On Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:53:30 +0100
"Ian Bingham" wrote:



"Dartmoor Will" wrote in message
...

In the past if someone mentioned this to me as a possibility I would
come back and say that I thought it was extremely unlikely,
practically impossible. But is it? I know we have seen heat records
smashed recently and it is easy to get carried away, but you cannot
deny the facts. If this drought continues and the ground becomes bone
dry then we start to get the ingredients for a 40C. It would take a
special synoptic setup though. First of all we'd need a SE'ly to
import some hot and dry tropical continental air in early August
preferably when seas are warming and insolation is still strong. This
would need a high to our east but influencing us to keep away
Atlantic fronts and cloud. Once the hot dry air is over us then the
high needs to migrate west and allow the air to settle and a large
inversion to form in the boundary layer allowing insolation to build
up heat further heating the bone dry ground. Then one day somewhere
hits 40.1C. I'm wondering if it is worth a bet? What odds would the
bookies give now on such an event? Interesting. Note that this is not
a forecast but speculation on an event that IMHO in the past two
years has become more likely to happen given the increased tendency
for blocking. Yes I know recent summers have been on the cool side
and 2012 may be no different, but it is one of those things I have a
"feeling" for and I just wanted to get it off my chest.

Will (gazing thoughtfully at the sky with doom-laden music playing in
the background)


Possible of course, but where the British climate is concerned, so is
just about anything else. Last year, April was a blinder - then we
got a cool wet summer. Keep your money in your pocket.

Ian Bingham,
Inchmarlo, Aberdeenshire.


Ian, it would have been nice if you could have separated your answer
by quoting Will's original. Any half-decent newsreader would have done
it for you. [Pan, Thunderbird, Claws, for instance]


--
Graham Davis, Bracknell, Berks. E-mail: change boy to man
LibreOffice: http://www.documentfoundation.org/
openSUSE Linux: http://www.opensuse.org/en/