Stormy Weather II

[Pulcinella]

Bright start here but now clouded over and rain expected, which is a shame, as I'd been planning to cycle into town to go to the 17:15 service at the minster, in which they're singing the Duruflé Requiem.

[doversoul1]

I had to go out and take off the cloches I covered the endives with, as they were almost taking off in the wind. Terrible, nasty weather.

[BBMmk2]

Indeed what a day it was yesterday! 80mph winds! Petting down with rain! Awful! Today couldn’t have been more of a contrast!

Going out for a meal at a rather nice hotel, nearby with some friends, this lunch time.

[Serial_Apologist]

Indeed what a day it was yesterday! 80mph winds! Petting down with rain! Awful! Today couldn’t have been more of a contrast!

Going out for a meal at a rather nice hotel, nearby with some friends, this lunch time.

And yet funnily enough the winds were hardly anything to write about here in London! - just a couple of twigs down on our lawn, and still far too many leaves on the trees to look forward to having to clear up.

After tomorrow, temperatures will be closer to what we think of as average English winter discomfort; it's away with the summer undies and out with the woolies today for me, and walking plans predicated on not bringing a lot of mud home into the flat.

[DracoM]

Dreech and grim here, BUT the autumn colours standing out even more brilliantly.

[teamsaint]

After a mixed Saturday, a beautiful autumn day finally emerged here, as Dracs says, showing off the autumn leaf colours to perfection.

Got in a short run( testing out the injured calf muscle !) , trip to the tip, and a spin round Mottisfont gardens and a 60’s photo exhibition.
Nice.

[BBMmk2]

Saturday was quite horrendous for most of the day. Stayed in all day! Sunday was glorious all day. We walked up to a hotel nearby for Sunday lunch. Really nice it was too

[Serial_Apologist]

The big primary depressions are being driven right across the Midlands by the current Atlantic jet stream - which at lest is more "normal" than most of the weather we get nowadays, except it is happening about a thousand miles further south than would be expected, due to the sluggishness of the jet - which in turn is due to the Arctic being much warmer than historically it has been. A stronger differential between temperatures at the poles and the tropics results in a straighter, more regular and consistent Atlantic jet stream, initially added impetus by the Gulf Stream and along where the warm and cold currents abut at ground level, ie along our polar frontal systems.

Tomorrow looks likely to have a few showers, Wednesday will be dry, Thursday an exact repeat of yesterday and today, and Saturday and Sunday another exact repeat!

[Joseph K]

Mild and sunny. Very nice.

[Serial_Apologist]

Mild and sunny. Very nice.

And you are in the middle of a depression!!!

[zola]

And you are in the middle of a depression!!!

Eye of the storm ?

[Serial_Apologist]

Eye of the storm ?

Assuming you're asking seriously, zola , not really. Our polar air generated extratropical depressions are different in structure from tropical depressions and hurricanes, having a cold centre, for one thing, whereas tropical depressions are warm-centred. The weather associated with the centre of our type of low pressure system is in fact much more complex and variable according in part to season and in part to the relationship of the air circulating at ground level into the centre to the frontal system that gave rise to the depression in the first instance.

One thing both types of low have in common though is that winds in the actual centre are usually mostly light in comparison with the winds circulating around the perimeter, because most of the strength of those surrounding winds will have risen into the upper atmosphere and dispersed. In the case of the tropical cyclone that has developed into a fully-fledged hurricane or typhoon, those revolving winds spiral upwards into enormous cumulonimbus towers surrounding the eye and forming the cloud wall. Centripedal forces propel curved lines outward from this cloud wall, where the maximum energy of the storm is concentrated, constituting further outward-spinning belts of rain and thunderstorms, lying transversely to the lines of atmospheric pressure drawn on weather maps as isobars. The upward moving air in these precipitation belts escapes at the top of the clouds, at the tropopause, and spirals out in a direction opposite to that of the winds at the surface (which is anticlockwise in the N hemisphere, clockwise in the southern), manifest as cirrus moving in the opposite direction from the lower approaching clouds to an on-ground observer. The vast proportion of those upper winds then forms a part of the mass of structured upper air that has ascended from heat generated across the tropical zone in showers and tropical depressions, and will descend, part of it to maintain the semi-permanant belt of subtropical high pressure systems (anticyclones) of which our "Azores high" is one manifestation; a smaller part of it reaching a border line with very cold air emanating from the poles to form our jet streams. A tiny propoertion of that ascended air actually falls into the eye of the hurricane itself like water down a well, accounting to the clear, or almost clear skies associated with the eye.

Thus the structure of the tropical eye storm is more straightforward than that of the temperate low, and only starts to become more complex as the hurricane degenerates, which can happen at any point but most clasically occurs on landfall, when the moisture levels afforded are no longer available to maintain it, or on passsage over colder waters: the hurricane needs sea surface temperatures above 26 degrees celsius to form and then to be sustained. Many hurricanes become already deepened temperate depressions on reaching the polar jet stream, but some weakening has first to take place as the warm hurricane core is modified by injected cold air on the polar side of the polar jet stream, and this may be enough to kill off the hurricane completely before it has time to effect the transition from tropical to extratropical.

That's basically it in very oversimplified terms: I'm self-taught when it comes to meteorology and the above would not satisfy a qualified person. There's a lot more to it than that!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Dreech and grim here, BUT the autumn colours standing out even more brilliantly.

Same in this bit of the Pennines today: the Acer in the back garden suffusing the Dining Room in a shimmering russet glow, even on an overcast morning, reminding me why Autumn is my favourite month.

Rainy all afternoon, but less cold than it was over the weekend.

[vinteuil]

... reminding me why Autumn is my favourite month.
.

... ah, long winters up north, I s'pose

.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]