Occasional musings on meteorology and other bits of Earth science
This is another in my occasional series of classic lump ascents. Like the first one, this one is in the Canary Islands. A purist might argue that at 608m, Atalaya de Femés is far too impressive to count as a classic lump, especially as it is the highest point in the southern part of Lanzarote. IContinue reading Another Canarian summit
I am on holiday in Lanzarote, in that gap between the end of teaching and the onslaught of exam marking. The island is, like all of the Canaries, made mostly of volcanic basalt, but the flatter parts are often covered with a layer of wind-blown sands. While poking around the seaside resort of Costa Teguise,Continue reading Lavahenge
I’m in North Wales for Easter, and the weather (hooray) has been nice enough to get out for a walk or two. I visited Prestatyn Hillside: an impressive north-west-facing limestone cliff. The limestone is of Visean age, towards the old end of the Carboniferous period; essentially the same rock that we spend a week onContinue reading Limestone walk
The drive down to North Wales for Easter meant one crossing of the England-Scotland border, so it seemed a good opportunity to visit all the crossings we didn’t have time for in part 1 of this two-part post. We packed the car and headed south across the borderlands, aiming for the A68, which crosses theContinue reading Out on the border: part 2.
As I have noted before, I am a physicist and, like many hard scientists, tend to regard geography as a rather alien kind of subject. But I do love maps. The border between England and Scotland is historically the most important line drawn on a map within easy drive of my home, and I haveContinue reading Out on the border: part 1.
One of my favourite signs of spring is the first bumblebee. This will always be a queen who has hibernated over the winter and is now out looking for nectar and a nest site. They seem impossibly large, compared to the worker bees that are all over the garden later in the year. They areContinue reading Spring is a buzzing.
The fuzzy patch of light near the top of the picture is a halo phenomenon called an upper tangent arc. I grabbed the snap from Dunbar station while dashing for a train. Despite keeping a lookout for halos (see previous posts here, here, here, and here), and despite the fact that it is supposed toContinue reading Off at a tangent
I went to Malham, in the Yorkshire dales, for the weekend. The trip was worth it for the company, but was otherwise highly unsatisfactory: the weather was terrible and I lost my phone on the drive down. (Fortunately, I managed to recover it on the way home, from the cafe where I had left it.)Continue reading Mr. Grumpy goes to Yorkshire
I got a nice view of the Earth’s shadow on the sky this evening. As usual with these things, there is a good explanation on the atmospheric optics web site, together with a photo taken in a rather more exotic location. The background in my photo is not a Chilean volcano; it is the ratherContinue reading Earth Shadow
It is that grim time of year when almost no sun comes into the garden and it looks like an untidy mess of dead stuff. It is a bit less untidy since I replaced my dead petrol lawnmower with a shiny new rechargeable battery one and had to try it out, despite the fact thatContinue reading Planning and planting
