home

weather-uk press pack

Ready-prepared articles on how the weather works

• 991023 Where does the rain go? London’s average annual rainfall is about 25 inches (630mm). That represents 2500 tons of water per acre, of 1.6 million tons per square mile
• 991030 Where does the wind come from? The recent ferocious gale in the English Channel reminded us just how violent our weather can be, and just how suddenly gales
• 000226 Why are cities warmer than the countryside? When I first came across the expression “London’s urban fabric” in my youthful meteorological reading, I was instantly
• 010526 High clouds and haloes Settled summer evenings provide us with some of our more colourful skies as this week's spell of quiet weather has demonstrated. When
• 010928 How thunder works Most of us learn what thunder is at a very early age: it is the noise caused by clouds colliding, or it is simply God moving his furniture around,
• 011012 Sea temperatures affect rainfall The weather we experience at any one moment is the result of a complex interaction of season, time of day, geography, and the
• 020118 How do we know about past climates The question that immediately springs to mind when the boffins talk about severe winters in the Middle Ages, let alone wet
• 020406 How do April showers happen? April is associated with showers in our part of the world, not because they occur more often in this particular month compared with any
• 980125 How the north wind brings snow The north wind did blow, and we certainly had snow - at least those of us living in Scotland and in northern and eastern England did.
• 000116 How do “blocking highs” affect our weather? In some years westerly winds appear to blow incessantly for weeks on end, then all of a sudden a convulsion of
• 020707 How does the monsoon work? "Monsoon" is one of those words which is in the process of changing its meaning. Widely used nowadays as a synonym for "heavy
• 021215 How does rain turn to snow? How can rain turn to snow when the temperature is substantially above freezing? Crucial is the intensity of the precipitation. According to
• 030216 How do anticyclones work? High pressure systems – 'anticyclones' in meteorologists' jargon – are supposed to bring fine and settled weather while low
• 949901 Where do clouds come from? People have studied the skies from time immemorial, sometimes in sheer wonder at the beauty or drama of cloudscapes,
• 949902 What makes it rain? The water droplets in a cloud are so tiny that they stay suspended in the air, largely unaffected by gravity. In fact, that is not quite true, but they
• 949903 Where does thunder come from? Thunder, some of us were told at our mother’s knee, is God moving his furniture around. Meteorologists wish it was that simple
• 949904 What makes the English climate so English? Rain falls on London and Leeds just as it falls on Lisbon, Lagos, or Little Rock. The sun shines out of the same sky
• 949905 Why does the atmosphere getting thinner higher up? The air pressure always decreases with height above the ground. Air is formed of billions and billions of
• 949906 What is the Jet Stream? The Jet Stream is one of the most fundamental features of the upper atmosphere, and understanding how it works was the most
• 949907 Explain the Earth’s energy balance Our planet has a heat budget – energy coming in from the Sun; energy radiating away from the Earth’s surface – which is in
• 949908 How fast to raindrops fall? Have you ever stood outside just as a thunderstorm was breaking, and been hit in the face by one of those half-crown sized raindrops?
• 949909 What is the hole in the ozone layer? Ozone is a confusing gas. In the lower atmosphere it is a menace, a toxic pollutant that can serious affect your health. In the