Weather Eye

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May 1, 2006 By Paul Simons

THE Japanese meteorologist Wasaburo Ooishi made one of the crucial weather discoveries of the 20th century, but his name is virtually unknown, even in Japan. Ooishi discovered the jet stream, the ribbon of wind several miles high that controls so much of our weather.

In the 1920s, Ooishi investigated the atmosphere using weather balloons floating up to 10km (6 miles) high. On December 2, 1924, in clear blue skies, he discovered strong westerly winds roaring at around 260km/h (160mph) above Japan. He went on to find that the winds grew strongest in winter, and largely flowed westwards.

Ooishi was a great enthusiast of Esperanto, the international language devised in 1887, and keen to get an international audience, he published his research in it.

Unfortunately it had the opposite effect — European and American meteorologists ignored his ground-breaking work. However, the Japanese military took a great interest in it, and took control of Ooishi’s observatory in the early 1930s. During the Second World War, it used the jet stream to propel balloons loaded with bombs to attack North America, 6,000 miles across the Pacific. Some 9,000 balloon bombs were launched, of which around 300 reached their destination, but caused very little damage. Only after the war did the Allies piece together how the balloons were driven so far on the jet stream.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 2, 2006 By Paul Simons

A REMARKABLE DJ will tomorrow make his debut on American radio.

Bob Dylan is hosting his own programme on XM Satellite Radio, and, if that was not extraordinary enough, the theme of his first show is the weather.

Many meteorologists are already big Dylan fans: last year the American Meteorological Society dedicated a research paper to the weather as portrayed in Dylan's songs, such as Blowin' in the Wind.

However, Dylan will be playing other weather-related titles in his radio show, such as Blow Wind Blow by Muddy Waters, The Wind Cries Mary by Jimi Hendrix, Summer Wind by Frank Sinatra and I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine by Dean Martin.

This is no idle curiosity. Dylan relishes talking about the weather: "Chicago is known as the Windy City, but it's not the windiest city in the US; the windiest city is Dodge City, Kansas," he explains. "Other windy cities are Amarillo, Texas; Rochester, Minnesota . . . all of which beat Chicago."

He describes the notorious Santa Ana winds that rake southern California with blasts of hot, dusty air as being "always on the edge of hellfire . . . like the winds of the Apocalypse." Dylan reflects on After the Clouds Roll away by the Consolers: "I don't know what kind of clouds might be rolling away, but they're probably altocirrus or the altostratus."

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 3, 2006 By Paul Simons

"If the oak is before the ash,

we're in for a splash.

If the ash is before the oak,

we're in for a soak"

THE folklore saying means that we will get a wet summer if the ash tree breaks open its buds before the oak. At present there is a fascinating competition to see which tree will open its leaves first; it is one of the closest races for many years thanks to the cold weather that delayed all the trees this spring.

However, the UK Phenology Network has found that the oak has been beating the ash convincingly in recent times, and is leafing ten days earlier on average that it did 20 years ago.

The reason is that our changing climate is tipping the balance in favour of the oak, which responds more readily to the rising temperatures. By contrast, the ash is thought to depend more on light to burst open its leaf buds.

Despite the narrow difference between the leafing dates of the two trees this year, in the long run the ash is going to suffer. With the oaks' tendency to leaf earlier, they are shading out ash trees in woodlands, slowing their growth and gradually squeezing them out. And as for the folklore prediction, there is no evidence that the difference in bud-break between the ash and oak gives a reliable long-range forecast for rainfall.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 4, 2006 By Paul Simons

GET out the T-shirts — at last, the weather is set to turn hot today. For the first time this year temperatures are expected to climb higher than 20C (68F), as warm, southerly winds make it feel as if summer has arrived through much of the UK.

However, breaking through the 20C ceiling is not that unusual for May. In an astonishing heatwave in 1922 temperatures soared above 30C (86F) in London from the 21st to 24th. May 22 was the hottest day of the whole year.

Warm days in early May can also be cruelly deceptive — they have little bearing on temperatures for the rest of the month. Already, this coming weekend is looking much cooler and decidedly wet, which backs up the folklore advice: “Ne’er cast a clout till May is out”.

This means that it is not a good idea to pack away warm clothes until the month is ended, although the word “May” could be an old name for hawthorn, which usually blooms this month. This old saying was borne out dramatically in May 1923. The month started off scorching hot, reaching an astonishing 28C (82F) on the 4th and 5th. But soon afterwards temperatures nosedived and turned so cold that by mid-May snow was falling. It turned out to be one of the coldest Mays of the 20th century.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 5, 2006 By Paul Simons

HAVE you ever had problems with a poor signal on a mobile phone during a rainstorm? There is good reason for this — the strength of a mobile phone signal dips in the rain. The same happens in sleet, snow and hail, and the heavier the precipitation, the greater the interference.

According to Israeli scientists reporting in the journal Science, this problem could be turned into an advantage for meteorologists. Mobile phone networks are sensitive enough to precipitation to provide a cheap, accurate, and extensive weather instrument. At present we rely on radar to give a broad picture of where and how much precipitation is falling. But mobile phone signals score a big advantage over radar because they can track the rain much closer to the ground. They even complement rain gauges, because the phone networks are much more extensive.

Monitoring the weather like this would allow big weather systems such as heavy rainstorms to be tracked better. This was particularly important in the intense but highly localised rainstorm that led to the disastrous flashflood at Boscastle, Cornwall, in August 2004. The scientists also claim that mobile phone networks could be used to monitor the climate and global warming. They can measure water vapour, the invisible moisture in the atmosphere that plays a key role in the world’s weather and also behaves as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat on the Earth’s surface.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 6, 2006

By Paul Simons

ON THIS day 150 years ago, the Arctic explorer Robert Peary was born in Cresson, Pennsylvania. An American naval officer, Peary made several expeditions to the Arctic, including the first successful expedition to the North Pole. Unlike many previous explorers, Peary took Inuit helpers and used their techniques for survival in the harsh Arctic climate, such as wearing native furs and building igloos.

Peary set off for the North Pole on July 6, 1908, and overwintered on Ellesmere Island, northern Canada. On March 1, 1909, his team of five started out and reached the North Pole on April 6, 1909. But when he returned home, Peary was astonished to learn that another explorer, Frederick Cook, claimed to have reached the pole the year before.

Bitter recriminations followed for years afterwards. Although Cook’s claim has been dismissed for lack of evidence, Peary’s record also has been questioned.

However, in 1989, the National Geographic Society examined shadows in photographs taken by Peary, as well as his ocean depth measurements, and concluded that he was no more than five miles away from the pole.

Last year, the British explorer Tom Avery and four colleagues recreated the expedition to the Pole in 36 days, further vindicating Peary’s claim.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 8, 2006

By Paul Simons

A STRANGE stink invaded part of the South Coast last Tuesday. Gas companies were bombarded with hundreds of calls from concerned residents in Portsmouth, Gosport, Fareham and the Isle of Wight, convinced that there was a potentially dangerous gas leak in the area.

However, no gas leakage could be found and a spokesman for Portsmouth Council admitted officials were baffled. “It’s a mystery, we do not know what it was,” he said.

Speculation was rife that a ship at sea was to blame, by emptying its tanks and releasing a noxious gas that was carried ashore on a southerly wind. The source of the stink may never be known, though. Similar pongs struck Edinburgh this February and Southampton in January last year, but in both cases experts could not find the cause of the outbreaks.

However, powerful pongs can be deceptive. Although an overwhelming smell suggests a nearby source, under the right weather conditions a big stink can travel surprisingly long distances from far-off lands. Several years ago a chemical plant near Norwich was inundated with protests from nearby residents about a terrible stench that they were convinced came from the industrial works. But a thorough inspection of the plant revealed no whiff of a leak whatsoever. Eventually, the stench was traced to pig farms in Denmark — the fearsome smell was blown across the North Sea on northerly winds.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 9, 2006 By Paul Simons

MANY UFO sightings could actually be balls of glowing gas in the atmosphere, according to a confidential report by the Ministry of Defence (The Times, May :blush: .

The four-year inquiry concluded that many sightings could be electrically charged gasses, known as plasmas, moulded by the wind into flying saucer shapes and which appear to fly at extraordinary speeds through the sky.

But what are these plasmas? One possibility might be foo fighters — mysterious balls of light reported by both Allied and German pilots towards the end of the Second World War. Both sides thought that they were enemy weapons, although they never harmed the aircraft or pilots.

For example, on December 22, 1944, an American pilot with the 415th Night Fighter Squadron flying over Hagenau, Alsace, encountered two “large orange glows” which climbed rapidly towards him. “Upon reaching our altitude, they levelled off and stayed on my tail,” the pilot reported. He took evasive action, but the pair of lights would not budge. “After staying with the plane for two minutes they peeled off and turned away.” Foo fighters remain a mystery. No known technology could have performed their feats; neither could any electrical phenomenon already understood.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 10, 2006 By Paul Simons

IF YOU are thinking of taking a balmy spring holiday in Britain this month, one of the best places to go might be Scotland.

Today it is likely to be the warmest region in the UK, and for much of the past week many parts of Scotland have enjoyed gloriously sunny weather.

Yesterday the temperature soared to more than 20C (68F) in the west of Scotland. On Sunday Lusa, Isle of Skye, was the warmest place in Britain, recording 23C (73F), and Lerwick, Shetland, was the sunniest spot with more than 13 hours of sunshine. Kinloss, Moray, scored the day’s highest temperature, and on April 30, Aviemore in the Highlands was the warmest place, reaching 15C (59F).

True, last Thursday a spectacular thunderstorm erupted over West Scotland, and firefighters were called out to more than 300 incidents, mostly from flashfloods set off by torrential downpours. That storm was triggered by an explosion of exceptionally warm air near the ground hitting cold air aloft.

In fact, western Scotland often enjoys magnificent weather in May. At this time of year the jet stream tends to slacken, driving fewer wet westerlies off the Atlantic. This allows more easterly winds to blow into Britain. Because the mountains of Scotland shelter the western side of the country from these winds, the region often basks in dry warmth.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 11, 2006 By Paul Simons

PEOPLE in eastern England woke up on Tuesday morning to find their cars covered in a strange yellow dust. Reports of the grime were especially numerous along the East Coast, but complaints came as far inland as Lincoln.

At first, it was thought that a shower of dust had fallen from the Sahara after a sandstorm had been blown across to the UK on high-altitude winds.

But the Met Office used a new-generation satellite to pinpoint the cause of the dusty problem. The satellite pictures showed a large cloud of dust blown across the North Sea to England on easterly winds. This coincided with reports of a recent explosion of birch pollen in Denmark, with the highest levels since records began there 29 years ago. It caused misery for tree pollen hayfever sufferers.

Birch trees shed their pollen from catkins into the wind in the hope of pollinating flowers on other birch trees. The recent mass outpouring followed near-perfect weather conditions. After a wet April, the pollen season began late, but this month’s warm and sunny weather triggered a big burst of growth in the catkins, which shed masses of pollen grains over the past few days. This created a plume of pollen that wafted over the North Sea and brought a spring-cleaning problem to eastern England — something not be sneezed at.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 12, 2006 By Paul Simons

THIS WEEKEND will be nerve-racking for supermarket managers. After glorious weather over the past few days, the weekend may turn wetter and colder for much of Britain, with a huge impact on our shopping.

When the weather turns warm sales of roast chicken sandwiches go up, beef sandwiches go down. We buy fewer crumpets, scones and sliced bread, but more rolls, sausages, sliced cheese and salads. Barbecue sales go sky high, while at exactly 20C (68F) hot meals at motorway services nosedive. And it is not just humans who feel the heat — cat food sales slump in hot weather.

Rising temperatures send fizzy drinks sales shooting up, but only up to about 23C (73F), when we tend to drink bottled water instead. For some reason, sherry is much less popular in hot weather, although white wine takes off.

One supermarket chain found that sales of more than 1,000 products are affected by summer temperatures. But the single most dramatic impact is not on food or drink, but leg wax, which soars fourteenfold, closely followed by hair removal cream.

“There is big money on getting the weather forecast right,” explains Richard Bennett, manager at the Met Office commercial section. “Supermarkets have to build up a huge stock for the weekend, and they need a forecast by Wednesday.”

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 13, 2006 By Paul Simons

PLAYING football during a thunderstorm can be dangerous. On Thursday, May 4, lightning struck several players during an amateur game at Dumfries, southwest Scotland.

No one at the match had taken much notice of the gathering storm, with rain and lightning seemingly far off. But the rain suddenly bucketed down, and spectators either hastily put up umbrellas or ran for cover just before the lightning struck. “The bolt went through my umbrella on to my hands,” said one onlooker.

Five of the players fell to the ground and afterwards all described tingling in their fingers and legs, and one was later taken to hospital and kept in for observation.

In Glasgow a five-a-side football match was struck by lightning that same night. One of the players was climbing a metal fence to retrieve the ball when he was flung to the ground as a bolt of lightning hit a floodlight attached to the fence. His tracksuit was badly burnt, but otherwise he was unscathed.

These players were lucky. In October 1998 lightning struck a football match in the Congo, killing 11 players and leaving 30 other people with burns. The biggest threat from lightning hitting any outdoor event is, apart from a direct hit, that the electric current can pass through the wet ground. This creates a large electrical gradient that can fell anyone standing nearby.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 15, 2006 By Paul Simons

ON THIS DAY 170 years ago a solar eclipse was seen across a wide swath of Scotland. It was particularly special for the astronomer Francis Baily, watching at Inch Moor in the Scottish Borders.

Baily had retired from a successful business career in 1825 and turned to astronomy. After watching the 1836 eclipse, he wrote a vivid account of it, and paying particular attention to bright beams of light that appeared at the edge of the Moon in the last few moments before the Sun disappeared behind the lunar shadow. “A row of lucid points, like a string of bright beads,” he described them.

This strange light show is created by the Moon’s rugged landscape, pitted with mountains, deep canyons and craters. As the last rays of the Sun graze the lunar terrain, beams of sunlight shine through the Moon’s valleys like a piercing torch, and to an observer on Earth look like bright beads. Within a minute the beads have disappeared as the Moon’s shadow blots out the Sun. The phenomenon became known as Baily’s beads, in his honour.

These days, astronomers can work out in advance which mountains and valleys are likely to be illuminated by Baily’s beads. At this year’s eclipse in the Sahara, on March 29, a row of five beads clearly stood out, before they too inevitably succumbed to the eclipse shadow.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 16, 2006 By Paul Simons

IN 1590, at about the time that Francis Drake was master of the seas, mariners were making accurate compass measurements and recording them in logbooks. Now scientists at the University of Leeds have used those old compass measurements to map the history of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Reporting in the journal Science, they found that the planet’s magnetic field has weakened by about 0.5 per cent each decade since the mid-1800s. Some experts believe this signals that the magnetic field is going to disappear and then go into reverse, with the magnetic north and south poles flipping over. Such reversals happen about once every 300,000 years or so.

If the Earth’s magnetic field fades away the consequences could be huge. The field protects us from deadly cosmic radiation and solar storms, which could knock out power grids and satellites. Huge ozone holes would open up and expose us to lethal amounts of ultraviolet light, and powerful radiation bursts could heat up the upper atmosphere, triggering massive disruptions to the climate. Animals that rely on the Earth’s magnetism for navigation would be lost.

However, the study of compass measurements from old ships has suggested that the magnetic field may be much more erratic than first thought, and the current weakening could just be a temporary bout, rather than a steady decline.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 17, 2006 By Paul Simons

EARTHQUAKES seem to be impossible to predict. After decades of trying, no one has found a foolproof way of measuring warning signs before a quake strikes.

But blooms of tiny algae in the sea offer the promise of forecasting earthquakes. A team of scientists from India and the US studied satellite pictures of coastal areas lying near the epicentres of four recent earthquakes. They found that before the quakes struck, there was a huge surge in the levels of chlorophyll, the green pigment that plants use for their photosynthesis, caused in turn by a bloom of phytoplankton.

Just before a quake, cold water deep in the sea warms up, sending up nutrients that the phytoplankton thrive on. This leads to such a huge boom in their numbers that satellites detect a spectacular rise in chlorophyll.

The quakes that were studied struck Gujarat, India (2001), Algeria (2002), the Andaman Islands (2002) and Bam, Iran (2003); all had epicentres that lay close to the coast.

The scientists claim that the amount of advance warning from the plankton depends on the depth of the sea and how near the epicentre of the quake lies to the sea.

Looking for unexpected algal blooms in the future may give scientists their first confident predictions of an earthquake.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 18, 2006 By Paul Simons

THOUSANDS of people in China recently watched in amazement as a city floated in the sky over the sea near Penglai, a peninsula on the northeast coast of the country. Chinese newspapers reported that the crowds gazed for hours at the ghostly sight of high-rise buildings, streets, cars and even people shimmering in the air.

The city in the sky was an extremely powerful mirage, and could have been an image of the city of Dalian about 100km (60 miles) away across the water on a peninsular opposite.

Penglai is famous for its mirages, especially at this time of year. In June 1988 a small town was seen surrounded by hills, apparently floating on the sea. The following month scenes of mountains, lakes and buildings appeared. Four years before that, a mountain was seen with small houses at its foot, which later changed into a flatland with two small hills flickering into view. Several minutes later, “blocks of high-rise buildings first shimmered and then disappeared.”

According to ancient legend, this was the fabled fairyland of Penglai, a mountain in the sea where immortals lived. But the real answer to the spectacle lies in calm weather conditions, when a layer of a cold air over the sea lies under warm air above. The atmosphere then behaves like a giant lens, bending light and projecting images into the sky.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 19, 2006 By Paul Simons

FOR TWO months in 2001 Kerala, in southern India, was showered by bouts of red rain, in which almost the entire state turned red.

At first it was thought that red dust had blown over from deserts, but microscope studies revealed no sign of sand. Instead, there were lots of red microbes that seemed so unusual that it was claimed they might be extraterrestrial bugs.

Some suggested that these microbes had hitched a ride on a meteorite that fell to Earth and exploded high in the atmosphere.

New studies, though, show that the alien lifeforms are more likely to be algal spores. When samples of the red rain were cultured in a laboratory, they produced blooms of an alga called Trentepohlia. This is very common in Kerala, growing on rocks, trees and walls. But how could algal spores fall in rain?

Weeks before the monsoon of 2001 there was an unusual bout of heavy rains, which may have set off an algal bloom. The weather then turned dry, and this could have triggered an explosion of spores.

When, eventually, the monsoon storm clouds arrived, these spores may then have been swept up on warm updraughts into the clouds and absorbed into raindrops before falling as blood-red rain. It is estimated that at least a tonne of the spores may have fallen over Kerala.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 20, 2006 By Paul Simons

THAMES WATER is, apparently, not considering towing icebergs to relieve water shortages (The Times, May 17).

There is a long history of transporting ice. Ice stores were built in Mesopotamia almost 4,000 years ago for keeping snow and ice collected from nearby mountains. In England, Charles II introduced ice houses in the late 1600s, and ice became so precious that a dish of ice cream cost £1, hugely expensive in those days.

By the 19th century an international trade had been established, with ships carrying tons of ice from Canada, Greenland and Norway to the rest of Europe and beyond. For example, in 1833 a ship carrying 180 tons of ice sailed to Calcutta, and even though a third of the cargo melted, enough ice remained to make a decent profit. But the production of electric refrigerators in the early 1900s finished off the ice trade.

Renewed interest in transporting ice began seriously in the 1970s, when Saudi Arabia considered towing icebergs for drinking water. But the problems were huge: icebergs are unstable, break up in heavy waves and even if one reached its destination, no one could figure out how to get the fresh water ashore. To date, the only successful modern enterprise that uses icebergs is a Canadian company that makes vodka from the water of melted icebergs.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 22, 2006 By Paul Simons

"RAIN stopped play" has grown all too familiar these past few days, but some of the worst weather to hit any cricket match occurred in the US.

Cricket was long popular in North America, even after the US gained independence. The first international England cricket tour, in 1859, was made to Canada and the US. However, the Atlantic crossing left the team badly shaken — John Wisden, later famous for his almanac, quipped that conditions at sea could have been improved by using a heavy roller.

Troublesome weather was to be expected; the tour had set off in autumn. When the last match was held in late October at Rochester, New York State, temperatures plunged so low that the teams almost froze to death. The day after the match finished, on October 26, New York City was hit by a snowstorm with 10cm (4in) snow, its earliest recorded significant snowfall of any winter.

With the outbreak of the civil war in 1861, cricket went into decline in the US and baseball grew more popular. But in late August 1872, another England cricket party toured North America, with W. G. Grace as the star attraction. When the last match was played in Boston on a baseball pitch, torrential rains turned the ground into a quagmire. Worse still, the England team were presented with gifts of baseball bats, dismissed by Grace as "an interesting relic".

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 23, 2006 By Paul Simons

WHAT a bitter twist that the moment water companies start to apply for drought orders, the whole of Britain gets soaked in torrents of rain. Never mind all the talk of another drought as bad as 1976 — there seems no end in sight to the aggressive depressions barrelling their way across the Atlantic towards the UK. Even next weekend’s fêtes, barbecues and cricket matches look like a soggy story.

You might be forgiven for thinking that it feels like a monsoon has arrived. In fact, this torrid bout of weather could herald the early arrival of the European Monsoon. This is very different from the famous Indian monsoon, which is driven by the ferocious heat of the sub-continent contrasting with the cooler seas around it.

Our monsoon is slightly more genteel, brought on by a resurgence of wet and windy Atlantic weather. Usually these westerlies slacken off during springtime, but around this time of year the westerlies pick up again and drive relays of depressions across the Atlantic, which is why the phenomenon is also known as the “return of the westerlies”. The rains usually arrive in two bursts, at the beginning and middle of June, often making an unwelcome appearance during the Wimbledon tennis fortnight. Although it is a very predictable phenomenon, quite what drives it is far less clear.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 24, 2006 By Paul Simons

"A WET May makes a load of hay." The folklore saying has come true farmers are enjoying a very wet May after a long, dry winter. A heady mix of sunshine, showers and reasonable temperatures has set off an explosion in plant growth and turned the countryside lush green.

May is usually one of the drier months of the year, but since the gales arrived last week it has become a big splash.So far we have had 75mm (3in) rain, and with more rain forecast through to the weekend, England and Wales could reach double the normal rainfall for the month. It may even challenge the soggy May of 1967, when 141mm (5.6in) rain fell, the wettest May of the 20th century, although probably it will not break the record of 152mm (6in), set in May 1773.

Is this a sign of a wet summer to come? The weather in May has little bearing on the summer and it could easily switch into a completely different weather pattern. The record-breaking heat and drought of 1976 was preceded by sunshine and showers in May, although not nearly as wet as this month. Equally, a hot and dry May can turn into howling gales in June, as happened in 1944, when preparations for D-Day in May had perfect weather, but June turned spectacularly stormy, and led to heavy seas during the invasion.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 24, 2006 By Paul Simons

ON TUESDAY night, Scotland shivered in one of its coldest nights recorded in May. The temperature plunged to minus 3.9C (25F) at Tulloch Bridge in the Highlands, a record low for May 23. Clear skies and an Arctic wind produced a freezing snap more like the depths of winter than late spring.

In fact, snowfalls are not unknown at this time of year. On May 17, 1935, snow carpeted almost the whole of Britain and was particularly heavy in Yorkshire. “Small villages in the dales were 2 to 3 feet deep in snow and villagers had to dig themselves out of their homes,” The Times reported. Cars were abandoned in snowdrifts on roads and trains derailed on frozen railway points.

Devon and Cornwall were said to look like a scene from a Christmas card, where several inches of snow fell. The bitter cold spelt disaster for fruit and vegetable farmers from South Wales to Kent. “A few days ago the countryside was a sea of blossom; now one night’s frost has entailed a loss of thousands of pounds in Sittingbourne district alone,” The Times continued.

In desperation, one apple grower used thousands of oil lamps to save his crop from freezing. And at the Chelsea Flower Show in London, exhibitors worked frantically to save prize plants using heaters in greenhouses to keep the blooms alive in the bitterly cold nights

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 26, 2006 By Paul Simons

AFTER days of atrocious weather, the Test match between England and Sri Lanka which started yesterday at Edgbaston will be at the mercy of the elements.

A respite from the rains yesterday came thanks only to a brief gap between two depressions rolling off the Atlantic. Another horrible burst of rain today may clear before play resumes, but heavy clouds will linger on and showers are likely to return tomorrow.

Edgbaston, though, has a good record for weather in Test matches. Since the ground hosted its first Test match in 1902, only three days in 36 games have been completely washed out.

However, rain did play a pivotal role in that first Test at Edgbaston, against Australia at the end of May 1902. England made 376 before rains arrived, Australia were caught on a sticky wicket and were dismissed for an astonishing 36, their lowest score. The visitors followed on and were reeling, at 46 for two, when the rain pelted down. Play was abandoned, leaving the match drawn. England were frustrated by the weather in the next match, at Lord’s. They got off to a poor start but recovered to reach 102 for two, but after only 105 minutes of play rain ruined the game. The weather improved for the next three games, but England lost the series 2-1 and were left to rue the weather.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 27, 2006 By Paul Simons

IT WAS bizarre to receive a letter from Thames Water last week asking its customers to save water, while heavy rains pounded down outside. How, you wonder, can there be drought in many areas when the weather is so wet?

Unfortunately, much of this month’s rains are running off the ground into rivers and washing out to sea, with only a tiny fraction collected in reservoirs.

The big need is for something far less dramatic and more depressing — weeks of fine drizzle that slowly trickles down through the ground to find its way into the aquifers. These rocks are like a giant spongy reservoir, where water sits in porous material, usually chalk or limestone. Aquifers provide a cheap, clean supply of water for much of eastern and southern England. But they usually fill up only in autumn and winter — by springtime most rainwater is lost by evaporation from trees, plants or directly from the ground, leaving little to seep deep down underground. However, weeks of persistent gentle rain can penetrate deep enough to recharge the aquifers. But one advantage of the current rains is to quench the huge demands of farmers, parks, sports grounds and gardeners for irrigation water. How long the rains will carry on for is anyone’s guess — but if the summer turns hot and dry, many of us could still be having to endure a drought.

From TIMES ONLINE

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May 29, 2006 By Paul Simons

THE capital of the Inca civilisation was Cusco, in modern-day Peru. The Incas considered this place to be the centre of the world, where they worshipped the sun. Now, some 500 years later, scientists have discovered that Cusco has a very special relationship with the sun — it has the highest levels of ultraviolet (UV) light in the world.

Satellite data gathered over six years revealed that the highest UV levels occur in the Andes, in the Altiplano region. According to a report in New Scientist, a team led by Dr Ben Liley, of New Zealand, found that Cusco scored 25 on the UV index, the highest figure recorded on the Earth’s surface. This is a ferocious level of UV, about twice the peak value found in New Zealand. “The historic capital of the sun-worshipping Inca empire does seem an appropriate place to find the world’s highest UV,†said Liley.

Cusco is near the Tropic of Capricorn, where the Sun is at its most powerful around January, when the Earth reaches its closest distance to the Sun. The city also sits 3,416m (11,207ft) high in the Andes, where the levels of ozone are low, so there is little protection against UV light. High amounts of UV are a big cause of skin cancer and eye cataracts, and fair-skinned tourists at Cusco and nearby Machu Picchu need to take special care.

From TIMES ONLINE