Norway Nut

Big day for Longyearbyen today! Once the Sun goes down they don't get to see it for 4 months ( I hope there aren't any vampires there now!). My day length has shortened from 19+ hours at midsummer to 9+ hours at the moment and this is due to go down further to about 6 hours ( or less) at midwinter ( I live just south of Bergen). This is the worst time of year for this location as heavy Atlantic storms make the sunrise and sunset times a bit irrelevant due to the cloud cover. I look forward to the snow because the Sun reflects nicely off the snow and can actually give one a slight tan. Roll on November/December.

Autumn started on cue this year in July as usual ( well the past 3 years at least) admittedly I'm on the western fringes of Norway. Birch leaves are turning quite nicely and a few of the softwood trees are also on the turn. We're also seeing increasingly larger flocks of geese flying south too. We still have swallows ( swifts and / or sand martins) flying around but the number of flies are diminishing. "I'm never quite sure what nature reacts to the most - temperature or length of daylight.. or simply just time itself" I think it may be a species specific thing, Damienslaw. We've just had our first proper night over Norway ( Definition - night is when the Sun is more than 18 degrees below the horizon) and the numbers of geese flying south took a big leap up on the day after ( 24th August). As I've mentioned above the swallows still seem to be having fun here. By the way, blackberries here are still struggling to ripen but I think the wild Chanterelles are doing fine. One last piece of News - The farmers are really happy 'cos they're going to get a third cut of grass so their silage silos are going to be full to bursting for the winter. This does not happen every year hence the delight.

20 is the max I feel comfortable with ( definition of a summers day in Norway). Any hotter and I have to find a way to keep cool as I start to melt. The humidity also has to be fairly low too. Nothing is too cold but I really dislike +2 or 3 and rain ( English winter weather).

Just seen an article in the Norway Post about a rare snowfall in June - enjoy. http://www.thelocal.no/20140616/norway-sees-snowfall-in-june

I'm glad I don't live in the UK and have to suffer the will it /won't it snow/get cold emotional rollercoaster that passes for model watching. Even though I'm on the coast of Norway, I should still get temps around -5 or even -8 C. Shame about the lack of white stuff but hey, you can't have everything!

Ok, in simple terms the Strat vortex is like what you see when you let the water go down the plug hole. You will notice that the vortex is never straight up and down ( well rarely) and in the bath the exit hole is fixed. Now in the strat vortex, am I right in saying that you are expecting the vortex to straighten out because the top of the vortex is not over the bottom of the vortex and that the top of the vortex drives the bottom and not vice versa?

Has anyone the stats on verification of models at different "T+" intervals? I've just seen a post from SM with the stats for the various models at T+144 and they range from just over 80% to about 77%, what I would like to know is the verification stats out to the limit of the model run. The reason for this post is that I'm tired of reading about a "great looking T+284 chart from GFS" only to see it disappear at T+240 and never reappear. I'm expecting something like 100% at T0, falling linearly to roughly 80% @ T144 and then falling exponentially to something like 5% at T284. I hope someone can oblige! Many thanks in anticipation NN

Any effect of the Sun would be in the rate of change of flux rather than the actual level. So rather than looking at the flux levels perhaps someone can provide a first order differentiation graph ie a rate of change graph. Really enjoying how the long term prospects for winter snow are improving.

Hi, So to paraphrase: You are asking your observers of Red Squirrels to note the severity of any precipitation co-incidental to spotting a squirrel. Surely if you get your observers to note the exact time and grid reference of the observation, you can get the Met Off to cross reference it to the "local" weather radar and get the rainfall rate for that time and place. Other than that you are looking at training your observers on how to determine the broad classification of the rain. BTW, I'm not sure the squirrels have the requisite brainpower to work out if the weather will either get better or worse within a given timeframe! Good luck with the dissertation

Getting the snow tyres ready here for the 1st Nov. The snow poles are already out on a neighbouring island along the major route between Stavanger and Bergen.

For many days now the ice has been growing either side of the Laptev Sea. Why isn't the Laptev Sea closing up?

See post #404 - My local weather service now giving out warnings of "From Wednesday afternoon locally severe conditions above 1000-1200 m due to decreasing temperature and transition to snow." Ok, it's all happening above 3000ft but it's a start and there's a lot of Norway above 3000ft

Sorry, but it doesn't work during the hours of darkness. Nor does the one in the Swiss Alps.

At 23:00 (local) still waiting for it to get dark enough to see any stars or shooting stars. Now at 23:45 the stars are out with Capella shining away north towards Bergen and others peeping out.

Current temp 0.9C Wind - from the NE( what little there is of it) ,Snow, Visibility - about 1.2Km Depth of snow - about 7 cm Forecast from yr.no for this time was 4C and rain and wind from WNW. What has happened?

How far down the Atmosphere can the warming be tracked before the signal is lost amongst other things? I've seen the post above showing the warming at 70Hpa.

Looking at this animation the Atlantic seems to being very benign ( Animation of the last 24 hours - ignore the Norwegian) http://www.yr.no/sat..._animasjon.html

Well, just had second dumping of snow :-( Another 9 inches - tis not fun digging out a 30 metre drive. Roll on some warm rain!

Fluctuated between -4 and -6 deg C today, Partly cloudy Wind southeasterly force 2 - 3 Tonight it is expected to go as low as -7 ( btw this is at sea level) with clear skies. Tomorrow more snow expected

Went to Bergen for the weekend and came back to 25 cm ( that's 9" in old money) of the stuff. Not even a whisper in the local news!

Hat, gloves and high vis vest - but there again I live in Norway! Will save the scarf for when it really cold.....

Well, I for one have noticed the evenings drawing in! In summer, here in Western Norway, it doesn't really get dark and now? It's dark by 7 and doesn't really lighten until after 8:30 Looking forward to Christmas when the days start lengthing out from daylight from around 9:45 to dark by 3:30. Overall the difference between daylight in summer and daylight in winter is about 18 hours.

I understand that the models are mathematical i.e. numerical, representations of the chaotic atmosphere. There are competing "brands" ( GFS, METO, GEM, etc) and each one of the brands has its own atmospheric model giving rise to different forecasts. However, what do we get to see? Do we get a person moderated output or does the forecast come straight out of a zx80? Could someone define all the different outputs we see and tell us the difference ?

I live in Western Norway close to 60 deg North and I went up local mountain yesterday and trod on very small patches of snow - usually at this time of year the mountain top is out of bounds due to about 4 feet of snow. Currently we are waiting for the first real coating of the white stuff.