Hi

If I'd believed the forecast from the Met Office that Carol Kirkwood put out this morning - the whole of SW England would basically have a cloudy/overcast day with low status and extensive mist affecting windward coastal areas - I would never have ventured out!

Instead we've had a great day in the south of Devon with long sunny spells. I can see from the 1218Z visible satellite image from Bernard Burton's site (http://www.woksat.info/etcvd23/vd23-1218-b-uk.html) that we probably have the high ground of Dartmoor to thank for this. As we drove down to Bovey Tracey Haytor was standing out very sharply from, but as we drove back toward Cullompton later in the afternoon you could see the low cloud edging back in from the North, but despite this we still reached a respectable 18.9°C earlier in the afternoon in Bradninch.

I think the mesoscale NWP model the Met Office must be having severe problems with the amounts and extent of low cloud in what looks like a weak warm sector. Having said that the guy who did the midday analysis (http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsfaxsem.html) seems to be trying to explain away - what is after all a föhn effect over the south of Devon - by drawing some kind of tortured/contorted warm/cold frontal system across the South West.

Bruce.

PS I also noticed that they had a max temp of just 11°C for the SW tomorrow which also looked slightly ridiculous.