Weather Chat Thread

Yep, indeed.

All three months in the 1939/40 winter were under 20 hours as well when we haven't had a single month that bad in the 21st century so far, I mean it's still far too cloudy a climate for my liking but the old figures look like they come from a completely different city.

OK, so since I've got nothing else to do today I had a look at the data - it's clearly sunnier in Bradford now than in the industrial era but that doesn't tell the whole story.

1911-1940: 1194
1991-2019: 1317
(2001-2019: 1362)

The biggest difference is in winter as expected, here's December:

1911-1940: 20
1991-2019: 38
(2001-2019: 43)

But summers haven't got sunnier at all, quite the opposite for June in particular:

1911-1940: 188
1991-2019: 161
(2001-2019: 165)

There's obviously more to our climate becoming sunnier than just cleaner air, because that doesn't explain why summers have got duller and why the last 20 years have been a big step up from the 1990s.

Coronavirus could make forecasts even wronger



Ben Domensino, Thursday March 26, 2020 - 12:02 EDT Weatherzone

The effects of COVID-19, widely referred to as Coronavirus, have been far reaching in recent months. Health systems have been overrun, economies are taking a beating and daily life has been disrupted for billions of people around the world. Now, data suggests that Coronavirus may be reducing the accuracy of weather forecasts as well.

Global efforts to slow the spread of Coronavirus have seen a significant reduction in domestic and international air-traffic in recent weeks. All Qantas and Jetstar international flights will be suspended from the end of March until at least the end of May.

While these travel bans are helping to curb the spread of the virus, they are also impacting the performance of weather models around the world.

Computer models are the backbone of modern weather forecasting. These 'numerical weather prediction' (NWP) models use powerful supercomputers to combine global weather observations with complex mathematical equations to provide reliable information about the future evolution of the atmosphere. One of the most important components of this modelling process is using a vast network of weather observations to generate an accurate snap-shot of the initial environmental conditions as a starting point - a process called initialisation.

Unfortunately, virus-related travel restrictions have caused a slump in aircraft-based weather observations around the world, which is likely to be affecting the initialisation process in global and regional NWP models.

According to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), "the number of aircraft observations has gone down significantly over the last couple of weeks, both over Europe and globally. In the coming days and weeks, we expect a further decrease in numbers, which will have some impact on forecast quality in the short range."

Holmön's weather station is surrounded by a lot of rocky terrain. This means sometimes its temperature readings can be really funky during sunny and calm days.

Helsinki Airport sunniest months 2000-2019:

Jan: 57 h, 2014
Feb: 121 h, 2011
Mar: 252 h, 2013
Apr: 290 h, 2004
May: 408 h, 2018
June: 348 h, 2019
July: 400 h, 2006
Aug: 363 h, 2015
Sep: 225 h, 2000
Oct: 174 h, 2015
Nov: 57 h, 2004
Dec: 47 h, 2002

And the cloudiest,

Jan: 15 h, 2001 and 2015
Feb: 19 h, 2014
Mar: 87 h, 2008
Apr: 151 h, 2010
May: 229 h, 2010
June: 188 h, 2014
July: 221 h, 2004
Aug: 108 h, 2008 - looked this up, it's legit
Sep: 92 h, 2010
Oct: 31 h, 2006
Nov: 12 h, 2000 and 2014
Dec: 5 h, 2012

Sunny day in southern half of the country today with warmest temperatures this spring so far, up to 18.4C at Etne. Still not as warm as 19C in January!

Wow, the last 10 years haven't been good for the cloudy months. Let's hope the next 10 years are a big improvement.

Temperaturewise this has been an average April, but the ensoleillement has been exquisite. Especially the past 10 days or so