Winter 2013/2014

After what has been officially the wettest winter on record in the UK it is time to look at just how wet it has been for Gosport.

December is the meteorological start of winter in the UK. The first 12 days of the month saw little rain with the maximum daily amount for the period being 0.8mm recorded on both the 4^th and 5^th. However, from the 13th the situation changed with much wetter weather occurring for the remainder of the month. The total amount of rain recorded for the whole of December was 151.0mm (5.94in) with 148.6mm (5.85in) recorded after day 12. The maximum wind speed for the month was 49.5mph which was recorded on the 24^th.

January continued the trend of wet weather with total rainfall amounts of 167.8mm (6.60in). Rain was recorded on 29 days in January. The strongest wind of 42.5mph was recorded on 3^rd January.

February started where January left off with rain being recorded on 24 of the 28 days. The monthly total of rain for February is 147.8mm (5.81in). To compare this to previous monthly totals for February, 2013 saw a total of 34.6mm (1.36in) with 13 days of rain and 2012 a total of 10.8mm (0.43in) with 10 days of rain recorded. The maximum wind speed for February 2014 was 47.1mph which was recorded on the 14^th during the Valentine’s Day storm.

This gives us an overall rainfall total of 466.6mm (18.37in) for the 2013/2014 winter period. Rain has been recorded on 77 days out of a possible 90 days up to and including 28^th of February. This means that it has rained for 86% of the 2013/2014 winter period. The 2012/2013 winter period total was 198.2mm (7.80in). So all this considered we have seen 268.4mm more rain this winter than last winter. This is an increase of 235%.

Why did this happen?

Climatologists and scientists are trying to determine whether climate change is responsible for the increased frequency of bad weather events, whatever they may be not just here in the UK but worldwide too. What we have witnessed over the last two or three months is extreme weather and should not be confused with climate.

So whilst Gosport Weather has recorded some extreme weather over the last three months I cannot say whether this has been caused by climate change and refuse to be drawn into that debate as our main focus is weather and not climate.

The snow in the north of the USA and Canada and the low temperatures have contrasted with warm air moving up from the south of the USA and where they met it created the catalyst for the fast moving west to east ribbon of air six miles or so up from the surface to strengthen markedly to speeds of 300mph or more. This ribbon of air is called the jet stream, as it crosses the Atlantic Ocean to the UK from the US it is the birth place for the big storms that we have endured and because it has been much faster and more powerful than usual this winter so have the storms, Hence why the amounts of rain and wind have been so exceptional. What is also remarkable is the persistence of the pattern for so long which has exaggerated the flooding problems in the UK that we have seen on the news of late and the sustained cold, ice and snow across Canada and the NE states.

What does the future hold?

Here in Gosport we can expect sunny spells on Saturday but cloud building in the afternoon in to Saturday night and Sunday morning with a band of rain crossing over the area on Sunday night in to Monday morning followed by further outbreaks of rain during the day. Please visit our 7 day forecast page for a longer term forecast.

What is happening with the Gosport Weather website?

Due to the extreme weather progress in upgrading and reinstating some services has been delayed. The work has had to be delayed due to necessity of keeping our website online to enable visitors to get the latest information. We are hoping to be able to complete work on our homepage by the middle of this month. This work will tie in with the re-launch of the ongoing soil station project which is currently in final testing before being prepped for planting outside.

We are also working hard to upgrade our charts page with images produced from the weather models from both the UK Met Office and the US NWS. This project does not have a launch date as there is a lot of code to write and then quality control testing to ensure each image is in sequence and is displayed when the appropriate button is selected.

The Environment Agency flood information will be removed once the last flood alert has been cancelled. The flood line number along with other local information will be placed on a new page.

To end this post, whilst the recent weather has been very interesting and has produced some unsurprising statistics it is important to remember that Gosport has been lucky not to see widespread flooding despite the rainfall amounts. However others in our county and country have not been so lucky. Our thoughts are with those who have been flooded or those who have lost loved ones due to the destructive weather.