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Meteorology Section Report: 2017-18

By Trevor Law (Met. Sec.)

The Society maintained a Met Station at the Observatory, providing a continuous record from 1910 to 2016. Of recent years the equipment was owned and run by the Met Office but this was dismantled and removed when Thames Water undertook their work on the site. Limitations on the placing of materials and equipment prevent what we had from being simply put back. The fundamental problem is a membrane that Thames Water have installed less than a foot underground – and it mustn't be touched in order to preserve its integrity. The standard pattern Stevenson Screen on the other hand has legs that go some way into the ground so it won't be blown over in the first decent gale. Liaison with Thames Water and the Engineering Department of the Met Office has so far proven inconclusive.

We are looking into providing our own Weather Station, perhaps fence mounted and provided with a data link, so we can resume meteorological records once more and submit them to, for example the Climatological Observers Link, Weather Underground or the Weather Observers Website.

WEATHER SUMMARY FOR THE LAST YEAR

A year ago today (21st June 2017), temperatures reached 33°C at Northolt and 34.5°C at Heathrow and it was the warmest day of 2017. To show the capriciousness of our Weather, the following week, after a dramatically wet day on the 27th June, the 28th had a top temperature of just 15°C! The week after that and the temp on the 6th July was back up to 31°C and that was the last time we saw 30°C, though it looks on the cards we'll get that again in the next week or so.

Later in July we had average to cool weather, which continued into August, which was also rather dry, except for the 9th. We were lucky to get a nice Bank Holiday, as have been 2 out of the 3 so far this year, the exception of course being Easter.

September was disappointing, with a cool first half. Highlight of October was Storm and ex-hurricane Ophelia, which clobbered Ireland but we'll remember as the Day of the Red Sun. This was due to a combination of smoke from wild fires in NW Spain and N Portugal and Saharan dust, all having been swept north on the eastern flanks of the storm.

Bonfire night bought us the first frost, though it was a close shave in a couple of nights in late October. The last frost was 28-29th March, though we escaped one by the skin of our teeth overnight 2nd-3rd May.

November had quite a high number of rain-days (17) but was nonetheless recorded as fairly dry.

December bought us the first snow on the 9th, during a cold snap. As so often happens around Christmas, a mild spell started on the 20th, coming to an abrupt end on the 27th, though the New Year bought a return of milder weather.

January was very average, tending to be cool early and a little milder later. It was notably windy 2nd-4th and 17th-18th.

February had a mild spell mid-month and a very cold spell at the end, starting on the 24th. This was the famous "Beast from the East". It produced the coldest weather of the winter, with widespread frost and snow. Minima went below -5°C on the 27th-28th and 28th-1st March and it stayed below zero from the evening of 27th Feb to the evening of 2nd Mar.

Another cold spell, with snow, arrived on the 16th Mar and continued till the 20th.

Early April continued the cool, unsettled theme of March that had so much delayed the onset of Spring, then bang, around the 18th – glorious warm, sunny weather. It reached 28°C on the 19th, the highest April temperatures since 1949. The air was notably dry, with afternoon Relative Humidities below 30%, so whilst the days were warm, the nights weren't.

Cool again in late April and into the first few days of May but it rapidly became warm and sunny once more, reaching 28°C by the 7th. The second half of the month was dominated by NE'ly winds – but as Europe had warmed up by then, our weather remained warm. The last weekend of the month was notable for spectacular thunderstorms, with over 50,000 strikes recorded over England on the Saturday night and a storm that developed NW of London on the Sunday evening went on to cause flash flooding in parts of Birmingham.

The NE'ly type continued into June, until reverting to a W'ly on the 12th. An anticyclonic type is now developing. This month has been notable for its lack of rainfall and may well become the driest June on record.

Meteorology Section Report: 2014-15

By Philip Eden

The Met Office’s automatic weather station has functioned continuously throughout the year with no gaps in the record at all.

The overlap continues between the old automatic station and the Met Office one, so our own automatic station continues to function. The ideal time scale for the overlap is 5% of the station record for long-standing sites, and never less than two years for shorter-lived sites. So that means ideally five years for us – of which we have now completed five years and 3 months.

Due to a combination of caring responsibilities and, latterly, ill-health, it has not been possible to update the website since early-2012. The intention remains to extend the data online further and further back when health permits.

Let me now briefly summarise the weather we’ve experienced during the last year.

SUMMER 2014 was both warm and dry, but August after the 9th was cool and wet with rain on 12 days.

AUTUMN 2014 began with two weeks of dry weather, but from 18th September the rains returned.

WINTER 2014-15 saw the rains continuing throughout December and January, but the weather changed abruptly with February; February was drier than average. However, they were also rather cold months with wintry episodes from December 29-31, January 16-February 12, and February 19-21.

SPRING 2015 began with six days of rather cold weather which encompassed the Easter holiday, but then it warmed up with 25C on April 15, but then it became cooler again. April was dry and sunny throughout. (26C was reached on June 12).

Philip Eden 24 June 2015

Meteorology Section Report: 2012-13

By Philip Eden

The Met Office's automatic weather station has functioned continuously throughout the year with no gaps in the record at all.

The overlap continues between the old automatic station and the Met Office one, so our own automatic station continues to function. The ideal time scale for the overlap is 5% of the station record for long-standing sites, and never less than two years for shorter-lived sites. So that means ideally five years for us – of which we have now completed 3 years and 3 months – although if the old automatic station fails before that period is concluded I shan't ask for another overhaul.

Due to a combination of caring responsibilities and, latterly, ill-health, it has not been possible to update the website since early-2012. The intention remains to extend the data online further and further back when health permits.

Let me now briefly summarise the weather we've experienced during the last year.

SUMMER 2012 was both cold and wet although the weather relented somewhat after July 20, just in time for the Olympics. June was exceptionally wet with 151mm of rain setting a new record in our 103 year history, and July wasn't much better with 114mm though August was much drier with just 36mm. Overall, the summer quarter was also the wettest on record, and had the least sunshine since 1987.

AUTUMN 2012 began with three weeks of dry weather, but from 22nd September the rains returned. With a total of 353mm of rain it was the wettest autumn since 2002. Temperatures were rather below the normal, but it was marginally less cold than autumn 2008.

WINTER 2012-13 saw the rains continuing throughout December, but the weather changed abruptly with the year, and both January and February were drier than average. However, they were also rather cold months with lengthy wintry episodes from January 10x9626, February 9-13, and February 21-28.

SPRING 2013 began with six weeks of exceptionally cold weather. It was the coldest March since 1962, and there were further snowfalls around March 12, and from March 23 to the end of the month. The weather improved in mid-April giving us three weeks of tolerably warm weather, but from May 8 onwards conditions again became cool and cloudy.

Philip Eden 18 June 2013

Meteorology Section Report: 2011-12

By Philip Eden

The Met Office's automatic weather station (hereafter called the AWS) has functioned continuously throughout the year with no gaps in the record at all.

The overlap continues between the old AWS and the new AWS, so our own automatic station continues to function. The ideal time scale for the overlap is 5% of the station record for long-standing sites, and never less than two years for shorter-lived sites. So that means ideally five years for us – of which we have now completed 2 years and 3 months – although if the old AWS fails before that period is concluded I shan't ask for another overhaul.

Monthly reviews of Hampstead's weather have been posted on my website, and linked to from the Society's website, usually by the 5th of the following month, though this has slipped a little during recent month due to other pre-occupations. The summaries extend back to the mid-1950s. The intention remains to extend the data online further and further back as and when time permits.

Let me now briefly summarise the weather we've experienced during the last year.

SUMMER 2011 was not a good one with temperature and sunshine duration both below the long-term average, and rainfall well above it. There were short warm spells early and late in June and in early-August, but overall this was the coolest summer since 1993. Sunshine hours were the lowest since 2008, and rainfall the highest since 2007.

AUTUMN 2011 was exceptionally warm with a record-breaking heatwave during the closing days of September and the first few days of October. It was also drier and sunnier than average. Overall, this was the warmest autumn, by just 0.2°C, in the entire 102-year long Hampstead record.

WINTER 2011-12 was mostly mild and dry, though there was one very wintry spell which lasted two weeks during the first half of February. This spell brought our lowest February temperature since 1991 and a couple of notable snowfalls, one on the 4th, and the other on the 10th.

SPRING 2012 was a season of contrasts. March was exceptionally dry and sunny with an extended heatwave during the last ten days of the month. April was Hampstead's wettest on record, as well as being rather cold and cloudy. Indeed, the mean temperature for April was lower than that for March – a rare, though not unprecedented, event. The cold and dull weather continued for three weeks in May, then we enjoyed a further 10-day spell of warmth and sunshine from the 22nd onwards.

Philip Eden 19 June 2012

Meteorology Section Report: 2010-11

By Philip Eden

The Met Office's automatic weather station (hereafter called the AWS) has functioned continuously throughout the year, with the sole exception of the rain-gauge which was out of action for three weeks during the driest part of the spring; it took three weeks before anyone spotted there was a problem because there was simply no rain at all during that particular period. But it does emphasise the value of having a traditional manual rain-gauge on site as well as the automated version.

The overlap continues between the old AWS and the new AWS, so our own automatic station continues to function. The ideal time scale for the overlap is 5% of the station record for long-standing sites, and never less than two years for shorter-lived sites. So that means ideally five years for us, although if the old AWS fails before that period is concluded I shan't ask for another overhaul.

Monthly reviews of Hampstead's weather have been posted on my website, and linked to from the Society's website, usually by the 5th of the following month, and the summaries extend back to the mid-1950's. The intention remains to extend the data online further and further back as and when time permits.

Let me now briefly summarise the weather we've experienced during the last year.

SUMMER 2010 began well with a warm, dry, and very sunny June, and the dry and warm weather (though with less sunshine) continued for most of July. August, however, was a dead loss ... the coldest for 17 years and the wettest for six. Taken as a whole, though, the summer quarter was the warmest since the hot summer of 2006.

AUTUMN 2010 started well and finished badly (which is exactly what I wrote last year as well). Most of September was fine and dry with several warm days. There were five days of rain straddling the switchover from September to October, though it then turned a bit colder. November was a month of extremes ... an exceptionally warm start, and an exceptionally cold finish.

WINTER 2010-11 was a season of contrasts. We all remember December's frost and snow ... it was the coldest December in the entire Hampstead record, and probably the coldest in the London area in general since 1890. But the severe weather relaxed immediately after Christmas, January was an average month, and February was very mild. All three months, however, had a marked shortage of sunshine, and the winter quarter was, overall, the gloomiest at Hampstead since that of 1971-72 ... 39 years ago.

SPRING 2011 was exceptional ... the warmest in the entire Hampstead record (and indeed the warmest by some margin in the whole of the Central England Temperature record which extends back 353 years), the driest for 21 years, and the sunniest for 16 years The centrepiece, of course, was April which was, by a wide margin, the warmest on record. But, as I've said before, dry springs are often followed by wet summers.

Philip Eden 16 June 2011

Meteorology Section Report: 2009-10

By Philip Eden

"An Inspector Calls" was written by JB Priestley in 1945. But to me, the words strike fear into the heart, because when a Met Office inspector calls, I have to make sure that our weather station is clean and tidy, the greass manicured, the thermometer screen scrubbed and gleaming, and the rain-gauge absolutely and precisely level. A Met Office inspector visits once every three years, and he turned up last November. Not Priestley's Inspector Goole, but a chap called Steve Haynes, whom some of you will have met at our observatory centenary event in April. He gave us a clean bill of health, but equally important, he invited Hampstead into the Met Office's fully automated station network. This involved the installation of a fully independent eletronic weather station, powered by sonar panel, which transmits data to the Met Office at Exeter every hour, on the hour. The installation took place on a cold and muddy day in early March, and although there have been a few teething problems, the station has been functioning soundly for most of the time since.

It is, of course, important to have a lengthy overlap period between the old AWS and the new AWS, so our own automatic station continues to function. And it is also important to have traditional thermometers and a traditional rain-gauge in place in case the electronic station fails, so the old instruments will remain.

Monthly reviews of Hampstead's weather have been posted on my website, and linked to from the Society's website, by the 4th of the following month, and the summaries extend back to the mid-1950s. The intention remains to extend the data online further and further back as and when time permits.

The Society has continued to supply data to Haycock Associates, a firm of civil engineers, who have established a web-based system for collecting and displaying environmental data in respect of the Hampstead ponds for the City of London corporation, and payments received from them enabled us to afford the service and maintenance visit for our own automatic weather station last November.

Just before Christmas, our weather station completed 1000 xxx 100 years of recording, unbroken, save for one day during the Blitz in 1940. And that also means 100 years of association with the Met Office. During that period the MO has had eleven Directors General, but *we* have managed with just three Honorary Meteorologists – Eric Hawke from 1909 to 1965, Robert Tyssen-Gee from 1965 to 1983, and from 1983 onwards your humble correspondent. At the event in April Inspector Haynes and his boss, Chief Network Manager Tim Allott, presented us with a certificate and a uniquely designed paperwight in recognisition of our centenary.

Let me now briefly summarise the weather we've experienced during the last year.

SUMMER 2009 will long be remembered as the Met Office's "barbecue summer". Most of us will remember it as anything but, but in truth the bad weather was confined to a four-week period between 7th July and 3rd August, both June and August were warmer, drier and sunnier than average in London and the Southeast.

AUTUMN 2009 started well and finished badly. September was mostly fine with plentiful sunshine and above-average temperatures, although there was one day, the 15th, when London caught a torrential downpour which amounted to just over 50mm at Hampstead. October was fairly dry and mild too, though with less sunshine than usual. But November was unsettled and very wet throughout, notching up almost twice the normal amount of rain, making it the wettest November for seven years.

WINTER 2009-10 was the coldest for 31 years – since that of 1978-79 which some of you may remember as the "Winter of Discontent". December started where November left off – mild and rainy – but cold weather set in mid-month and we had several notable snowfalls between mid-December and mid-February. Snow lay in Hampstead on a total of 17 days, deepest on Jan 14th when it was 13cm deep.

SPRING 2010 brought a mixed bag. Early March was dry and cold, but the second half of the month was warm and changeable. April was very sunny with warm days and cold nights. 67mm of rain fell on May 1st-2nd, but the rest of May was dry, very cold at first, but warmer after mid-month.

Philip Eden 17 June 2010

Meteorology Section Report: 2008-09

By Philip Eden

Both the electronic and traditional instruments at the Society's weather station have continued to function satisfactorily during the last twelve months and there have been no faults or breakages during that period. As a result, the logging of data every five minutes has continued without a break, not just for the last year, but since December 2002. The monthly summaries previously required by the Meteorological Office have been superseded by a more flexible approach to the submission of data, and I know send the data online each day for most of the time, and in bulk at the end of any period when I have been away.

A request to replace the manual rain-gauge, which is in a state of moderate disrepair, was declined by the Met Office as their budget wouldn't allow for it. However, we are due one of our three-yearly inspections later this summer (funnily enough three years after the last one) and I shall make the plea again.

Monthly reviews of Hampstead's weather have been posted on my website, and linked to from the Society's website, by the 4th of the following month, and the summaries extend back to the mid-1950s. The intention remains to extend the data online further and further back when time permits.

The Society has continued to supply data to Haycock Associates, a firm of civil engineers, who have established a web-based system for collecting and displaying environmental data in respect of the Hampstead ponds for the City of London corporation, and we have now received annual payments sufficient to cover the costs of servicing the automatic weather station.

Let me now summarise the weather we've experienced during the last year.

SUMMER 2008 was second successive poor summer with an excess of rain, a shortage of sunshine; daytime temperatures were slightly below the long-term mean but nights were often rather warm, so that mean temperatures for the quarter were close to the average. In marked contrast to 2007 when the wettest weather occurred in June and July, those two months in 2008 were actually pretty average. It was August 2008 that took the biscuit. Rainfall was 60% above normal, while the month's sunshine aggregate was barely half the normal amount. The sun shone for a mere 97 hours, an average of little more than three hours per day, and during 2008 only January, November and December brought less sunshine. The real statistical contrast was with February which had delivered 135 hours of sunshine in spite of a considerably shorter length of daylight as well as two fewer days.

AUTUMN 2008 began where August left off, and the first twelve days of September brought more heavy rain and a continued marked shortage of sunshine. But from the 13th onwards the weather changed, and the remainder of September, and also the bulk of October were characterised by spells of warm sunshine. October, though, had a sting in its tail: on the evening of the 28th snow fell heavily for three hours, leaving 5cm on the ground. This was Hampstead's first October snowfall since 1974, and was arguably the most widespread and heaviest such fall in October in southern England since 1880.

WINTER 2008-09 was rather drier and sunnier than average with near-normal temperature. There were cold spells early and late in December, in early-January, and in early-February, which were balanced by lengthy mild periods in mid-December, mid to late-January and the second half of February. The most interesting feature of the winter was the heavy fall of snow on 2nd February when the maximum snow depth was 16cm. This was certainly our heaviest snowfall since 1991, when the snow depth at Hampstead Observatory reached 27cm.

SPRING 2009 was warmer, drier and sunnier than average. It was not uniformly so, however, and there were occasional interruptions of cool, blustery and showery weather. But the warmer periods were sufficiently dominant that the spring quarter ended up the fourth warmest in our 99-year history. It also ranked 10th driest, and 7th sunniest.

Philip Eden 24 June 2009

Meteorology Section Report: 2007-08

By Philip Eden

Data from the Society's automatic weather station has been logged every five minutes without any break during the last twelve months, and the requisite summaries have been sent on-line to the Meteorological Office each month. There have been no breakages, and the equipment continues to function satisfactorily. However, the manual rain-gauge is now showing signs of age and is beginning to deteriorate, and a new one will be sought from the Met. Office during the coming year.

Monthly reviews of Hampstead's weather have been posted on my website, and linked to from the Society's website, by the 4th of the following month, but I haven't had the opportunity to extend the on-line availability back in time beyond the mid-1950s (where it was last year) during the last twelve months.

The Society has assisted a company of civil engineers called Haycock Associates establish a web-based system for collecting and displaying environmental data in respect of the Hampstead ponds for the City of London corporation. In return for an on-going supply of weather data from our site, the City of London will be paying (through Haycock Associates) for the annual service of our automatic weather station.

Let me now summarise the weather we've experienced during the last year.

SUMMER 2007 will be remembered nationally for the widespread and repeated flooding episodes which engulfed especially Yorkshire, the north Midlands, and the floodplains of the rivers Severn and Avon, and also the upper and middle Thames catchments, during June and July. The only serious flooding in London occurred on July 19 and 20, but this was largely the result of surface flooding following a heavy downpour which lasted no more than four hours - the lack of maintenance of drains, culverts, and other drainage channels, together with the conversion of front-gardens into hardstanding for vehicles, is as important a contribution as the actual rainfall to this type of flooding. At Hampstead, June was the wettest only since 1999 and July only since 1988, while August was actually the driest for four years. Taking the season as a whole, it was the wettest summer since 1997, the coolest since 1993, and the least sunny since 1998.

AUTUMN 2007 was a very dry season, though it was neither particularly warm nor particularly sunny. Overall, it was the coolest autumn since 1998 and the driest since 1997. The sequence of dry months actually began in August and ended in December, and in fact that 5-month period, August to December, was the driest such since 1947.

WINTER 2007-08 brought alternating periods of mild rainy weather, and sunny frosty weather, but warmer periods were much warmer than the colder periods were cold, if you see what I mean. Overall, it was not quite as warm as winter 2006-07 but it did rank second-warmest in the last 10 years. The aggregate number of sunshine hours of almost 250 contrasts with the long-term average of 170, so almost 50% above normal, and it was the sunniest winter on our 98 years of records.

SPRING 2008 was often rather cold until the beginning of May, and there were some notable snowfalls over the Waster Weekend, and again during the first week of April, but May itself was the warmest since 1992. In fact, May was the first month warmer than its namesake the previous year for a whole year - every single month from May 2007 to April 2008 inclusive had been colder than its equivalent the previous year.

Philip Eden 19 June 2008

Meteorology Section Report: 2006-07

By Philip Eden

Data from the Society's automatic weather station has been logged every five minutes without any breaks during the last twelve months, and the requisite summaries have been sent to the Meteorological Office each month x96 and at last we have switched from ink-on-paper returns to electronic returns as from November last year.

In August 2006 the station was visited and examined by the Met Office's official inspector, Mr Stephen Haynes, and instrumental calibrations were checked, and damaged instruments replaced. This inspection is still officially called the "three-yearly inspection" although the last two were in 2001 and 1996.

Monthly reviews of Hampstead's weather have been posted on my website, and linked to from the Society's website, by the 4th of the following month, but I haven't had the opportunity to extend the on-line availability back in time beyond the mid-1950s (where it was last year) during the last twelve months.

Following an earlier contact which had appeared to have been fruitless, I was contacted a second time by Nick Haycock of Haycock Associates in January. They have designed a web-based system for collecting and displaying environmental data for the Hampstead ponds for the City of London corporation, with weather data from the Hampstead Scientific Society being an important element of the display. This system will go live some time in the next two or three weeks. In return for making the data available to this website, Haycock Associates will be paying for the annual service and maintenance of the automatic weather station.

Let me now summarise the weather we've experienced during the last year.

SUMMER 2006 was a very strange season. June was dry, warm and sunny; July was hotter than any other July x96 hotter than any other month of any name x96 in Hampstead's records, and as far as we are able to ascertain it was probably the hottest calendar month nationally in over three centuries of records. (It should be pointed out, though, that hotter 30-day periods straddling calendar months occurred in both 1995 and 1976). July was also the sunniest calendar month on record. Hot Julys are normally followed by warm or hot Augusts, but not so last year. The crash in temperature from July to August was the greatest ever recorded between those two months. August was also cloudier and wetter than average with frequent thunderstorms.

AUTUMN 2006 was the warmest on record, not just in Hampstead's 97-year history, but in the national record which extends back to 1659. September broke its record, October was the fourth warmest ever, and November was the warmest since 1994. Rain fell very frequently, and the seasonal total was almost 20 per cent above the long-term average. Nevertheless, sunshine duration was close to the long-term average thanks to a very sunny November.

WINTER 2006-07 was also exceptionally mild x96 the warmest in Hampstead for 32 years. Long periods of southwesterlies, with frequent and often heavy rain, and incessant wind, were punctuated by two or three brief cold snaps. The first of these occurred just before Christmas and brought four days of persistent fog, seriously disrupting holiday travel. The second brought sharp frosts and light snow flurries in late-January, and the third delivered the heaviest snowfall for ten years x96 8cm deep x96 on February 7th. The season was also enlivened for some by the Kensal Rise tornado on December 7th, and a severe and damaging gale on January 18th.

SPRING 2007 has been a season of contrasts. The first week of March was very wet, but from then until the second week of May hardly a drop of rain fell. April was the warmest on record, and one of the driest and sunniest ever, but May (at least from the 6th onwards) was dull and rather cool with frequent rain. In fact May completely sabotaged the normal seasonal progression, being colder, wetter, and appreciably less sunny than April.

Philip Eden

21 June 2007

Meteorology Section Report: 2005-06

By Philip Eden

It's been another year of quiet consolidation for the meteorology section - there have been no problems with the Automatic Weather Station which has continued to function satisfactorily. Data has been logged every five minutes without a break, and the usual monthly summaries have been despatched to the Meteorological Office. We have now completed 96 years of unbroken records.

Following last year's hard-drive failure and the loss of some data, the data logger and the web pages are now backed up regularly x96 at least once a week x96 and no further disasters have happened.

During the last year I have extended the archive pages back a few years, and annual summaries back to 1955 can be accessed, with 1954 soon to go up. There are very few weather station sites on the internet with more than ten years' data online, let alone the 50-plus years that we have. My intention is to complete the online archive back to 1910 in time for our weather station's centenary.

Let me now summarise the weather we've experienced during the last year.

SUMMER 2005 was another indifferent one, but x96 as we have come to expect for most seasons these days x96 it was a warm summer; that is, its mean temperature was above the mean for the standard reference period 1971-2000 by about a degree. There were, nevertheless, lengthy cool periods during early-June and late-July, but lengthy warm spells (I hesitate to call them heatwaves) characterised the second half of June, the middle of July, and both mid and late-August. It was slightly drier than average, while sunshine duration was close to the norm.

AUTUMN 2005, some people say, never happened. Summer seemed to go on for ever, and September and October together comprised the warmest such pair by a long way in the entire Hampstead record. The warm weather continued until mid-November, at which point winter arrived with sharp frosts, thick morning fogs, but also abundant sunshine. November was among the three sunniest on record at Hampstead, but nationally it was the sunniest of in 130 years of records.

WINTER 2005-06 was the subject of much speculation, the Met Office predicted with much trumpeting that it would be colder than average, and their press office foolishly warned us to be prepared for much snow and ice (that was not what their forecasters were predicting). In the event the mean temperature for the entire season was exactly equal to the 1971-2000 norm, although it was the coldest winter for nine years x96 a measure of the warmth of recent winters rather than anything else. It was also a very dry winter, fuelling the water industry panic over impending shortages.

SPRING 2006 was a season of contrasts. For three weeks March was very cold and dry, but the ending was warm and wet. It became dry again for much of April and the first half of May x96 the first half of May was actually the warmest such for 61 years x96 but that was all forgotten when the rains came mid-month and the second half was the wettest since 1979. In spite of the dry periods, the entire spring quarter was the wettest since the year 2000.

Meteorology Section Report: 2004-05

By Philip Eden

It's been a year of quiet consolidation for the meteorology section - there have been no problems with the Automatic Weather Station which has continued to function satisfactorily. Data has been logged every five minutes without a break, and the usual monthly summaries have been despatched to the Meteorological Office. We have now completed 95 years of unbroken records.

We can never get through a year, though, without one drama or disaster, and this year it happened within the Eden household last October when I had a catastrophic hard-drive failure on my computer and, as Sod's Law dictates, only part of my backup was up-to-date. Among those things which were lost forever were the original page drafts for the Hampstead metereorological web pages. Since then I have caught up with where I was at this point last year, plus the pages for each of the last twelve months, but I have not extended any further back into history the data online. Nevertheless, monthly summaries of Hampstead data is available online from 1961 to date. The remainder will come in dribs and drabs over future years.

I now perform incremental backups to my system at least one a week, and I usually advise everyone I meet to do the same.

Let me now summarise the weather we've experienced during the last year.

SUMMER 2004 was, well, the word I use is "indifferent". There were lengthy warm periods in early-June, late-July and early-August, but there were cool interludes too, and it was a very wet summer with a shortage of sunshine. It will be remembered nationally for the Boscastle disaster, and also for landslips in central Scotland, several other short-lived flooding episodes elsewhere, and some dramatic thunderstorms. At Hampstead it was the wettest summer since 1977, and the ninth-wettest in 95 years of records, but it was x96 and this always amazes everyone I tell x96 one of the warmest summers in that period; in fact there were only eight warmer. That, of course, is part of the upward trend in temperature which has been so apparent since the late-1980s.

AUTUMN 2004 was mixed - the three months were dry, wet, dry, and warm, cool warm. Arguably the best weather of the year came in the first 10 days of September which were warm and sunny, with low humidity levels, and therefore much more comfortable than the humid heat which had characterised July and August.

WINTER 2004-05 was dry, and although some people might think it was cold, it was actually only the second half of February that saw consistently below-average temperature. January had, in fact, been warmer than any other January for 15 years. But after mid-February northerly and easterly winds set in and delivered the longest period of wintry weather that we've seen for almost a decade.

SPRING 2005 continued the dry weather. There has now been a shortfall of rainfall for eight successive months, and that is why the water companies have begun to make noises about potential water shortages later in the summer. May brought several night frosts, something we have not seen since 1996, but it also brought the highest May temperature, on the last Friday of the month, since 1947.

The automatic weather-recording station continues to function satisfactorily, and no calibration drift has been identified during the last 12 months or so - no re-calibration or other servicing was required. Occasional manual readings (averaging once every two weeks) were taken to confirm the readings from the AWS. There were no interruptions to the operation of the station at all during the year.

In November 2003 I contacted the Met Office to determine whether they had any interest in accessing data from the station on a daily basis, in addition to receiving the regular monthly reports which they have had for the last 95 years. To my surprise they said yes, and two of their technical staff visited the site earlier this year to discover whether any changes needed to be made to the instrumentation, modem, or comms software. Little progress has been make since then, but the project is still "on". We get two things out of the proposed relationship: our phone bills paid, and all routine maintenance and servicing carried out free.

The HSS website now has a link to the Hampstead section in my own weather information site. So far I have added daily and monthly pages covering the last eighteen months, and yearly summaries going back to 1961. This represents substantial progress on this time last year, and no doubt future additions will appear in fits and starts.

Now a quick look at the weather of the last twelve months:

SUMMER 2003 - the centrepiece was the early-August heatwave when the temperature climbed above 28xbaC daily for almost a fortnight, reaching 35xbaC on August 6, and 36.8xbaC on August 10 - a new record for Hampstead. The summer as a whole was the warmest since 1976, but notwithstanding the August drought, it was neither very dry nor very sunny.

AUTUMN 2003 brought many contrasts. September was very dry and sunny, and it was unusually warm by day, though rather cold at night. The drought continued until the last few days of October, although October itself was the coldest for ten years. November was an unsettled, mild, and often windy month, and the second half was exceptionally wet with almost 60mm of rain falling during 48 hours over the penultimate weekend. (That's a month's worth in two days.)

WINTER 2003-2004 was slightly colder than most recent winters, and there were brief cold episodes in all three months, bringing appreciable snow in late-January, and again at the very end of February. There was also an exceptionally mild week at the beginning of February when the temperature reached 16xbaC.

SPRING 2004 was mixed - a cool but dry March followed by a warm and wet April - then May after a dismal first week turned out to be dry, warm and sunny.

The automatic weather-recording station continues to function satisfactorily, and no calibration drift has been identified during the last 12 months. Regular manual readings (averaging once per week) were taken to confirm the readings from the AWS. There were no interruptions to the operation of the station at all during the year.

Towards the end of 2002 we installed a phone line and in December 2002 a modem was acquired to enable the remote interrogation of the system. The software was changed just before midnight on December 31 so that the logger now logs every five minutes instead of hourly. As a consequence, it is now possible to construct graphs of temperature, humidity, rainfall, barometric pressure and radiation which appear to show continuous monitoring of each element.

From April 2003 work has been proceeding - in desultory fashion depending on time available - to develop some web-pages with data from the last few months, and these pages should be linked from the HSS website in the near future. The long-term intention is to put summaries of Hampstead's weather data all the way back to the beginning (i.e. 1909). The ambition is to try to do this by 2009 - to mark the weather station's own centenary.

Now a quick look at the weather of the last twelve months:

SUMMER 2002 was rather warm, but also wet, and with a marked shortage of sunshine. The meam maximum temperature of 21.2xbaC was 0.3 degC above the mean for the standard reference period 1971-2000. Rainfall during the June, July and August totalled 267.5mm which is 68 per cent above normal, and a remarkable storm hit Hampstead on the early evening of 7th August, dropping 70mm in an hour. Sunshine totalled 481 hours, some 12 per cent below normal.

AUTUMN 2002 was a season of contrasts. An exquisite September was followed by an execrable late-autumn; the rains finally set in on October 13. The mean maximum temperature for the three autumn months was 15.0xbaC, exactly 1 degC above the long-term mean. Rainfall was 291mm, 63 per cent above, while the aggregate sunshine of 292 hours was just one per cent above.

WINTER 2002-2003 began with a gloomy and often very wet December, but both January and February were sunny. A snowstorm on the afternoon of 30th January led to gridlock on roads throughout London and the Home Counties. The mean maximum temperature for the season of 7.4°C was 1.2 degC above normal, the total rainfall of 251 mm was 41 per cent above, and the sunshine total of 232 hours was 49 per cent above.

SPRING 2002 was exceptionally dry, sunny and warm. The temperature reached 25.1xbaC on 16th April, the highest for that month since 1949. Taking the quarter as a whole the mean maximum temperature of 15.0°C was 2.3 degC above normal, the rainfall of 88mm was 43 per cent below, and the sunshine total of 529 hours was 20 per cent above.

The automatic weather-recording station continues to function satisfactorily, and no calibration drift has been identified during the last 12 months. We did, however, experience a serious interruption in data acquisition between early-October and late-November after the power supply was inadvertently switched off one Sunday morning. As the power was subsequently switched on without me being made aware of the interruption, and because other installations were being made on our site at approximately the same time, it took several weeks before the problem was correctly identified and the system rebooted. During the lacuna, manual observations were taken on most days.

Those "other installations" comprised two rain gauges established by the Environment Agency. In recognition of our co-operation they provided a one-off payment of xa3500, and installed a telephone line to enable our weather station to be interrogated from a remote location. The cost of installation was borne by the Environment Agency but subsquent rental charges will be our responsibility. A suitable modem has since been acquired, and we are now waiting for Campbell's customer service department to send someone to make the connections (simple) and to make changes to the software (not simple). Those software changes will allow us to archive more detailed observations every five minutes rather than hourly.

Now a quick look at the weather of the last twelve months:

SUMMER 2001 was, overall, fairly average. The mean maximum temperature of 21.8°C was 0.9 degC above the mean for the standard reference period 1971-2000. Rainfall during June, July and August totalled 167mm, just 5 per cent above normal, while sunshine totalled 556 hours, a mere 2 per cent above.

AUTUMN 2001 brought us our warmest October in 92 years of records, but both September and November were rather cold. Taking the three months together, the mean maximum temperature of 14.8°C was 0.8 degC above the long-term average, the aggregate rainfall of 264mm was 26 per cent above, and the total sunshine of 280 hours was 5 per cent below.

WINTER 2001-2002 began with a dry, cool and very sunny December, but both January and February were mild and wet. The mean maximum temperature for the season of 8.2°C was 2.0 degC above normal, the total rainfall of 198 mm was 11 per cent above, and the sunshine total of 222 hours was 42 per cent above.

SPRING 2002 was often mild and sunny, but the second half of May was unsettled and wet. Taking the quarter as a whole (if you see what I mean) the mean maximum temperature of 14.3°C was 1.6 degC above normal, the rainfall of 178mm was 16 per cent above, and the sunshine total of 459 hours was 4 per cent above.

After the excitement of last year when we finally saw the installation of our new automatic weather station, this year has seen the smooth operation of the new equipment which is now providing us with hourly observations of temperature, humidity, rainfall total and intensity, solar radiation, sunshine hours, and ground temperature. Instead of 365 or 366 observations to tabulate manually, we now have 8760 observations every year (with 8784 in a leap year).

We have now completed one year with duplicate observations from the old equipment, and comparisons have shown no significant differences between the two sets of readings once the fundamental offset was identified. From now I will continue to make 4 or 5 such observations per month, enabling me to keep tabs on the calibration of the automatic equipment and to identify any calibration drift before it becomes serious.

We have had some contact from the Environment Agency who have expressed some interest in installing a gauge of their own at our site, in compensation for which they have indicated that they would install, at their expense, a telephone line. This would enable me to download data to my own computer without having to move from my office.

Now a quick look at the weather of the last twelve months:

SUMMER 2000 was not as b ad as the media made out. All three summer months were drier than average, and there were several hot days in the third week of June, the third week of July, and at intervals throughout August. Sunshine, however, was in short supply during the first half of the summer, although from mid-July onwards we had rather more sunshine than usual.

AUTUMN 2000 was an extraordinary season. The first half of September was largely dry, but the rains set on on September 13, and from then until early December the longest dry spell lasted three days. It was, in fact, the wettest autumn at Hampstead since our records began in 1909, with a rainfall total for the season more than twice the long-term average.

WINTER 2000-2001 was the coldest for four years and there were several light snowfalls, notably just after Christmas when 5cm of snow covered the ground for 4 days. It was wetter than average, although the season's rainfall was nowhere near a record. However, the six-month total from September to February inclusive was higher than any equivalent period in our records.

SPRING 2001 was the coolest for five years. March was particularly cold and wet, and April continued the wet theme although rainfall was less than in April last year. May brought a welcome change, being drier, sunnier and warmer than average.

This has been a landmark year in so many ways for the Society ... and for the meteorology section in particuar, because we have achieved our objective of setting up our automated weather recording station during our centenary year. Last year I said I was confident of achieving this ... what you didn't see was that I had my fingers firmly crossed behind my back as I said it. In the end I was mildly disappointed that we weren't quite able to have the station up and running at the beginning of the year 2000, but a change of personnel at Campbell Scientific who supplied the instrumentation delayed things several weeks, and they finally turned up on January 26. Sicere thanks to everyone who contributed to the fund which enabled us to get there in the end. I am still learning how to use the software which allows the data to be examined and analysed and summarised, and otherwise manipulated, but I have brought my laptop to show some of the information we are getting to anyone who's interested. Before too long, I hope, a summary of the data will go on the web site.

Meantime, the human observations have continued, and will do so for at least two years so that we have a good overlap period in order to ensure that our long unbroken record - 90 years now - remains homogeneous. Throughout the year I have again had the reliable assistance of Geoff Shelley who has carried out more than one-third of the observations during that period, and the AGM allows me to thank him formally for his efforts. And I want to thank both Geoff and Peter Wallis for foregoing a Sunday morning to help clean the screen adn cut the grass before the AWS installation.

No breakages or thefts this year, although the clock in the old recording rain-gauge seems to have succumbed to old age; that happened at the beginning of May this year. The Met Office have not yet provided a replacement, nor are they able to tell me when they might replace it, but they assure me they will eventually do so. March 22 saw our three-yearly Met Office inspection which we passed with flying colours. They've presented us with a certificate congratulating us on 90 years co-operation (that's what they call giving them daily climate data for next to nothing) with the Office.

Now a quick look at the weather of the last twelve months:

SUMMER 1999 was mixed; an average June was followed by a very warm and very dry July, the temperature climbed to 31 degrees on August 2nd before thunderstorms broke the heatwave, and 10 days of extremely unsettled weather followed, sadly spoiling the eclipse for most of us. Hot weather returned at the end of August.

AUTUMN 1999 was also very mixed. September was a month of two halves - the first half exceptionally hot and sunny, the temperature almost reaching 28 degrees on the 11th, the highest so late in the month for over 50 years, the second half was exceptionally wet and dull. October was very sunny with a two-week dry spell mid-month, while November was dry, quite sunny and rather mild.

WINTER 1999-2000 was also exceptionally sunny, and it was also generally mild and dry. There was a little snow around December 19-21, but nothing else, and frosts although quite frequent were generally slight.

SPRING 2000 returned to the mixed theme. March was very dry, with just 22mm of rain - less than half of the long-term mean, while April was unusually wet with 123mm - almost three times the long-term mean, and the wettest in our 90-year long history, beating the record which was set only two years ago. May had a bite at both cherries, very dry and warm until mid-month with 26 degrees recorded on the 15th, followed by a very wet and cool second half. 16mm of rain fell during the first half and 92mm in the second half.

The Meteorological Secretary was pleased to be able to report another satisfactory year as far as our meteorological section is concerned, - not just in the continuation of our daily observations of temperature, rainfall and so on, but also because we have made considerable progress towards establishing our automatic weather recording station. Our aim has always been to complete this before the end of our centenary year, and he was confident we shall do this.

Throughout the year he has again had the reliable assistance of Geoff Shelley who has carried out more than one-third of the observations during that period. We have now completed 89 years of daily weather recordings at the Observatory, with the prospect of completing 90 years come the middle of December.

We have not quite been able to maintain our clean sheet on breakages and thefts this year; at the time of the observatory break-in in March, some minor damage was done but this was secured within a few days, and then in May a thermometer vanished, presumably stolen.

Our ambition of installing an automatic weather-station at the observatory during our centenary year is still on course, thanks especially to donations to the meteorological equipment fund. This new equipment will allow us to monitor temperature, humidity, rainfall, ground temperature continuously, we may also be able to install sensors for barometric pressure and solar radiation this year. My aim is to install and commission the weather station by the end of September.

Now a quick look at the weather of the last twelve months:

SUMMER 1998 was not as bad as the media made out. June was certainly poor, July was average, and August was actually quite good with a week-long heatwave - we had seven consecutive days of 25 degrees C or more between August 5 and 11, and two days of 29 degrees C, and there was only one day with rain between August 3 and 21.

AUTUMN 1998 was very wet, the only wetter autumns in the last 25 years being those of 1987, 1992, 1993. October was particularly wet, although not as wet as October 1987. Mean monthly temperature was above the long-term average in September, about average in October, and significantly below the average in November.

WINTER 1998-99 was very mild, although not as warm as the winter of 97-98. Only tow of the last 12 winters have had a mean temperature below the average for the standard reference period of 1961-90. Frost occurred rarely, and the temperature climbed to 15 degrees C on January 6, equalling our January record. December and January were both rather wet, but February was a dry month.

SPRING 1999 continued the warm theme, the only spell of colder than average weather lasting about a week in the middle of April when there were a couple of days with heavy snow showers. May ended with a spell of hot thundery weather; the temperature reached 25 degrees C on Saturday May 29, but the heat was followed by a ferocious thunderstorm which deposited 10.5mm of rain in half an hour.

The Meteorological Secretary was pleased to report another satisfactory year, as far as our meteorological section is concerned, with one proviso, that the Met Office are intending to withdraw our grant. He thanked the member who had made over 35% of the observations during the year. We have now completed 88 years of daily weather recordings at the Observatory, and although the station at St James's Park (of those still running in the London area) has a longer record, having begun in 1896, it also has substantial breaks in that record during the 1970s and 1980s. We can therefore with some justification claim to have the longest unbroken record of weather observations in London.

Our ambition of installing an automatic weather-station at the observatory during our centenary year is on course, thanks to donations as well as the regular grant received from the Met Office. This new equipment will allow us to monitor temperature, humidity, rainfall, ground temperature continuously, with the option at a future date of installing sensors for barometric pressure and solar radiation. The data will be downloaded via a laptop computer and stored on disc. The ability also to monitor a variety of atmospheric pollutants is also very important; at the moment the conventional technology for this is extremely expensive and also extremely bulky, but the expectation is that smaller and cheaper pollution monitoring sensors will become available in the next few years. The Secretary had every confidence that we would be in a position to install and commission the station by the end of 1999.

The Secretary then reported on the weather of the last twelve months.

SUMMER 1997 was very mixed. June was exceptionally wet, and also cool and dull ... at Hampstead the month's rainfall total of 106mm was almost double the long-term mean, and of that 106mm, 89mm fell during the last 12 days. July was a warm changeable month with the temperature exceeding 24 degrees on 11 days. August was outstandingly hot and humid - second only as far as mean temperature is concerned to 1995 in our records. The temperature reached at least 24 degrees on 20 days, with 28 degrees or more on 10 days.

AUTUMN 1997 was a warm season. September was exceptionally dry with only 10mm of rain, about 15% of the long-term average. The main features of October were a very wet second week and a very warm third week when the temperature reached 22 degrees on the 18^th and 19^th. A notable maximum of 15 degrees was recorded on November 16^th.

WINTER 1997-98 was mild and changeable. Rain fell frequently though not excessively until mid-January but the second half of the winter was dry and February brought a mere 8mm of rain. Very high temperatures were noted in each month ... 14 degrees on December 10^th and 11^th, and again on January 9^th, and a remarkable 18.3 degrees on February 13^th - a new February record at Hampstead.

SPRING 1998 was wet but rather warm. April was particularly wet with 109mm of rain, over twice the normal amount, and snow fell during a brief cold spell which coincided with the Easter holiday. The main feature of May was a fortnight of warm dry weather mid-month with 24.4 degrees recorded on 15^th.