A great #noctilucent #cloud display across Europe and the UK tonight (including Devon) These clouds are above 250,000 FT high (a commercial aircraft flies around 35,000 FT for reference) and are most commonly seen in mid-latitudes in mid-summer. #meteorology

Keeping up with the potential tropical depression / storm development between the Malay Peninsula / Borneo. A satellite derived surface wind field (from 19/16:30 UTC) suggests it's close to being a tropical depression at 0 deg. Slightly inconclusive on the east side of the circulation for now.

The GFS model remains keen on generating a tropical depression between the Malay Peninsula and Borneo at <2 deg of latitude. This last occurred in 2004 when Vamei reached tropical storm / typhoon strength (disputed), such events are estimated to have a 100-400 year return period. Interesting to 👀

Unusually low column ozone and clear skies over the UK again today (Sunday), see ozone anomaly forecast below. UV levels will be higher than normal for the time off year. I got a little sunburn yesterday, so will take the suncream out today. Enjoy! ☀️

It looks like I saw the optical phenomenon of light pillars at 20:00 UTC 29 Jan 2025 in Devon, UK this evening. Vertical pillars of white light that really stood out in the sky for brightness and dead straightness of the lines.

#Meteorology makes such a difference to where aeroplanes fly. ✈️ Here a strong W'ly jet stream across the mid-Atlantic (linked to #StormEowyn) causes all the traffic from Europe going to North America to head well to the north. Whereas the traffic the other way enjoys a jet assisted ride back! 💨

A jet-stream fired up by the current North American coldwave will lead to a phenomenon known as a "Cyclone Family" in the North Atlantic. Multiple deep low pressure areas develop and take a similar track late January (close to the British Isles) More info: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A #coldwave is forecast for the central US from the weekend into the middle of next week. Extending all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and northeastern Mexico. ECMWF forecasts suggest maximum temperatures for Austin, Texas, may be more than 20 C (36 F) below normal early next week.

Snow didn't settle in Exeter this week, so I popped up to #Dartmoor to get me #snow fix before it all melted. I drove to South Zeal, about 25 mins from Exeter, and walked up Cosdon Beacon (550 m) with Ollie 🐾 About 10-15cm, deep drifts, and rime on vegetation above 450m. A top afternoon out!

Loving geography so much, I came across these gift cards in Totnes a few years back using playing cards from the 1920s Jacques card game "The Countries of England" collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O26764/... I've framed up two from the area I grew up. A lovely vintage piece of art. 😄

With programmes on #BBC #Radio4 celebrating the centenary of the #ShippingForecast today. I thought I'd reshare the shipping forecast themed map I produced from the #30DayMapChallenge back in November.

#Snowdays? My family thinks snowfall that would cause few issues in the 1970s, cause carnage today. Why? My theory: Schools, H&S of the school site, & safety of pupil/staff travel. Many teachers commute greater distances now than in 1970, rendering safe travel more challenging. Data, thoughts?

Confidence is now high for cold weather across parts of Western / Northwestern Europe in early January 2025. Here is a look at the forecast broad regime through the start of the period, and meteogram for London showing the forecast max / min. Compared to recent weeks, it will be notably #cold!

Across a few days dog walks on my regular routes I've surveyed the damage in my local area from #StormDarragh Mainly tree damage with a few large trees toppled, and plenty of branches / limbs brought down (>3 m in length my criteria for inclusion). A nice reference to future strong wind events.

Sting Jet in #StormDarragh? #Technical 1/ Sting jets are most commonly found in Shapiro-Keyser cyclones These cyclones tend to be marked by a frontal fracture, meaning the cold front is very weak. UKV fields (dewpoint digits) on Friday evening analysed cold front is indeed very weak / fractured.

Across #SouthernAfrica, following the historic #drought of 2023/2024 (linked to El Nino), the start of the 2024 / 2025 wet season is much delayed. Much of the maize (the staple crop) is mostly planted in November, but the area currently remains arid and baked by heat, planting will be delayed.

D28: Blue Planet Quick and simple today. The Canals of England. #30DayMapChallenge

Another truly hazardous #airquality event is underway across northern India, Pakistan and Nepal. PM2.5 (tiny aerosols harmful to lungs) are exceeding 600 micrograms per metre cubed (see Lahore)! For reference to WHO recommend PM2.5 not above a 24 hours average value of 15, for 3-4 days per year.

D27: Micromapping I had an attempt at using Bing satellite imagery and a few photos I found to "guess map" the area around the meteorological enclosure at RAF Coningsby. This location recorded the UKs highest ever air temperature of 40.3 C on the 19 July 2022. #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

D25: Heat The average annual need for heating across the UK, as measured by Heat Degree Days (based on the EU Threshold of 15.5C). Parts of Scotland have more than double the values of some parts of southern England...that's a lot more energy / £££ required! #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

D24: Only Circles A good test, I liked this solution, but it's not yet fully refined. I've plotted the mean number of ground frosts for the 1961-1990 climate (purple), and 1991-2020 climate (blue). Shrinking circles are indicative of fewer frosts / warming climate. #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

D23: Memory This is my first geographic memory, learning the route from school to home and back, via the people and places I knew along the way (including "mean man"). Likely very inaccurate as memories are well faded since 1997! But it's been great to think back to that time. #30DayMapChallenge

D22: Two Colours A well worn idea rehashed. Cornwall, United Kingdom. The next door county I know and love, that has a distinctive shape, and most importantly (for today) has a flag with just 2 colours. 😄 #30DayMapChallenge

D20: OSM (catching up). Today a personal gripe, how challenging the access to public swimming pools is in East Devon. Even with a car, many residents are >20 minutes drive (away from their nearest pool. I dare not consider public transport access challenges. #30DayMapChallenge #CranbrookPool

#uksnowmap 4/10 EX5. Full covering on the grass now. The roads are still slushy.

D16: Choropleth Another fairly simple effort looking at UK population density by unitary authority from the 2011 census. Calculated from separate raster (1 km gridded population estimate) and vector (unitary authority) layers, just to play with zonal stats tools. 😄 #30DayMapChallenge

D15: Data: My Data Simple one today, have looked through my travel diaries and produced a simple digital travel scratch map of the countries / territories that I've been lucky enough to go to.......quite a few to carry out meteorology......but a tenuous link. 😄 #30DayMapChallenge

D14: A World Map(s) Mapping how well we observe the world by territory by looking at the number of official WMO Climate Stations per unit area (top), population (centre), and scaled by GDP (bottom). Darker shading = better performance in each category. #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

D13: New Tool Today I've used the STRM data (a digital elevation model) and the DEM Slicer plugin (New Tool) within QGIS to show you a new way of looking at one of my favourite views in England. 😊 #30DayMapChallenge #NoMeteorologyToday

D12: Time and Space. Lacking ideas today, so have plotted the trajectories that two weather balloons from Camborne (UK) and Brest (France) took on their 12:00 UTC flights earlier today. Very similar, with the UK balloon achieving an altitude 468 m higher. #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

D11: Arctic The Arctic is huge, covering an area 82 times the size of the UK, representing around 4% of the earth's surface. Yet the surface weather conditions within this vast area are measured at just 133 World Meteorological Organisation official spots. #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

D10: Pen and Paper. Old school hand analysis of surface pressure and weather fronts, using surface synoptic observations (manually plotted), with satellite imagery and NWP used to fill in the gaps. 😄 40 years ago this was the starting point of weather forecasting! #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

D9: AI Only. Feels like a fascinating day attempted a few things....ice free Antarctic, average precipitation amounts....they were all nonsense! So I went for the ultimate nonsense, a map of a hypothetical (hyphotical - AI can't spell 😂) hurricane near the UK. #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

D8: Data HDX Not overly happy with this one today (done with limited time), using a simple HDX dataset to produce an info graphic about the El Nino impact on Zimbabwe cereal crop yields. But have kept the streak going for one more day, the goal being 10 out of 30. #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

D6: Vintage. I found an example of a UK weather forecast printed in a broadsheet newspaper in the 1950s. It's a really nice format! I've emulated that 70 year old style here, producing an actual forecast for Friday 8 November 2024 (tomorrow as I write this). #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

Day 6: Raster With raster data from the UK Met Office and World Pop Hub I've calculated the UK pop exposed to various max temps on the UKs hottest ever day. Staggeringly, just under 20 million people were likely exposed to temperatures above the previous record! #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

Day 5: Journey. Travelling is tough in #meteorology (I've used trajectories). So a different theme today, looking at the British Trans-Arctic Expedition from 1968-1969. Meteorology link...a warming Arctic (lost sea ice) would render this near impossible in the current world. #30DayMapChallenge

Day 4: Hexagons. Today I've taken an Infrared Satellite Image from EUMETSATs new Meteosat Third Generation - Flexible Combined Imager, which produces 1km resolution IR images I've processed it to extract the median value from 1x1 lat and long degree (~111 km). #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

Day 3: Polygons. I had bigger plans, but had to spend the time digitising the polygons myself! Today I'm covering the "cult" UK Shipping Forecast. Made up of 31 named sea areas / polygons, and read out in poetic style on BBC Radio 4. #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

Away with the family, so a quick effort today! Day 2: Lines. I've run trajectories for 3 parcels of air at 10m, 6km, and 12km in elevation, starting from 0.0 North and 0.0 East at 00:00 UTC on 1st November 2024......and followed each for exactly 10 days. #30DayMapChallenge #Meteorology

Firstly, I'm not the most talented GIS user in the world. But when I can this November, I intend to enter a few maps in the #30DayMapChallenge on the theme of #Meteorology. Day 1: Points. Global Radiosonde Stations reporting in 2024. 30daymapchallenge.com

A reasonable surge has appeared with #StormAshley this evening across Western Scotland and the Western Isles. Thankfully, we are just coming out of a period of high spring tides, as surge as seen in tidal gauges has reached well above astronomical tide predictions.

It now looks highly probable that #TyphoonShanshan will make a landfall in a highly populated part of Japan with some very low laying urban areas midweek. Typhoon Jebi (2018) feels like a reasonable analogue event, which caused 14 deaths and >$13 billion dollars in issued losses across Japan.