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.

On 2013-04-23 16:37:32 +0000, Bruce said:

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.

The low cloud scenario might explain why the forecast maximum for today
was given as 13C on the Sunday evening forecast. I thought at the time
that was a tad pessimistic given the pressure chart.

A stunning day here in Teignmouth/Newton Abbot today in the lee of Dartmoor with a maximum of 15.6c, warmer in Newton away from the cooler coast.

I saw the same weather report this morning at 7:15, reporting low cloud & sea mist, but when I looked out of the window it was clear skies & it remain that way for most of the day with only patchy cloud making it over the top of Dartmoor.

On 23/04/2013 17:37, Bruce wrote:
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.

A lovely day here with virtually unbroken sunshine this afternoon and
unusually high UV levels reaching a maximum of 7.9.

Minimum = 5.6°C
Maximum = 18.6°C
Sunshine = 10.4 hours

--
Nick G
Otter Valley, Devon
20 m amsl
http://www.ottervalley.co.uk

Nick

What do you use to measure your sunshine with? I know there's a way to do it with the Vantage Pro...

Bruce

On 23/04/2013 20:27, Bruce wrote:
What do you use to measure your sunshine with? I know there's a way to do it with the Vantage Pro...

R&D Instromet sunshine recorder.

Have been recording sunshine since Dec 2006.

To try and measure sunshine via solar radiation seems to be extremely
inaccurate.

--
Nick G
Otter Valley, Devon
20 m amsl
http://www.ottervalley.co.uk

Nick

You may well be right, but I did pick up some source code to do it a few years ago. Excuse me for being cheeky, but is that recorder you mentioned an expensive bit of kit and does it have some kind of data logger?

Bruce.

On 23/04/2013 20:52, Bruce wrote:
You may well be right, but I did pick up some source code to do it a few years ago. Excuse me for being cheeky, but is that recorder you mentioned an expensive bit of kit and does it have some kind of data logger?

The sunshine recorder was around £200 and yes I've attached a datalogger
(can't remember how much that was but it is an ADC-16 from Pico Technology).

The recorder actually gives a voltage (1.3V) when the sun is shining and
0.1V when the sun is not shining. This is a continuous output and from
that you can work out the total sunshine for the day.

--
Nick G
Otter Valley, Devon
20 m amsl
http://www.ottervalley.co.uk

"Teignmouth" wrote in message
...

A stunning day here in Teignmouth/Newton Abbot today in the lee of Dartmoor
with a maximum of 15.6c, warmer in Newton away from the cooler coast.

I saw the same weather report this morning at 7:15, reporting low cloud &
sea mist, but when I looked out of the window it was clear skies & it
remain that way for most of the day with only patchy cloud making it over
the top of Dartmoor.

From 10.00 this morning, it's been cool and overcast in Liskeard E Cornwall.
There was a hint of rain in the air about 15.00 I would have thought that
1024 mb would have bought better weather?

"Bruce" wrote in message
...
You may well be right, but I did pick up some source code to do it a few
years ago. Excuse me for being cheeky, but is that recorder you mentioned an
expensive bit of kit and does it have some kind of data logger?
=================

There is now a way to do it using an unused rain-gauge input of a Davis WMII
or VP/VP2 station and the IM sensor. This will only work if you have an
unused rainfall sensor, eg maybe you have an older WMII station that's not
in current use, or a second VP/VP2 station. Alternatively if you have an
Envoy8X unit then you can have as many rain gauge inputs as you like (up to
eight as a max).

Contact me via the website if you need any further information.

John Dann
www.weatherstations.co.uk