Oh, I do like to be beside the Seaside

There are some who jump in the Firth of Forth or the North Sea on New Year’s Day for a Dook, which is crazy and cold. However, even in July it’s not that enticing, unless you are a small child it seems. I did manage a little paddle in the waters off Northumberland last week but oooh, no thanks to a swim.

Within Netweather Extra, there are lots of model forecast charts and also some observational data. Below you can see the SST (Sea Surface Temperature) chart from 20^th July for the UK.

It shows that the lovely looking blue seas off NE England are around 15 or 16C at the moment. The Northern Isles sitting at 13C and would only expect to peak at 14C later in August. Cornwall is managing to reach 18 or 19C so as the school holidays begin this should be more hospitable to tourists and fair weather surfers. By comparison, the Mediterranean is well into the 20s C

The sea temperatures are affected by extra sunshine, especially in shallow waters. The North Sea benefits from this slowly in the summer. Ocean currents bring warm waters around the UK, SW England and W.Scotland in particular in the winter. The annual cycle of SST warming lags behind the air temperatures over the Land. You would expect the top temperatures in the UK to be in July or the first half of August. The peak sea temperature is later in August.

If you have a boat and measure the SST you may pick up variations from these figures. A few days of sunshine with light winds (less mixing) will lift the temperatures of shallow waters or the top layer. Even walking through rock pools you notice this, where the water is shallow it is warmer (from the sun) and where it get deeper, the surface water can still feel warmer.

The water is much less responsive than air to temperature change so, these charts don’t’ change as much as the land temperature charts can. You’ll notice changes over weeks rather than days.

Netweather Extra charts  https://www.netweather.tv/secure/cgi-bin/login.pl?error=session_timeout;c=14