Crepuscular Ray

There was a brief flurry of large wet flakes here in south Hailsham just now, but nothing settled.

The weather never appears to believe or obey what the models suggest.

I can't see anything more than sleet happening here on Sunday morning (I'm also in Hailsham at the moment). If anything more wintry does fall, the ground is so soggy, it will melt.

According to spaceweather.com, it might even have been X-class.

http://www.independent.co.uk//img/shortcut-icons/icon-192x192.png Growing ‘heat blob’ from Atlantic driving sea ice loss in Arctic, study says WWW.INDEPENDENT.CO.UK Amount of ocean heat delivered to the Arctic has increased markedly since 2001, according to research I'm not entirely sure about hot salty water sinking beneath cold salty water, but that's possibly the Independent's take on it rather than what the original paper actually said. The Independent does not really get science.

Bloody cold here in Hailsham (well, for a southern softie). I'll have to keep the heating on all night. My mother has poor circulation/dementia-related thermoregulation problems. Seven blankets/throws, two thermal vests, fluffy socks, a nightie, unmentionables, a woolly cardie and a shawl weren't enough to keep her warm last night. The window will be open in my room, though!

Giant new, cycle 25 sunspot group emerging over the limb.

https://spaceweather.com/ A giant new-cycle, active sunspot group has emerged. Perhaps all the prognostications of a new Maunder minimum might have been premature.

He last visited the site on 11 October.

They all moved to Sussex. There were billions of the damned things here.

After a damp evening, there is a lovely Moon out there now. If it's clear this time tomorrow evening, there should be a lovely Moon/Mars conjunction.

I had a lovely afternoon out in the garden in Hailsham weeding. Not that I am fond of weeding, but it was a lovely afternoon.

Anyone else got thick fog? Here in Hailsham visibility is down to about 100 feet, but six miles away, nearer the coast, a friend reports that it is clear.

Lovely day here in East Sussex, especially the morning. I had a lovely hour out in the garden first thing pruning bits and bobs. Today's major event was a juvenile robin getting into the conservatory. Poor thing was obviously panicking, especially when I went in to open the doors to the garden fully, to give it the best chance of getting out quickly. It finally found its way out, after leaving several little messages for me to clear up. Quite why the silly creature decided to come into the conservatory is still up for debate. Three distant rumbles of thunder here since mid-May.

It certainly didn't qualify as "the coldest August Bank Holiday on record" here, a few miles north of Eastbourne. It was a lovely late summer's day after a slightly chilly start (9 °C minimum at Herstmonceux nearby).

I am not usually happy at being woken up in the middle of the night, but that was an exception. An hour and a half of flickering lighting approaching Eastbourne across the channel and then slowly, slowly veering off to the east, all accompanied by some spectacular cracks and rumbles. The latter even shut up the local herring gulls.

It's about to start flowering, or whatever grasses do. I will be sneezing for weeks! And it's too scrappy to look pretty.

Unlike the dandelions in my shared garden. It's like Armaggeddon out there at the moment. Our contract gardeners aren't allowed to turn up so we're coping with foot-tall grass and dandelions like trifids.

Perhaps the first one is a Harlequin ladybird juvenile stage. They're pretty variable in colour and form.

Anti bacterial hand wipes are not going to help. It's a virus. If the worst-case scenario comes off, what the virus is going to do in countries without adequate health care is beyond imagining. Even Trump's lowest estimate of a 1% death rate would imply 70 million people dying.

Painful hail and some sleet from a shower near Farnham (the Surrey one) mid-afternoon. I so wished I hadn't forgotten my gloves. It wasn't as windy as forecast, though, although a friend told me that sea conditions at Hove were the worst she had ever seen.

You're in the wrong place for that.

Not just the RNLI. The coastguard sent the helicopter up as well. That's thousands wasted on an idiot, let alone that brave people risked their lives to save him.

No, Blast. That was just rude. Please post a link to the Schwabe minumum/maximum info and why that's any different to just general solar max/minimum. Last time I looked at anything, he got the solar period wrong.

WTF has the government only just called the military in?