Frosted Earth

Forecast for the Southeast. 

Thursday 19th October 2017.

 Thursday should be a little brighter especially late morning  but I cannot guarantee a dry day for there will be some bursts of showery rain in places.It will though be quite mild with the tempeature reaching 17C for many. The wind though will gradually pick up from the south to south west during the day. 

Thursday evening and night will have variable cloud and still perhaps a shower or two gradually moving away. Friday will be quite breezy with a scattering of showers but not too many. It is overnight and into Saturday that an early warning now of making sure any delicate items in the garden are well protected and outdoor occupations revised for Saturday. It is going to be very windy with gusts exceeding 50 mph.

Weather eye issue 38 is now sent out and I hope subscribers are now enjoying it. It is a 30th anniversary edition with much about the 1987 storm and also about the Jan '87 snows plus 70 years ago the severe 1947 winter.

For weekly forecast see page 3 Forecast Section.

 Ian's eye on the Weather. A daily chat. 16th October 2017

 Much of the SE saw some lurid skies PM. Not before it turned out very warm at 21C, about 7C above par for the time of year in quite a few places. Hurricane Ophelia as it moved north to the west of Portugal had picked up dust from the Sahara Desert and smoke from fires over Iberia. As cooler air sped in from the west in our latitudes within Ophelia's circulation the warm air ahead of it was lifted up into a layer at an altitude of about 2000-3000 metres. It was a sandwich of cool air sweeping the warm upwards with cooler air above itr. This effectively trapped in the dust and smoke. It filtered out blue light and gave a reddish look to the sun and a darkening of a frontal cloud bank. Some people thought it looked apocolyptic!  

Across in Ireland and on the west coast of Wales winds reached over 90 mph and here it was the wind that made the news.

A good idea for a present this New Year is a pack of Weather eye magazines. Special New Year offering of a pack of issues worth £22 for just £5 and £3 post and packing. A great gift and a good  read. Includes the latest issue. Issue 38 is complete and is now out. 

Listen out for me on the 29th October, BBC Radio Surrey and Sussex, just after 0945 hrs on the 'Dig It' show giving a look back on October's weather and a forecast for November. 

 Have you tried Weather eye magazine. Give it a go. I will send you the latest issue post free and at a reduced price of £2.50- that's got to be a bargain.

 Altocumulus perlucidus taken by Ian Currie from Coulsdon around 19.30 hrs on the 25th August 2017. 

See Also  'On This Day'  in the Publications section.

The Coming Week from Saturday 16th October 2017.

We should miss Ophelia in the Southeast on Monday with some very warm weather but on Tuesday a little rain could occur later in the day. Again Wednesday will be mainly dry until later in the day when further rain may move northwards across the region. The temperature will be still well up for the time of year.

It is later in the week when I expect it to become much more unsettled with some stormy conditions on Friday and the Weekend. Expect some outbreaks of heavy rain and winds to gale force. Keep tuned into the web site for updates.

Weather Centre

The Chipstead Valley weather station lies within a dry, chalkland valley on the dip slope of the North Downs. The valley is around 60 metres deep.

Read about the Chipstead Valley Station

On This Day- October 16th 1987

In the space of a few hours before dawn some 15 million trees were blown down in the great gale. At Shoreham in Sussex the wind reached 116mph and averaged 85 mph for a short time. 19 people died and the cost was at least £2 thousand million pounds. 

 3 million households were without electricity and 400,000  without power for at least 3 days. 150,000 telephones out of order for a week. 90% of Kent’s roads were blocked and most of train network halted. Sevenoaks in Kent became `one oak.’ Kew Gardens lost 500 trees.

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