Interesting Facts

According to a study carried out at the University of Glasgow, people in Scotland use more than 400 words and expressions to describe different aspects of snow. (421 terms have been logged including: snaw (snow), sneesl (to begin to rain or snow), skelf (a large snowflake, feefle - to swirl, flindrikin - a light snow shower, snaw-pouther - fine driving snow, spitters - small drops or flakes of wind-driven rain or snow, and unbrak - the beginning of a thaw. Dr Susan Rennie, lecturer in English and Scots language at the university, said: “Weather has been a vital part of people's lives in Scotland for centuries. The number and variety of words in the language show how important it was for our ancestors to communicate about the weather, which could so easily affect their livelihoods.” My spellchecker just melted.)

The poor old UK is suffering, Britain is officially colder than Siberia as temperatures plummet to a bone-chilling -12°. (It's actually too cold to grit the roads!) 

A heat wave is a prolonged period of excessively hot weather.  In England and Wales, heatwave conditions are reached when the maximum daytime temperature and minimum night-time temperature rise above the threshold for a particular region. (The length of time spent above the threshold determines the level. Level 1: Normal summer conditions. Level 2: 60% or higher risk that the temperature will be above the threshold levels for two days and the intervening night. Level 3: Temperature above the threshold for the preceding day and night, with a 90% or higher chance that it will stay above the threshold in the following day. Level 4: Anything above the other three levels. Each of the first three levels is associated with a particular state of readiness and response by the social and health services, and Level 4 is associated with more widespread response. The UK is currently set at Level 3.) http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/heat-health/

A health warning has been issued in the UK. (Why? We're having a heatwave! Health officials are warning people to take care after 4 people died in separate incidents. Only in the UK.)

For the first 8 years of Charles Dickens' life, it snowed. (Every year between 1812 and 1820 in fact.  This probably explains why we are so fixated on a White Christmas in the UK.)

According to a study commissioned by chocolate biscuit brand Rocky, in 2011, one in seven youngsters in the UK spent just 26 hours playing outdoors over the whole year. (More than half of kids only saw their parents at weekends and 44% of parents admitted using computer games to keep the kids quiet, because they were too tired to organise activities. That combines with the fact that the weather was lousy and the economy a disaster 2011 has been labelled as the worst year to be a child.) Source

Rainfall soothes the atmosphere, and calms storms. (According to atmospheric scientists at  the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado,  a substantial portion of the energy that drives wind and air circulation in the atmosphere is dissipated as friction by raindrops falling through the air.   I can't say I fully understand the math and science behind this, but it will make me moan less when it's raining.)

A super typhoon is, by definition, the equivalent of a major hurricane of category 4 or 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.* (In other words, a super typhoon is simply a very strong typhoon.  In order to be designated "super" it has to reach maximum sustained 1-minute surface winds of at least 65 m/s (130 kt, 150 mph).  Super Typhoon Megi, which is heading towards the Phillipines, has reached winds of 195 kilometres an hour near the centre and gusts of up to 230 kilometres an hour, making it a super typhoon.) *Source - http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/A3.html

According to the federal National Climatic Data Center in America, the world is enduring the hottest year on record. (For the first six months of the year, 2010 has been warmer than the first half of 1998, the previous record holder, by 0.03° F. Northern Thailand has its worst drought in 20 years, while Israel is in the middle of the longest and most severe drought since the 1920s. In Britain, this year has been the driest since 1929. However, it remains to be seen whether 2010 will overtake 2005 as the hottest year overall.)

Nineteen percent of Brits over 65 questioned in a survey by ICM believe they can predict the weather as well as a professional weatherman. (It's the aching bones that do it.)

According to a survey by ICM, Britons spend six months of their lives discussing the weather. (Britons talk about the weather for about 49 hours every year and the subject comes up more often than work, TV, sport or gossip. Now my visitors might understand why I run the " Let's Talk about the Weather " thread on the forum.)

The coldest recorded temperature in the UK is -27.2° C. It was recorded three times in Scotland, twice in Braemar, 11 February 1895 and 10 January 1982 and once in Altnaharra on 30 December 1995. (The coldest recorded temperature in England so far, was -26.1° C, 10 January 1982 in Shawbury Shropshire. Brrrr!)

The Met Office in the UK has issued its first heatwave alert. (It's the first time they have released a heat warning since the system was introduced a couple of years ago. Basically, it's to let frightened Brits know what that bright thing in the sky is.)

According to Robert Penn, co-author of The Wrong Kind of Snow. In 1673 Dover and Calais were joined by ice. (Between 1350 and 1850 in the UK, there was a Little Ice Age. Freezing winters were a fact of life and the freezing of the River Thames in London in 1684 led to that year's Great Frost Fair, which was held on the River itself. But there's no way the health and safety fun police would allow it now.)

According to a report in the journal Nature Geoscience the number of foggy and misty days in Europe is falling. (Scientists say that these changes may have increased the temperatures across Europe, just not this winter.)

Thunderclouds are so dark because they are four to five miles thick. (It's amazing that they can still float!)

The word monsoon is often used to describe heavy rain, but it actually refers to the wind, specifically the seasonal reversal of wind direction. (In fact, according to Jim Dale, senior meteorologist at British Weather Services, monsoons only affect one part of the world and that is the Indian subcontinent. So, us Brits will have to restrict ourselves to the "It's raining cats and dogs" idiom.)

Networks of sensors are embedded in road surfaces to beam back information to councils on ice, rain, wind and temperatures. (Why don't they just look out of the window?)

Although the US National Weather Service did not start using names until 1953, for hundreds of years hurricanes in the West Indies were named after the saint's day on which they occurred. (I have written an article on this, I'll publish it in the October English Magazine.)

Britain has an average of 33 tornadoes every year in an area 38 times smaller than the USA, so you're twice as likely to witness a tornado in the UK as in the USA. (My nephew's bedroom usually looks as if a tornado has hit it!)