
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
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a few wet warnings for torrential rain
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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.
RGS weather went stratospheric
where are we going?
up up and away…
check the end