BBMmk2]

I was wondering when this was going to crop up Anna! Makes you laugh when we had all that bad weather, a few weeks ago!

another scorcher today!

[mangerton]

I'm off work till Monday. Went out to the shops today before ten and it was 21ºC then. It's much warmer now even though there's a bit of a breeze.

[salymap]

I never remember it being as hot as this before. I suppose it must have been but I can't cope with getting food, popping to local shop etc.

I wish I'd moved to the country when I was able to, but suppose it's more important to stay near relatives.

Watch this space for moans about the cold later on, Sorry folks

[Serial_Apologist]

Why is it that when there's been a breeze all day it suddenly disappears once it gets dusk and by half-ten you can light a candle outside with not a flicker of a flicker?! Yesterday evening was so still that it was impossible, with windows, back and front doors open, to get any air movement.

In the summer, the land heats up faster under the sun's warmth than the sea, which maintains near-constant temperatures day and night. The heated air over the land rises and has to be replaced at ground level from somewhere, and so cooler air from the surrounding seas is sucked in, creating a sea breeze, which is then carried across the country by any prevailing airstream - in the present situation a north-easterly. Once the sun has set, the rising warmed air ceases to rise, and thus has no need to be replaced. In fact, the previously risen air sinks down and is drawn out again to the sea. The effects of the latter are normally much less noticeable at ground level, inland, than the in-drawing that results in a sea breeze, being usually of more gentle character, though I do remember during the 1976 heatwave an extraordinary sudden rush of wind of up to force 6, lasting about 15 minutes on each night, fleeing the heated interior in a westward direction across Bristol, which I could only put down to katabatic flow off the Cotswold range to the east.

Hope that helps explain!

[Anna]

I never remember it being as hot as this before. I suppose it must have been but I can't cope with getting food, popping to local shop etc.
I wish I'd moved to the country when I was able to, but suppose it's more important to stay near relatives.
Watch this space for moans about the cold later on, Sorry folks

Saly, we had a discussion about the 1959 heatwave (which my friend - roughly same age as you, he's coming up for 81) remembers clearly and which Ams remembers from his idyllic childhood! I think everyone remembers the excessive heat of 1976?
Mangerton, enjoy your days off but I think today will be your hottest, cooler for you for next three days. It reached 28.8°, same as yesterday, dropping now, clouding up a bit, whether the 'sharp thundery showers' promised by local BBC will materialise I don't know.
Off-topic. Our greengrocer is selling fresh dates - I had to ask his rather gormless assistant what they were! They were an apricot colour and he said he thought they should be kept until they start turning brown. Does anyone here buy them fresh and is his advice correct? (Greengrocer was out doing his early morning deliveries)
Edit: Whoops, typing this I missed S_A's post explaining where the wind goes! Thanks for that

[BBMmk2]

I see that, Anna et al that there's a front to the east of us that is preventing wind and rain from co0ming over! hence this prolonged heatwave. (If I am not mistaken?) Anyone remember that summer of 1976!!

[eighthobstruction]

....i haven't seen a single honey bee this year.....

[Serial_Apologist]

I see that, Anna et al that there's a front to the east of us that is preventing wind and rain from co0ming over! hence this prolonged heatwave. (If I am not mistaken?) Anyone remember that summer of 1976!!

I do indeed, BBM!

Every day, I cycled the 5 miles in each direction to the factory, where we were working in temperatures of 46 C! So hot you just had to sit motionless at one's desk for the sweat to soak right through one's clothing!!! As staff rep I was asked if there was anything that could be done to ameliorate the situation - like staging walk-outs! - but I had to point out that, while the Factories Act quoted minimal acceptable working temperatures, (16 C iirc), there were no stipulated maxima! And so I would pedal my exhausted body home - always to be greeted by other tenants in the bedsitter house where I lived, sunning themselves and chatting on the front doorstep; there was always a spare chilled can of lager to be had, and we took it in turns to maintain supplies from the nearby offlicense! I remember cycling home through a violent thunderstorm one afternoon, and arriving pleasantly soaked through, to be told by one of my fellow tenants that it was just as well my bike had rubber tyres, and this could well have saved me being struck by lightning!!!

Oh, those were the days! I took some great sunset pics with my Instamatic, and stuck them in my weather diary!

[greenilex]

All I can say is:
roll on that katabatic flow!