After a lovely Christmas, there has been a lot of talk in the media about ‘dry January’. Although usually not a term used during winter months in the UK, we are going to take a brief look at the driest places across the world.
2018 is set to be the second sunniest year on record in the UK. A recent report by the Met Office, has recorded 1575 hours of sunshine in 2018 on the 27th of December. Although unlikely to beat 2003’s record of 1587 hours, this will be another notable outcome of an already record-breaking year.
How does climate change affect weather?
The WMO has announced that there is a high probability of an El Niño event in early 2019. Although the event has not been forecasted to be as strong as the 2016 event, El Niño is known to have a major impact on temperatures and rainfall across the globe.
The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a large-scale climatic phenomenon that originates in the tropical Pacific but affects global climate patterns. The warm phase is known as El Niño and the cold phase is La Niña. El Niño occurs irregularly every two to seven years and peaks around in winter.
During the last week of February and into the last week of March, the ‘Beast from the East’ reared its ugly head and brought severe winter weather to much of the UK, in what was the coldest period for a number of years. The bitter winds drawn down from Siberia were caused by the Sudden Stratospheric Warming event that occurred several days previously.
1. The lowest air temperature ever recorded on Earth amounts to -89.2 °C. It was registered at the Russian Vostok station in Antarctica on 21st July 1983. (Study by John Turner and others).
It is the middle of August in 2018 and I am in a small town in the Swiss Alps called Leysin. Beautifully situated in the mountains and not far from Lake Geneva, the temperatures here are in the mid-20s during the day, only to drop down to single digits at night. Leysin has a humid continental climate with annual precipitation averaging 1,481 mm, which equals more than twice that of London. Because the village is situated at an altitude of 1,565 m above sea level the average annual temperature is only 3.9°C.
Christmas markets are among the most popular traditions in Europe. The tradition started in the former Holy Roman Empire during the Late Middle Ages, where winter markets were held for citizens to stock up their supplies to last through the cold months. Over time, local handicrafts such as baskets and woodcarvings were also sold on the markets. The earliest documented winter markets were reported from Vienna (Austria) in 1298 and the German cities Munich (1310), Bautzen (1384) and Frankfurt (1393).
