Explaining a potentially difficult concept to an audience is quite an art and @aidanmcgivern.bsky.social is very good at it. Some of the @metoffice.gov.uk content on slightly more deep dive topics is really top notch. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KweN...

Probably for the 2nd time this winter already I've thought "an extra 2-3 degrees lower and this would have been fun"... sod's law it'll be roaring westerlies by January.

A bit of discussion whether the percentage of storms making landfall as hurricanes is static or not using counterfactual analysis. Thanks to a) modelling experts Reask and b) AI without which I wouldn't be able to produce pretty-looking graphs like this one. oakreinsurance.com/news/hurrica...

I mean you could at least have the decency to throw a bit of sleet into the mix but with a dewpoint of 4c that ain't happening. #uksnow CT14 0/10

Brrrrrrrrrr-exit

When I'm not making graphs in an attempt to look clever, I'm eating noodle soups. Here's the Blue Pelican in Deal, Kent which is knocking out a ridiculously good ramen on Sundays now and is arguably the best restaurant in Kent in my heavily biased opinion. Back to weather and catastrophes tomorrow.

Well done to the MetDesk team for their wxcharts.com update, excellent stuff.

Not just 500 miles, 505 miles. Did someone get a ruler out? #delusionalexactitude

Such a telling graph on relative frequency of record highs/low: a fitting riposte to the "look it's cold - so much for global warming" crew.

The US insured losses will end up zero, but still some interesting things to emerge from 2025 hurricane season. Around 35% of NHC analyses as a hurricane were Cat 4 or 5. Am sure present-day numbers are partly influenced by more recon flights, but it's still food for thought.

Looking for a PhD in climate science? Great opportunity to help modernise one of the iconic climate time series - Central England Temperature. Led by @timosbornclim.bsky.social, with myself and Met Office collaborators: www.uea.ac.uk/course/phd-d...

And looking at climatologically - for London at least - we're reaching the sort of values that we reached at the end of the year in the 1980s by mid-July in the 2020s...

Wondered how warm it was this year from a "cumulative excess temperature above 20c" standpoint. Turns out 3rd warmest in London since 1970. Left: how uncannily close 2025 and 1976 traces are! Right: UK-wide: a lot of E/SE Eng was ranked top 3 year for this value, most of Eng & Wales top 10 ranked.

Only one taking a chance...

Current central pressure of Melissa at 892mb tied with the Labor Day hurricane ahead of landfall must be peak weathernerd material.

Another hot take: put 6 or 7 things on here that I wondered might provoke a bit of discussion. Bit of interest, but not a single comment. One thing I'll say about Twitter is that people interacted. When did talking about stuff die? Or it could just be that most of my followers are bots...

Hot take, but part of the world's seas in peak season where #Melissa grew has seen very little change in crude conditions for rapid cyclogenesis (mid-level moisture, shear < 5 m/s, SSTs > 28c) recently. A narrative could be edge-of-season increases in favourable conditions: e.g. 2nd half of Oct.

Current #Melissa eye diameter of 10nm & 45km wide hurricane force winds projected along current track wouldn't bring much wind impact to Kingston (SE Jamaica). So any eyewall replacement and widening of the storm could bring Kingston into play. But the surge is another beast altogether...

This 150M cat bond for Jamaica has a trigger design that uses hurricane central pressure and location. That data is being collected by NOAA Hurricane Hunters who are currently working without pay. www.artemis.bm/news/jamaica...

After this year I was beginning to think that Bluesky wasn't the place for pre- and post-event hurricane detail. I stand corrected, my feed is awash ! (I still wish there was more discussion though).

A few thoughts on #Melissa from historical and climate context: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

SSTs in the region where #Melissa has been developing are well above average - even compared to the past 30 years of warmer sea. Interestingly, also shear in the part of the world has been fairly consistently low (compared to 1950 onwards) since August... bit of a "loaded gun" you could argue...

Looking at history post 25th Oct (when #Melissa got going) as of 06Z/26th it's the 3rd fastest rapid deepener (12h windspeed delta) from that date onwards. Late season warm seas & activity a real talking point for those of us working to understanding present-day hurricane risk for their companies.

I can see a 25kt 12hr intensification of #Melissa - pretty good going for this time of year or later, but by no means unprecedented as left chart of max 12h intensification after this day of the year in HURDAT shows. And let's not forget how wild late-season 2020 was for rapid intensification.

Unsurprisingly the longer #Melissa takes to make the turn, the longer it spends over deep warm seas and the more intense it gets. Contrast the tracks from ECMWF Ensembles that hit the eastern side of Jamaica vs western side... (beautiful display of data from deepmind.google.com/science/weat...)

A discussion with a photographer friend in Deal trying to snap Deal Pier in strong winds and very high tide said that Benjamin was nothing on the sea on 26 Feb 2024 in a strong easterly. Wasn't a named storm, but got me thinking about what wind direction causes strongest winds in the UK:

I sense this is less & less an outlet for discussion, but I'll try. I did a chart to show the farce of how Reform gets a greater % of vote where immigration is lower (and thus higher % of British). The added chilling note is how much the % of that vote increased in the two by-elections in 2025.

The old devil-in-the-detail again. Storm #Benjamin yesterday in Met Office hi-res model looked pretty feisy for my part of far East Kent on the coast: main pressure gradient potentially looking like it's shifted further east in this morning's forecast and less windy (but still blowy) for us.

Hoping someone might be able to help: am doing a regular daily download of ERA5 data: is the data nearly always staggered by about 5 days in terms of most recent date or is there variability around this number depending over time (or with different dataset types (single/pressure levels))? Thanks!

Doesn't have a name (yet?) I think but if the AROME model is up to scratch it looks quite feisty in the channel first thing tomorrow...

Pardon the language but: different winter, same sh1t.

Ah - so there's the hurricane season: remnants of Humberto doing the extra-tropical reintensification thing over the UK and Ireland. This is the ensemble maximum gust at 1am Saturday.

Meteorology is the enemy of health, seemingly...

I don't expect a response but Q for US folk that happen to follow me: I watch a load of the PGA Tour: more than European golf. In terms of fan behaviour, is there a "weapons-grade golf idiot" that seems to exist in the US fanbase that doesn't in Europe? Bewildered at some of the Ryder Cup carry-ons.

A day or so into the winter solstice and we've already got the first "if only it was January" day - a good 3/4 inch of rain in Deal...

Bit of a forecast bust this morning as I hear the distant thunder rolling in....

Careers should be remembered by the people you meet along the way, not your personal achievements. Discuss. (Benfield Remetrics reunion, 20-25 years on).

The only people I can apologise to for this are Star Trek fans: but quite frankly I've had enough of reading about it - and the aftermath.

Enjoying the two-hour forward-advected rainfall forecast from the rainfall radar from @netweather.tv - potentially very useful for "can I get for a walk in the next hour/two hours". See also: "we will get a full session's play?" in the cricket. UK now? Everyone gets wet in the next two hours...

Creating graphs in Plotly and then sharing them as an html so people can interact with the data is My Thing for 2025. (You are welcome to laugh at me if you a) have much more modern idea and/or b) have been doing this since 2003)

I was proper angling for the busy fortnight of the Atlantic to be fully quiet. Damn you, orange jelly bean...

All this and more to look forward to from 2029 in the UK barring something remarkable changing politically. Ideology first, common sense second.

Right near the peak of the hurricane season and it's 13 days since we had anything with a name. Unprecedented? Nope. Rare? Yep. Nothing else happened in 1992 anyway...

@norcrosscricket.bsky.social I don't hold out hope for a blemish-free afternoon on the weather front...but you never know it could all fizzle out and me make look daft.

As someone who gets a bit SAD-ish in winter, this time of year as the day length is disappearing like the clappers, I'm scouring the ensembles for the last vestiges of summer-ish days, somewhat in vain...

Ah, T+360 Tempter, where have you been all summer?

Jamie Raskin the Maryland Democrat with a 3-minute reminder of how, as we look across the water to what's going on in America, it most likely the UK's turn next to be led by a charlatan and a liar unless we wake up - personally I think it's too late already.

Below average to above average to swiftly below average again. ACE is having a rollercoaster ride this year. If you don't get much activity at this time of year you quickly drop off the pace...

Playing with synthetic data for a paper has allowed me to recreate a favourite plot. Simulate 10k years of hurricane losses & then bin years by a) return period each year sits in & b) the category of storm at landfall in those years, above about 10 year loss RPs we only care about Cat 3+ landfalls.

One of the great time miscalculations in the corporate world is the idea that knocking up a 10-slide presentation is a 45-minute job or similar.