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).
The Science Museum has created a wonderful short video dedicated to the work of Luke Howard. Luke Howard was an amateur meteorologist and chemist who invented the cloud classification system in 1802, in an essay titled ‘On the modifications of clouds’ which was read to the Askesian Society. The Askesian Society was a small debating and self-improvement club joined by those with an interest in research and education. He wanted to emphasise the importance and usefulness of meteorology and visual observations of wind and clouds.
While a PhD student at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and University of Cambridge, BAS and the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC) provided funds for a training course for a number of early career researchers to learn about fieldwork management skills. This training course provided the opportunity for a number of UK based PhD and PostDoctoral scientists to go to the Arctic to learn important fieldwork skills and to apply these to a number of projects which required fieldwork around Ny-Alesund, Svalbard.
The Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS) in association with AccuWeather have selected the winners for this year’s Weather Photographer of the Year competition. After an extremely competitive year with over 4,000 photographs entered, the winners were finally announced at WeatherLive 2018! Please find the winners below and their categories:
The Met Office has released a report detailing how the changing climate has affected weather extremes in the UK from 1961 – 2017. By documenting periods of extremely warm, cold, dry and wet weather they have mapped how extreme conditions have changed between 1961 – 1990 and 2008 – 2017.
The Royal Meteorological Society is hosting an extreme weather conference to explore the severe weather events and climates around the world. Whether it's tornadoes or hurricanes, working in extreme conditions or communicating high impact weather, we'll take a closer look at extreme weather - its power, its beauty, its occasional absurdity and its fragility in the face of human activity.
