We are truly a global community at the moment, watching COVID-19 numbers rise and fall, whilst largely confined to our own localities - but what is the weather like elsewhere?
There is a big area of high pressure dominating the weather across Europe at the moment, so things from the UK across into Italy and Croatia are looking fine and settled with plenty of sunshine.
Aeroplanes provide important information about the current state of the atmosphere, and have done since the beginning of commercial flights. The more precisely the initial conditions of the atmosphere are known, the more accurate the forecast can be. With COVID-19 triggering such sudden and dramatic reduction in the number of flights, there is a chance that the weather forecast could become slightly less accurate over the coming months.
Over the past week, the European Space Agency released data that provides a welcome positive in amidst the challenge of COVID-19. Data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite has shown a reduction in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) over both Italy and China, as each country has brought in stringent measures to tackle the pandemic.
A large area of ozone depletion has taken place over the Arctic. Usually in early spring, as the sun climbs higher in the sky, the temperature in the stratosphere above the Arctic increases and this prevents the chemical reactions that break up ozone. However, this year a large area of ozone has been eroded and this loss has intensified over the past few weeks.
Ozone is a naturally occurring gas. Over 90% of it is found in the stratosphere, between 10 and 50 kilometres above the Earth, in what’s known as the ozone layer.
The State of the Climate Report 2019 has been released by the World Meteorological Organization, and it makes for sober reading.
The report confirms that 2019 was the second warmest year in the instrumental record. The global average temperature was 1.1 °C above estimated pre-industrial averages, second only to the record set in 2016.
After the wettest February on record in the UK, which helped to drag the whole winter 2019-2020 to the fifth wettest winter on record, it would be nice if spring brought us some brighter and calmer conditions.
The spring forecast, which has recently been issued by the Met Office, indicates that spring 2020 may well be warmer than average, but unfortunately there is also the chance that it will be wetter than the average, particularly in the north.
An immediate evacuation is taking place in Ironbridge, Shropshire today, as concerns rise that the temporary barriers of the River Severn are buckling under the force of the water. This comes after an incredibly wet month, with double the month’s average rainfall being recorded in parts of West Yorkshire in the first half of the month and Hereford, Worcestershire and the West Midlands reporting more than 170% of their average monthly rainfall.
Even three days after Storm Ciara hit the UK, some people are still feeling the effects of the weather. Two people lost their lives in the storm, tens of thousands of homes lost power and despite new multi-million pound defences, flood water inundated several Yorkshire towns.
