Occasional musings on meteorology and other bits of Earth science
Following a number of odd hours of tinkering, spread out over the holidays, and interrupted by those piles of marking, I now have routine upper-air charts in production. The chart archive is at http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/~hcp/chartarch/; it contains a separate folder for each day. It’s a rolling archive: old days get deleted as new ones get added.Continue reading Weather maps: the story continues
I’ll be teaching simple atmospheric dynamics to a class of (mostly) second-years in the coming semester. For this, it is nice to have a good supply of weather charts of Britain and NW Europe. I’m getting my ducks in line because it is more fun than starting on the big pile of exam marking thatContinue reading Mapping the weather
It’s a nice skyfull of altocumulus, but neither that or the row of Leeds chimmney pots are the reason why I did battle with the camera app on my new smartphone. What caught my eye was the contrail, and the vortex rings which seemed to be dropping off its lower edge. Unfortunately, the camera didn’tContinue reading Contrails and smokerings
I have just finished the lectures on how light and infra-red radiation affect the weather as part of one of our introductory meteorology courses. It is pleasing when nature throws you a nice example at the right time. It is always hard to get over the point that the long-wave thermal infra-red radiation is importantContinue reading Looking at the sky (and the ground)
I hate this time of year. The clocks go back, the bike lights have to be got out of the cupboard, and the work day fills up with tiresome-but-necessary meetings. And the garden starts to look shabby and full of fallen leaves. I suppose it is time to ask whether it was a good year,Continue reading The Grapes of What?
I saw this rainbow out of the corner of my eye and rushed off to the top floor of the house to get a photo of it. I think I must have rushed too fast because the picture isn’t very sharp. Which is a pity, as it turns out, because in addition to theContinue reading Reflection rainbow
I went on a very jolly trip to the Eskdalemuir observatory on Thursday, for an event celebrating the 100th anniversary of the day Lewis Fry Richardson took charge of the observatory. I have actually been to Eskdalemuir before: we sometimes arrange an outing there for the students on the Geophysics and Meteorology degree. But youContinue reading Lewis Fry Richardson event at Eskdalemuir
The 2013 noctilucent cloud (NLC) season has definitely kicked off; I staggered out of the pub last night to find the twilight arch full of this splendid display. For readers who have not heard of these clouds before, they are at an altitude of 82km, on the edge of space, and several times higher upContinue reading Noctilucent cloud season begins
We’re all supposed to be keen on blogging, they keep telling me. So I’m experimenting with it, in the all-too-short hiatus after teaching has finished, while the students are doing exams, and before a vast pile of those exams lands on my desk to be marked. And the most exciting thing to happen in thatContinue reading The joys of internet shopping
