Occasional musings on meteorology and other bits of Earth science
I have written several posts here about my rain measurements (see here, here, here) but have always wondered whether the non-ideal location of my rain gauge made the results useless. I realised recently that SEPA publish data from rain gauges across Scotland so I could compare my data to their nearest gauge, which is onlyContinue reading Rain: how reliable is my data?
I’m a bit late with the rain report for 2023, sorry. We have already had most of January 2024 and, here in Dunbar, it is already the second-wettest of the five Januaries that I have recorded. As a whole, 2023 was the second wettest year I have recorded, falling only slightly behind 2021. However, aContinue reading 2023: the rain report
As per last year I am starting the year with a report on the rain I recorded in Dunbar. It will not surprise anyone who has been listening to the news that 2022 was a dry year: slightly drier than the climatological mean and considerably drier than either 2021 or 2020. It is clear fromContinue reading 2022: the rain report
I have been reading my rain gauge for another whole year, now. (See earlier posts here and here.) It appears that 2021 was a wet year in East Lothian: much wetter than either the climatological mean and also a lot wetter than 2020. This is largely driven by a very soggy January, February, May andContinue reading 2021: The Rain Report
A few months ago a family heirloom was passed on to me to take care of: a mercury barometer. , originally the property of my great grandfather, Dr William Hobson Mills of Jesus College, Cambridge. Getting it home was a bit of a nail-biting experience. You can not lie the things horizontally or the mercuryContinue reading Data: it is everywhere (part 2)
I have been dutifully reading my rain gauge for over a year now, and I trotted out this morning to ensure that I made the last reading of 2020 before 9:00 on 1 January. As I now have a whole calendar year of data I decided to plot it up to see how it comparedContinue reading Rain: the 2020 report
New Scientist published my reply to a question in their “Almost the last word” column. Hooray: I can tell my line manager that I did an outreach thing. The question was “I have seen many double rainbows, but can you get triple or quadruple ones?” The magazine have edited my answer down to remove someContinue reading Rainbows in New Scientist
One of my birthday presents last year was a proper, official-shaped rain gauge. It took me a while to get around to setting it up, mostly because of the difficulty of picking a good spot in the garden: almost everywhere is close to a wall, under a tree, or is a place where a rainContinue reading Gauging the Rain
I’m on the Arran field course again, but this year I am staying for the entire week. That meant that, after a busy five days I had a day with some time off while the students wrote up their work. Time for a classic lump ascent, and the nearest target was Torr Meadhonach. I hadContinue reading A classic lump on Arran
My classic lump from this year’s holiday in Tenerife was Montaña Sámara. At 1937m above sea level it sounds quite impressive, until you note that the nearby car park is at 1875m, leaving only about 62m of ascent and half a kilometre of walking (one way). Like Montaña Chayofita, this hill is a cinder cone:Continue reading Another day, another volcano
