Monday 16th October 2017
Ex-Hurricane Ophelia lashes Ireland - Red suns and eerie skyglow - darkness in the balmy (barmey) early afternoon - Heatwave and wildfires on the continent
On this day, 30 years ago, 1987 - The Great Storm
October 15th / 16th
I started writing all this just before
2.00pm on Monday afternoon; blissfully unaware of the infernal car trouble my other half was involved in up the A3. Thankfully he was OK, but I'm glad I didn't know about it at the time. Meanwhile a sketching friend of got out and about solo for the first time in a long while as his confidence began rising again a prolonged low earlier in the year.
Outside, the sky has been darkening over the past
couple of hours. It’s dark enough now to feel more like dusk in November.. This
follows the “red sun” around midday. After a cloudy, misty morning with some
sunshine coming through, I noticed around midday, the sunlight coming into the
artroom was weak and pink. The feel of light at sunset on a calm, misty midwinter
day. Outside a pale pink sun shining through a hazy sky. I have all the lights on downstairs. Ireland
and Northern Ireland have been bearing the brunt of Ex-Ophelia today.
This started off as Hurricane Ophelia in the
Azores. It weakened into an “ordinary” low pressure system as it moved north
into the cooler north Atlantic waters around the British Isles; but still the
potential for very strong winds. The track of the storm is to the west of the
British Isles. The Met.Office have an amber warning out over Northern Ireland,
Galloway, north and west Wales; and a yellow warning throughout western Britain
up to Loch Linnhe at the SE end of the Great Glen. Subject to refinements, the
yellow warning has been there since the weekend.
Being well east of the storm's track and outside the warning areas, I wasn’t expecting much to happen
here; just breezy-to-blowy; wind speeds in the Southampton area to be around 20mph, gusting to upto 37mph – noticeable, but not exceptional or damaging); and
continuing very mild. A high of 20oC forecast for Southampton today.
According to BBC News, the red sun has been seen around large parts of England:
they say mainly the north and west. Photos from various places initially northern and western parts of England, later the south coast and London. One from Portsmouth, with the Spinnaker Tower against a dark sky with a hint of yellow glow "I promise, no filters". Apparently, as Ex-Ophelia has tracked north,
it’s picked up dust from the Sahara and debris from forest fires in Spain and
Portugal. The dust in the air scatters the blue light, making the sun appear
red.
14.10 – sky cloudy, still grey
but brightening again
My other half meanwhile has hopped across The Channel for work, where There it’s 25C. Yet again, like last autumn and the one before
that, continental Europe is stuck under high pressure and western Europe,
certainly very dry. Though weather forecasting has come on in great strides
compared to 30 years ago, they still can’t be sure what the weather over the
winter would be like. It could go either way. At the moment I’m concerned
simultaneously about another floody winter in the north, which we could all do without; and the Loire amongst other rivers in western Europe continuing to be afflicted by chronic drought. For three or four successive autumns and winters now, western Europe has been stuck under high pressure for months on end. Last winter, as noted in my earlier blogs, it persisted over the UK, too. Thanks to rain during the summer and early autumn, the water outlook in the UK has improved in the short term, though for the most part, the track of the jetstream has been carrying the low pressures mainly over northern and western areas, missing the SE and the western continental Europe. It has also been very mild. From a river perspective, then, the further north the better. During our Scottish Borders stay last month, the Tweed was running well. Likewise the Greta and the Derwent around Keswick. Last week (10th - 11th October), there was a flood warning on the Cocker after heavy rain in Cumbria, along with flood alerts throughout Cumbria and the north Pennines. As usual for these rivers, they dropped back quickly after the rain stopped and I didn't hear of any flood related problems. The soils in the area, however are saturated / close to saturattion, meaning the rivers are responsive to any further rain. In southern England, flows on the Itchen and Test have stabilised, though as I suspected from trips to Salisbury over the summer, the Avon is still quite low. In the Canterbury area, the Great Stour has been bumping along the bottom. Groundwater levels in the Chalk have still been falling. Recharge this season will be from a low base.
Links
BBC News – Red Sun
Met. Office
Ex-Hurricane Ophelia impacts the
UK, includes and explains the red sun thing
Environment Agency - Monthly and weekly national and regional water situation reports for England
River and sea levels in England
River and sea levels in Wales (Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru)
River and sea levels in Scotland
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology monthly hydrological summaries for the UK
UK National River Flow Archive / flow gauge data
Eaufrance - water situation in France
Vigicrues - map of France with links to French flow data
