The 2013 World Championship is underway. I'm particularly intrigued as to how Ronnie O'Sullivan will fare after his sabbatical from the sport, but if anyone can come back "rusty" and put in a fine performance, it would have to be him.
I have the players as most likely to win the tournament as Neil Robertson, Mark Selby and Mark Allen. I think Judd Trump has been going into his shell a bit recently so he has slipped from my list of pre-tournament favourites.
In last year's blogs I commented
Why is it that all of the ills of society are blamed on working mothers? "Too many mothers are in work and not looking after the children, so children can't always rely upon Mum being there." say the masses. "We need to bring a return to the traditional family where the father goes out to work and the mother stays at home and looks after the children."
Some suggest that we should have one parent stay at home irrespective of gender, but that would lead to the same result, as the mother is st
At the moment, I am a week and a half into an 8-week break at home, before I go to University (again!) to do the PhD. It's both exciting and apprehension-inviting at the same time- I don't know what it will be like! However, since I'm going to be researching into the realms of meteorological statistics, the work is bound to be interesting regardless. Other than that, relaxing. It's been a relaxing year out, but at the same time, I've been finding that with regards 'work-life balance', it's po
An updated version of my "Winter Snow Events" analysis will be uploaded to N-W over the coming few weeks, based on a wider range of sources and overall casting the net much wider. There has been considerable "inflation" in the values for each season as a result, the average "snow score" has increased from the low 20s into the low 30s.
Some brief (provisional) details to get the ball rolling:
[list]* The winters prior to 1988 have been upgraded relative to the 1990s and 2000s (as I missed
My Winter Snow Events file has been updated to cover Winter 2006/07 (I think it's unlikely that we will get any snow in the first half of May). With a score of just 11, Winter 2006/07 was the most snowless, along with 1997/98, since 1991/92. For those not 'in the know', the Winter Snow Events was largely inspired by L.Bonacina's 1875-1975 (recently extended to 2004) categorisation of past winters. I attempted more of a numerical/statistical analysis of the snowiness of past winters, aiming to
I became interested in the weather at the age of about three or four, mainly observational based on looking at clouds and changing weather patterns.In 1993, I developed more of a general interest, relating wind directions to their characteristic weather, and also becoming interested in mists, fogs, atmospheric pollution and dust, and the 'fog effects' that rain, hail or snow can cause when falling on somewhere on the horizon.My meteorological interest particularly soared during 1995, a year with
At the moment I think there is a 70% chance for eastern coastal parts of the North East (yes that means my area!) and 80-90% for inland parts of the region. The current snow cover doesn't look like thawing significantly until Christmas Eve, and unless that channel low gets far north enough on Christmas Eve to draw in a modified easterly, it probably won't thaw significantly on Christmas Eve either!
In the coming days I expect many media forecasts to be expressing a desire for a warm-up by Ch
Having scanned through various motoring threads I regularly see the term "comfortable" bandied about. Of course, while it's being used with reference to the comfort of travelling in a car, it can equally apply to a train, bus or boat journey.
When it comes to the actual seating and space, I have no arguments with the traditional definition. The more pleasant to sit in, and the more spacious, the more comfortable.
But it's in ride quality where my definition of "comfort" seems to be disti
I see a lot of posts, particularly in the Model Discussion, about "settled" weather. But what, specifically, is "settled" weather about? In my experience it means different things to different people- and most people's definitions don't entirely match the dictionary definition. Most of us, when we think of prolonged settled spells, imagine those weeks on end of clear blue skies, heat, absence of rain, and sunshine, like in the famous hot dry sunny summers, or the Mediterranean summers. But so
At the University of East Anglia we have Wellbeing Week.
Today, the main restaurant Zest appeared to cancel the roast dinner it normally provides on a Wednesday, providing "healthier" alternatives like rice, chicken, new potatoes etc.
Now, since when was a roast dinner unhealthy, and burger and chips (which it had on offer yesterday, as is normal for Tuesdays) healthy?
May as well start writing some blog weather forecasts; partly because many other members of the forecast team are doing a similar thing, and also partly as a means of keeping myself up-to-date with events. 21 April: A very hazy day across much of the country, with some patchy rain affecting Scotland, Ireland and to a lesser extent northern England under a rather moist south-westerly flow. South-eastern areas should experience the most sunshine. A warm day over England & Wales with highs t
We learn from an early age that life isn't fair, but learn to accept it, cope with it and be pleased that there are people out there who are much worse off than we are. But few ask the question, why isn't life fair? Life isn't fair partly because of random chance, unplanned events, or 'fate' or 'God' if you believe in that sort of thing, things that generally can't be helped, though their ill-effects can often be helped. However, a large proportion of unfairness is caused by human behaviour-
I quite often read about how society is becoming broken due to the decline of traditional family values since the 1950s. I often read about how the 1950s were a golden era where people loved and cared for one another, families functioned as a strong unit and, since mothers generally stayed at home and raised children, children got more frequent parental care than they often do today.
For sake of balance, I refer readers to a couple of opinion pieces on the internet which paint the 1950s in a
It's been ages since I last updated the blog- so I will dutifully make amends! I had a pretty successful end to 2007, with getting the PhD underway, and getting back in touch with a large number of old schoolfriends through that notorious social networking site Facebook (a subject of heated debate at times on this forum). I even met up with some of them on 29 December, which considering that I was hardly in touch with anybody four months beforehand, was pretty amazing. Getting back into the sw
Well, quite a quiet period in some ways. I've been busy applying for PhDs, and had a couple of interviews at Manchester and UEA- I'll be giving more details of what's been going on when I get confirmation of whether I have funding or not for any of the projects. Hoping to get funding this year, or else it's another year of hunting for what limited employment there is in this region in the fields I'm after. According to the law of society, I'm supposed to be obsessed by money and thus getting
There is often a large debate over whether we should keep updating the 30-year reference period every 10 years (the World Meteorological Organisation does it every 30 years, the Met Office traditionally does it every 10 years but has partially held onto 1961-90 in the recent update).
My view is that it depends on what analysis we're doing and that there is often plenty of room for argument. When we're comparing current weather (or the past month or year's weather) with the "average", i.e. wh
The 8-week period before starting the PhD is down to 5 weeks- trying to make the most of what I'm up to now, while part of me is looking forward to the PhD and another part is apprehensive. Been continuing with the level episode I'm doing for Doom 3, with only one level (a short level as well) to go, I hope to finish that last level before I start my PhD as I'm aware I won't be spending as much time on level editing once the PhD gets underway! It will most likely be a 'beta' product, for as mos
Currently cracking on with this main project, and failed the latest PhD application- looks like I'm going to be going home and looking for jobs (preferably related to meteorology!) in the autumn.
There were some astonishing thunderstorms yesterday, which I posted about in the storms section. Continuous thunder for 20 minutes isn't something that happens very often, let alone three individual storms in one day.
It seems that Sue started something of a trend among the moderators with Sloganizer
I arrived on Saturday to UEA, and have been getting to grips with the campus. With being here for Fresher's Week I can get my bearings for a week before the PhD work starts on 1st October. I'm going to see what sort of societies are about tomorrow. Of course I'm going to need to do plenty of work for the PhD, but hopefully I should be able to fit work and social events around each other so I can both get the work done to the best of my ability, and have a good social life (which I managed to d
Well quite a busy time in 3rd year University, fiddling around with postgraduate applications and the like, but I still have some time to mess around on Net-weather, play Half-Life 2 and Doom 3, etc.My parents are coming up next weekend- should be good!My personal weather summary for January 2005 will be coming very soon, and also for a couple of the earlier months of 2004.Some people are already ramping up this weekend's cold snap. If it comes off it will probably be easily the biggest event o
Thanks to everyone who gave me birthday wishes. I had a pretty good day- celebrated in style at the Met Office, and had some good messages on here and on Facebook- I got a subscription to Chess magazine as well for my birthday (I've subscribed to it before but had stopped- but given my record at the MetO, 8 wins 4 draws 0 losses, it was appropriate to restart).
I'm getting quite excited about the upcoming week's weather. It may end up a bit humid for my liking, but otherwise as far as I'm c
After complaining that Norwich missed out on the remarkable October event (when even Cleadon got some excitement- lying hail overnight 30/31 October) could we be in for a spell where I make up for it big-time?
Ever since I first came to Norwich, one of the things I most wanted to see was a full-on northerly outbreak from the Arctic in November, knowing very well that Norfolk lies right in the firing line of the showers drifting down the North Sea, and that the strong contrast between cold air
As time goes on I am fearing that the Model Output Discussion is going to degenerate into the usual summer fare, where the UK's weather is over-simplistically divided into two types: "settled" aka "good", and "unsettled" aka "bad".
The main problem is that the desire for "settled" weather, for most people, is tied in with images of clear blue skies, warm sunshine by day, and evenings spent in the garden with the barbeque going. Of course, high pressure can bring such weather, and many of us
Well, I'm having a reasonably relaxing time at the moment- went out yesterday and did some food shopping, but got a bit sunburnt- it's another gloriously sunny day in Lancaster again today!I've got a conditional offer for the Leeds MRes course, but I need a 2-1 for it, so it's a case of 'waiting with baited breath' for the exam results to come out, apparently on or around the time of my 21st birthday (present or shock!? We'll have to see!)Will be going down to the Blackpool area this weekend to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=qfME9mVT5tY
Police in Surrey, who were on patrol, decided to join in a snowball fight! Just thought that with the stick that a lot of police get (some deserved, some not) that it would be worth showing that not all police are averse to having a bit of fun.
