Weather in the NEWS

Summer 1998

With the school holidays now underway, most people are looking to a few weeks of summer - but so far, 1998 has been disappointing. After wet months in April and June (the wettest June since 1997 - but then 1997 was one of the wettest June periods this century!), July has continued with heavy rain and blustery conditions.

Whilst NW Europe is facing poor conditions, temperatures have risen across the Mediterranean. A high pressure region centred across the Eastern Mediterranean is acting as a 'block', forcing Atlantic weather systems to the north and west and bringing a stream of depressions and frontal systems across NW Europe.

Wednesday July 22nd 1998: 12.00 UTC

The frontal system moving across the UK, and extending south across the Bay of Biscay and into Spain, brought periods of heavy rainfall and blustery conditions behind the front. As the depression tracked eastwards (the red line shows the typical track), the rain cleared away across southern and eastern England leaving clearer weather behind.

High temperatures across the Mediterranean and low temperatures with rain and blustery conditions across NW Europe are not uncommon. The weather satellite image clearly shows the situation - with the clear skies of the anticyclonic high pressure area across the eastern Mediterranean and the cloudy frontal conditions across the NW coastal regions of France and the UK.

Temperature - Celsius

NW Europe
London	20	Shetland	13	Oslo	22
Mediterranean region
Ajaccio (Corsica)	31	Alexandria (Egypt)	29	Athens (Greece)	32
Corfu	32	Malta	30	Naples (Italy)	32
Rhodes (Greece)	28	Rome (Italy)	30	Tunis (Tunisia)	35

The high temperatures of the Mediterranean region may seem attractive to holidaymakers from the North and Western Europe - and large numbers were heading for the sunny beaches of Spain and Greece as the school holidays began. But - high temperatures for long periods can be dangerous. With little movement of the air, pollution levels rise rapidly and can cause problems for the asthmatic and others with breathing difficulties. The high pressure conditions also mean that there is little wind - and the combination of high temperatures and no wind means that people find it difficult to keep cool. The high pressure region increases the risk of fatalities amongst the frail and elderly.

The hot weather is not restricted to the Mediterranean. Across North America, temperature records are climbing as another heat wave spreads across the USA. Texas has reported over 15 days with maximum temperatures in excess of 100 F (37.5 C). Across the USA, substantial problems are facing the electricity supply industry as demand for power (to run air-conditioning units) exceeds availability. Many areas are now facing periods of power black-outs to distribute the demand and to maintain services to essential users (hospitals etc.).

As we enter the UK school summer holidays (Late July and August) look back on Summer '97. Maybe things can only get better!

June 1997 was the wettest June for 100 years - with 130mm of rain falling over the UK.

June 1998 was close to that record figure - with an average 125mm of rain falling across the UK.

June 1998

Summer Solstice: June 21st - the longest day

Click image to download larger 800x800 pixel image (110Kb) June 21st is the Summer Solstice - the day on which the sun reaches its maximum height in the northern sky and is seen directly overhead at places along the Tropic of Cancer (23.5° N). On this day, the sun rises and sets at its most northerly point along the horizon - giving the maximum hours of daylight. In Britain, the sky is lit by the sun from about 4.00am to after 10.00pm - later still in the far north.
The maximum elevation of the sun gives good illumination of the northern hemisphere - resulting in clear visible light images seen from satellites. At this time the high solar illumination shows fine detail - Alpine lakes, some rivers and coastal formations.

The image shows the whole Earth disk seen from Meteosat at mid-day on 21st June 1998. The Northern hemisphere is clearly brighter than the southern, showing the higher levels in illumination in the north. Note the line of cloud across the disk just to the south of the Sahara Desert. The is the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and shows where maximum solar heating is causing air to rise, carrying water vapour aloft where it cools and condenses as clouds. These clouds form the central up current for atmospheric circulation and are a major influence on global weather patterns. Within this region, intense convection currents will trigger thunderstorms in mid-afternoon with substantial rainfall.

Europe - the longest day

Most of Europe basked under clear skies on June 21st. The mid-day satellite image from Meteosat 7 clearly shows the Alpine lakes, Mediterranean islands and snow covering the Alpine peaks. High level cloud streaming up from the Bay of Biscay covered western England and Wales, and touched off isolated thunderstorms on the French Atlantic coast - but most of England enjoyed a day that was much more typical of June!
Clouds moved from west to east during the day - at sunrise southern England was covered in cloud preventing the Druid festival at Stonehenge (Salisbury, Wiltshire) from observing the rising sun through the ancient stones.
The depression moving in to the north of Ireland is sweeping hot air from Spain across France to England. This is likely to create some isolated thunderstorms over the next few days - bringing the probability of 'rain stops play' to the Wimbledon tennis championships.

Moscow disaster: storms kill 6 people - June 21st

Whilst western Europe enjoyed clear skies, Russia experiencd an intense depression (seen above), the most violent summer storm in memory. The storm hit the city at midnight 20/21st June and left 6 people dead and 120 injured. Wind speeds reached over 110 km/hr (70 mph +) and were reported to have uprooted some 45,000 trees.
Debris flew across large parts of Moscow and left damage to the walls of the Kremlin and the Bolshoi Theatre. The storm lasted for some 30 minutes with nearly continuous thunder and intense rainfall. Power supplies were disrupted across the city. Mayor Yuri Luzhkov told the Russian 'Interfax' news agency that damage to the city was huge.

Britain's wet June....

Heavy rain crossed the UK on Sunday 14th June. A series of frontal systems brought rain and squally conditions to most areas. Rainfall was unseasonably heavy with localised flooding and very poor driving conditions on many roads.
The weekend rainfall continued a pattern that become almost the norm for June 98. Early on in the month, one day's rainfall in Leeds reached a total of 28mm - and the temperatures dropped to make this the coldest June on record!.
Squally conditions behind one frontal system left a trail of destruction across part of Reading, Berkshire, when a thunderstorm developed a sting in its tail. A small tornado touched down in the Earley district and ripped up fences, hedges and trees as it travelled along a relatively short trail.

Average temperatures across Britain at this time seem to be several degrees below the expected norm for this time of the year. On Monday June 15th, the lowest temperatures were recorded at Aviemore (Inverness) with 9C (48F) whilst the warmest place (RAF Marham, Norfolk) only reached 19C (66F). Rainfall in the New Forest flooded streams and rivers - and water in the Brockenhurst 'water splash' ford was deeper than in most of the last rainy winter!

But South East USA burns....

June 1998 - fires in Florida and Georgia

Extremely dry weather in the South Eastern part of the USA (Florida, Georgia) has provided the conditions for wild fire outbreaks over the past weeks. More than 100 fires broke out in Florida over the last weekend in May and burned about 3,000 acres. The largest fire burned some 1,200 acres in the Apalachicola National Forest near Tallahassee.
More than 100 houses were destroyed and hundreds of people were evacuated as the brush fires spread across seven different counties in central and north east Florida. One fire, in Seminole County, is known to have been started by an electrical transformer explosion.
The image shows fires and smoke plumes in eastern Florida and is a composite from visible and inra-red images observed by the GOES-8 weather satellite.

But not all is burning across the USA!
The hot dry conditions in Florida and Georgia are not repeated further north. Eastern seaboard areas have experienced heavy rain as we have in the UK. Read these comments by an American teacher:

We are having torrential rains. Our basement is flooding again. I am completely distraught by this. Our sump pump is working, but the other flooding we had this year has worn away the waterproofing paint we had put on the floors. We have had about eight inches of rain today and it isn't supposed to stop for three days. I can't even imagine how this is happening. We can do little. As soon as we vacuum up the rain, more water comes in behind. Trying to do anything now is futile. We'll wait until it is over, dry out the basement, and then spend some money having it fixed once and for all.

Conditions this year seem to be unusual - colder than normal for the time of year and with heavier than normal rainfall. The reasons for this are not clear - but the recent El Niño has been suggested as a possible cause. This year's El Niño was one of the strongest for some time - and the changes in ocean temperature are known to have effects across the world's weather.

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Page update: July 1998

Click image to download larger 800x800 pixel image (110Kb)	June 21st is the Summer Solstice - the day on which the sun reaches its maximum height in the northern sky and is seen directly overhead at places along the Tropic of Cancer (23.5° N). On this day, the sun rises and sets at its most northerly point along the horizon - giving the maximum hours of daylight. In Britain, the sky is lit by the sun from about 4.00am to after 10.00pm - later still in the far north. The maximum elevation of the sun gives good illumination of the northern hemisphere - resulting in clear visible light images seen from satellites. At this time the high solar illumination shows fine detail - Alpine lakes, some rivers and coastal formations.
The image shows the whole Earth disk seen from Meteosat at mid-day on 21st June 1998. The Northern hemisphere is clearly brighter than the southern, showing the higher levels in illumination in the north. Note the line of cloud across the disk just to the south of the Sahara Desert. The is the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and shows where maximum solar heating is causing air to rise, carrying water vapour aloft where it cools and condenses as clouds. These clouds form the central up current for atmospheric circulation and are a major influence on global weather patterns. Within this region, intense convection currents will trigger thunderstorms in mid-afternoon with substantial rainfall.
Europe - the longest day

Most of Europe basked under clear skies on June 21st. The mid-day satellite image from Meteosat 7 clearly shows the Alpine lakes, Mediterranean islands and snow covering the Alpine peaks. High level cloud streaming up from the Bay of Biscay covered western England and Wales, and touched off isolated thunderstorms on the French Atlantic coast - but most of England enjoyed a day that was much more typical of June! Clouds moved from west to east during the day - at sunrise southern England was covered in cloud preventing the Druid festival at Stonehenge (Salisbury, Wiltshire) from observing the rising sun through the ancient stones. The depression moving in to the north of Ireland is sweeping hot air from Spain across France to England. This is likely to create some isolated thunderstorms over the next few days - bringing the probability of 'rain stops play' to the Wimbledon tennis championships.
Moscow disaster: storms kill 6 people - June 21st

Whilst western Europe enjoyed clear skies, Russia experiencd an intense depression (seen above), the most violent summer storm in memory. The storm hit the city at midnight 20/21st June and left 6 people dead and 120 injured. Wind speeds reached over 110 km/hr (70 mph +) and were reported to have uprooted some 45,000 trees. Debris flew across large parts of Moscow and left damage to the walls of the Kremlin and the Bolshoi Theatre. The storm lasted for some 30 minutes with nearly continuous thunder and intense rainfall. Power supplies were disrupted across the city. Mayor Yuri Luzhkov told the Russian 'Interfax' news agency that damage to the city was huge.