"Adam Lea" wrote :
"Graham P Davis" wrote:
Jack ) wrote:

I cannot comment on the administrative background to the present
airport chaos, but I throw in this little story.

Just before Christmas 1979, the weather pattern was almost identical to
that at present with widespread fog.

You must be mistaken, Jack. A spokesman (for BAA?) on Radio 5 Breakfast
this
morning that the problems are due to dense fog - dense? - at Heathrow and
that it's unprecedented for it to last so long at this time of year. Of
course that means all the long-lasting freezing fogs that I remember
occurring at this time of year must also be a figment of my imagination.

Really? When was the last time we had fog that lasted four days solid
without lifting at all?
Ha! On such assertions are myths built. Of the 96 hourly observations
at Heathrow from 00z on the 19th to 23z on the 22nd, 19 were outside
fog limits (i.e. over 1km vis). The fog was "thick" (i.e. 200m or below)
for slightly less than one-third of the time, and it was never "dense"
(i.e. 40m or below). The longest sequence of synoptic observations
with visibility below 1000m was 23, from 02z on the 21st to 00z on
the 22nd.

This is a scientific newsgroup. Let's have facts.

Philip