Reigate weather summary « Reigate Grammar School Weather Station

February 2015 Reigate weather summary

Weather statistics summary for Reigate during February 2015

Average temperature 3.9C (UK 3.5)

Tmax 10.8C 25/02

Tmin -3C 22/02

Total precipitation 59mm

max wind gust 32mph 06/02

February was around the long term average at 4C in Reigate. The CET stood February at just 0.3C above the long term average.

After an intially cold start to the month the temperature rose.

: cold start feb

: Feb warmed up

Overall February came out around average temperature but note the much warmer continent.

A notable cirrostratus halo occured around moon on 02 Feb and this accompanied by some brief excitement over a snow band moving south down the eastern side of the country.

This band delivered an insignificant snow flurry on 03 Feb, overnight, with a cm or so of briefly lying snow that melted rapidly during the morning.

Models threatened easterly winds on occasion but this didn’t arise. In any case Europe and the continent experienced a warmer than average month so the deep continental cold was not available. In fact after another brief flirt with snow at the beginning of the month, the temperature climbed through the middle of the month with westerly influences with temperatures exceeding 10C overnight on occasions.

mild air

warm flow

Rainfall 58mm was just a little below average and sunshine hours, at 90 hours, was about average.

rainfall february 2015

sunshine february 2015

MetOffice February summary

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/2015/february

November 2014 in Reigate weather summary

Average temp 8.9C

Tmax 17.2C

Tmin -0.5C

Total precipitation 135mm

Max gust 29mph (av wind speed 16mph)

Sunshine 87.5 hours

November sunshine

November pressure and wind

November weather in Reigate and the SE was rather dull and uneventful in Reigate but the meteorology going on more widely was fantastically interesting!

November was considerably warmer than average. In the UK November turned out a whopping 2C warmer than the long term CET record. In addition some areas in the south recorded 200% more rainfall than average.

CET on track for record breaker

positive rainfall anomalies in the South

November warmer than average

Our anomalously warm and wet November was due to our weather being dominated by warm moist southerly winds as a trough sat in the Atlantic and a fairly strong blocking high dominated Russia and occasionally Scandinavia. The northern hemisphere flow encouraged blocking further east and a trough to the west of the UK.

The blocking high pushed LOW pressure in the Med that fed warm moist winds up to the UK (warm air advection). Occasional Atlantic fronts caused heavy rain when cooler air on cold fronts advected in from the west to meet this moist flow. Heavy November rain in the south was caused by this process. Nevertheless, the usual scaremongering forecasts in the press failed to materialise.

November wet and warm

but not that bad

A split jetstream assisted the warm moist feed across much of Europe and led to torrential rain and flooding along south facing coasts in Italy and S France. To a lesser extent this also occurred in the UK with highest rainfall anomalies found in the south and SE.

November: Synoptically dull but interesting

split jet: soaked Med

: a few wet warnings for torrential rain

: most flooding in Italy and France

Globally November was one of the warmest on record too. However, the US and Canada recorded one of the earliest coldest and snowiest Novembers on record. The upper air patterns plunged cold Arctic air into North America and, when this frigid polar air crossed the warm Great Lakes, it produced tremendous falls of Lake Effect snow over northern New York State, especially around Buffalo.

global november temperature anomalies

overall 500hPa vortex pattern

early COLD for the N America

Lake Effect snow for NY

snow anomalies

Buffalo snow

Autumn for the UK as a whole was the third warmest in the record going back to 1910. Autumnal rainfall was just a tad below average because September was a very dry month. October and November were well above average for rainfall. The SE came out average or just above average for rain for the whole of the Autumn.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/2014/autumn

Globally November’s warmth and climate extremes caused the climate change debate to reignite. The graphs below speak for themselves. Our November was dominated by our first HIGH ALTITUDE BALLOON launch. The experience of launching our first exploration into near space brought it home to us how thin our atmosphere is, how quickly it is to escape from and thus how fragile it is. We live perilously close to utterly hostile environments… the views of Earth brought back from our stratospheric balloon were both sensational but somehow frightening in the context of rapid climate change on the only earth we have.