mike Meehan

Just started in the last few minutes, temp 1.1C, slight snow, settling easy on frozen surfaces, wind easterly moderate, which could cause drifting. Humidity 88% and intensity of snow increased whilst typing, temp down to 1.0C.

Quite heavy snow for the past 30 minutes or so at Watford, large flakes, settling, approx 1cm - temp +0.8 humidity 90%. First snow I've seen this winter. Strange - NW Europe radar shows rain, not snow,

I missed that, went through that region on Saturday, travelling over the Massif to Clermont Ferrand. A journey we have made quite often over the last few years, with the weather ranging from thick fog - warmth, mid 20's in mid November, and snow a couple of times above 900 metres

Final figures not in but it is reported that this July has been the third hottest in France since 1900, being surpassed by 1983 and 2006: http://www.languedocliving.com/third-hottest-july-in-france-since-1900-news-10113.html Temperatures forecast to reach 40C this week in our area.

Have been down here since 02.07.2018 with temps mostly in the low 30's C and we have had a couple of wet interludes in the form of storms but not amounting to too much in precipitation which has been mostly at night - the kind of weather I dreamed about having as a youngster - warm sunny days with the rain falling at night. However, in the last few days it has warmed up a bit more up to the 36C mark - we are obliged to turn on the air con - the problem we have with that is that the temp sensor is in the vicinity of the outlet to the air con which pushes out warm air, so the figures won't be totally accurate. Earlier in the week there was a large variation between Capestang and our nearest beach, Valras Plage - 34C and 25C, the latter having sea mist. Yesterday we went down to La Jonquera just over the border in Spain - here Accuweather spoke with forked tongue - although they gave out a max of 36C at Capestang, they forecast a cool 33C for La Jonqurera. We left latish morning with a temp of 34C and by lunchtime at La Jonquera it was 36C there. We left there in the late afternoon 1700 hours and at the frontier the car thermometer registered 38C and back at Capestang an hour later it was 34C. I note that 38C is forecast for most of next week. France recalling the 2003 summer which resulted in a number of deaths is getting prepared more: http://www.france24.com/en/20120817-france-weather-government-ministry-health-braces-heat-wave-canicule-prevention-measures/

My sister in law moved to Norfolk, there the cold winds normally come off the North Sea - the locals call them lazy winds - they don't go round you, they go straight through you.

I'm getting confused now Pete - first of all there is a MAD thread I can't find, then there is a WNW wind which whizzes across from the North Sea to the Baltic. I still remember the lecture relating to Katabatic and Anabatic winds when I was an air cadet 60 years ago - something to be aware of when coming into to land in a hilly area, or near a polar ice cap. Anyway monkeys don't have brass balls, except for the 'See no evil, hear no evil and say no evil' variants. The suggestion was that they were brass triangles on board the old fighting vessels used to store cannon balls but to pile them high on board a tossing ship, a lot would likely fall off anyway with the movement. Also it is suggested that there is insufficient of a coefficient of expansion between iron and brass to cause sufficient of an expansion and contraction to cause the balls to fall off. so that is another one of life's mysteries to depict it is bloody cold. But all is not lost apparently there is scientific evidence to say that having cooler nether regions enhances fertility, not that it will bother me too much in my dotage.

Take it that it would be a Katabatic effect, see there is snow about and the air on the tops of the hills gets cooled down more, thus heavier, then it rolls down hill. They can be pretty vicious in the cases of where they come off the ice caps of the Arctic and Antarctic.

However, it looks like Netweather did better than Accuweather.

Just looked at radar and it looks pretty active. As it happened we were forecasted fine weather at Watford for most of the day with temps reaching the low to mid 20's, as it is it has been raining for nearly the past hour, the temperature is languishing at 14.6C, so it appears that things have moved further north than what was expected. In a few hours time we may well be sharing your current experience. However we are grateful for yesterday which allowed us a lovely family barbecue in the garden.

Boo'iful sunshine now, mostly blue sky if slightly hazy - temp 22.8C - humidity 71% - Barbe set up

16.5C - 83% humidity - still cloudy but teasing slightly because getting slightly brighter. Think it will shift - got our family over for a barbe this afternoon and have put in a specific request to the weather gods. In the time I have written this, temp now up to 17.1C - humidity 81%, so going the right way. Happy Bank Holiday All

My thermometer is showing 33.5 C - but I sited it on a north facing fence but at this time of the day it starts to catch the sun, so it can't be an accurate reading. Not that much showing on the radar too close to us but there is quite some height in those cus, so I expect some rain in next few hours.

I can understand that but one goes with the other. I get fascinated myself and don't ever recall being frightened even though on one occasion had to cycle 5 miles home in a bad storm. Apart from getting wet, I reasoned that with the rubber tyres making contact with the road I was relatively safe from anything other than a direct hit, which would have been unlikely. Much safer than stopping and sheltering under a tree. Like everybody else I do get worried about lightning hitting the house and if I think it is getting too close I start disconnecting things like the TV from the aerial socket and the telephones.

I've never really been scared by lightning, though many years ago there were a number of us at a house party in Tonneins in France - this is situated at a point midway between Bordeaux and Toulouse. The house had a swimming pool, quite a large one, it was a hot evening, so I asked the owner for permission to go for a swim, I went in the water to be followed by a number of other people. There was some lightning which was getting closer with time, so it did get to a point where I thought it would be prudent to get out of the water. That was quite a good storm with some heavy rain. The following evening, the mosquitoes had taken advantage and by the river in the town you could see swarms of them like a cloud in the lights of the square. It does bring me back to the original point I wanted to make about being scared. We had a dog, who in appearance looked like a small German shepherd but in fact he was a 'street crossing'. Every time there was a storm he would get absolutely petrified and try and hide in the corner behind the TV - no amount of telling would convince him that he was in more danger there with the wires and the TV itself than the lighting outside. He did it every time and had to be physically pulled away from what he thought was his safe haven.

Strange really but it is something I have noticed before, sometimes, I'm not sure if it is all but Watford appears to get by passed by the worst best effects of storms but last night the activity started off to our south, then it perked up to our north which would have been St Albans with quite a number of bright flashes. I have just checked our fish pool and there has been no real appreciable increase in depth. A bit different to a sudden storm we had at Capestang in Southern France. It occurred during the relatively early morning and in fact I had slept through it. But in the garden there had been an empty bucket and when I checked that it was half full. I guesstimated that some 6 inches had fallen. Somebody had taken a video of a water channel designed to take flood water away - this measured something like about 5 metres across and 5 metres deep and it was virtually full of 'angry swirling water.' It does remind me of back in June circa 1984 - I had been transferred to Victoria Street in St Albans and during one afternoon there was a cracker of a storm. One bright flash of lightning was immediately followed by a very loud crack, so that must have been extremely close. Sadly that storm caught a number of young lads who had been playing football in a park - when the rain started, they sheltered under a tree and that tree had been struck, killing the lads. Afterwards you could see the damage to the tree, then an irregular track across the ground which had obviously been caused by the lightning. We have double glazing and tend to keep the windows shut at the front because we are on the A41 - I had also taken out my hearing aids, so didn't really hear the thunder. I think the topography makes quite a difference - St Albans is slightly higher than where we live and referring back to the south of France, we have the Pyrenees about 60 miles to the south and about 30 miles to the north we have the Massif, then combine that with the higher temperatures we get some real crackers of storms down there often accompanied by really torrential rain. The worst I ever recall was a bit further south - we had flown to Barcelona then picked up a car to travel north and had just picked up the motorway when I could see heavy clouds ahead, almost with a greenish twinge. It was obvious we were driving into a storm but the intensity of it took me by surprise. It rained and hailed so hard that ours and the car in front stopped altogether. All I could see of this car was just the flashing of its hazard lights and although in lane 1, I could not see the hard shoulder.

Nicely caught.

We've had lightning mainly to the south of us for the past 1 to 2 hours, now it is becoming more widespread, surrounding us a bit more and the heavier rain has just started, sounding a bit more solid as I write, so I reckon there is hail with it. However not much thunder as yet, so that part must still be a way off but we are getting flashes every few seconds.

Going back to 1959, this was a long dry summer, hot in parts and one to remember - at the time I was living just south of Grimsby and recall that during the spring and early summer we had a number of easterlies bringing in the North Sea Stratus, in similar manner to what we are having now. As far as I recall, this was following a snowless winter, though there were some episodes of cloudy highs, with a more or less even low temperature, interspersed wit Atlantic incursions, one of which brought in some advection fog. I recall this mainly because from February to March I was taking my glider course with the ATC at Kirton in Lindsey and it was only towards the end of this that we were able to get anything like any lift in the shape of weakfish thermals. The spring developed into summer when I was taking my 'O' Levels still with settled weather but with sunshine and some heat developing. The next landmark I recall is when we travelled to our Annual ATC camp at RAF Aldergrove in Northern Ireland, during the first half of September. We travelled by train from east to west, over the Pennines, to Liverpool. I recall that there was brown grass all the way across and I believe we went past the Lady Bower Dam, where the levels of the lake had lowered quite considerably. This was followed by a night crossing on the ferry to arrive at Belfast Dock in the morning, thence being picked up and taken to RAF Aldergrove, looking in amazement at GREEN grass! It was not just green but really a rich emerald shade, or perhaps it was my perception after leaving the land of brown grass but clearly not affected by the drought in the same manner as the mainland. The fine spell lasted well into the autumn, to about the second week of October. It was preceded by gusts of wind blowing the dust about, to be followed after a few hours by the rain. It must have been one of the driest summers on record. Nothing sticks in my mind about the rest of the year but I believe it was business as usual typical British weather with nothing really to write home about. It seems that sometimes we get strong westerly activity and at other times weak. The winter of 1962/63 being a casse in point. The weak allows the highs to develop mostly to our east, but sometimes from the Azores to give us long spells of settled weather, hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Now this year, since the end of February we appear to have been in such a situation with, I suspect, anti cyclonic activity above average, which led us to the Beast from the East, say on about two and a half occasions in March, then changing to near record warmth, 28.5C at Watford in April. The £64,000 question is, what will the weather gods do now, will the westerlies remain weak allowing the best summer for quite some years with an associated draught, or will the jet stream find those tram lines which lead directly to the UK?

http://www.midilibre.fr/2018/05/13/occitanie-pluie-intense-et-neige-en-abondance-en-plein-mois-de-mai,1669982.php#xtor=EPR-2-[Newsletter]-20180513-[Zone_info] Wow, there has been some interesting weather in southern France with quite substantial snow falls over the Massif - some nice pictures - then further down on lower ground heavy rain.

Currently 28.4 C in my back garden at Watford - wall to wall blue sky with a strange yellow thing in the sky - just wonder what the weather gods will bring for the summer - maybe if we are lucky we may just about reach 35 C if we keep getting these highs bringing in south easterlies. Any bets? Whilst at Capestang in Southern France it is 22 C with a yellow warning for thunderstorms and floods.

Yes we had a few flashes about in the sky, though nothing really close and some rain Saturday night. I have also decided that we were spoiled last week with the lovely blue skies and temps peaking at 28.5C at Watford - now back to business as usual for April, mostly cloudy skies with a temp of 15 C. Roll on the next settled warm/hot spell and ask those forecasters to be careful where they place the jet streams

A lovely day at Watford - 22.3C at the moment still time for it to climb to climb further, managed 28.5C yesterday but the hint of summer looks like fading away next week. It's not that long ago since we were experiencing the beast from the east and anxiously checking snow radars and temps etc.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/11/the-oceans-circulation-hasnt-been-this-sluggish-in-1000-years-thats-bad-news/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9d08d561ce30&wpisrc=al_environment__alert-hse&wpmk=1 My take on this is what has been suggested for a long time now, is that increased melting of Arctic Ice Cap would slow down the North Atlantic Drift because of the different specific gravities between saline sea water and fresh sea water. This would appear to be happening now and as it progresses the warming effect on North West Europe would gradually decrease. I wouldn't expect it to stop just there because the normal sinking of saline water in the Arctic is one of the main drivers of the global sea currents, so I would expect a knock on effect. Quite what the results of that would be, I don't really have the foggiest - it is well beyond my pension grade to work out. I can only guess that with a decreased speed of general circulation would allow tropical waters to get warmer whilst northern waters cool.

Where exactly do you live in South Derbyshire near Burton on Trent? - as a young lad I was living with my grand parents at Belvedere Road in Woodville.