The shipping forecast

There's poetry and there's prose that's poetic.

The BBC's Radio 4 shipping forecast is an essential tool for the working sailor but it has a magic all of its own.

Dogger, Fisher, Bight....

Issued and broadcast four times a day it gives wind direction, strength, wave heights, weather, visibility and a sense of security all in one go.

Thames, Dover, Wight.....

The idea of having a weather forecast for mariners came originally from Admiral Fitzroy, famous for being captain of Charles Darwin's voyage around the world on the Beagle.

Fastnet, Shannon, Rockall.....

Now the shipping forecast is 90 and there are while there are threats to long wave transmissions, in one form or other it will be informing those at sea and hypnotising those on land for years to come.

Portland, Plymouth, Fiztroy

Find out more by watching the reading this BBC story and watching the short video here.



Picture from: The Met Office.

Comedy writer in 130 knot cyclone

One of my favourite blogs is "By Ken Levine".

It's not on the boating blog list as he's not into boats that don't have bars. Indeed when he recently visited Auckland he thought he was going to the "city of sales" and was disappointed to learn the truth.

However he is a very funny writer behind such favs as Cheers and Frasier so I visit his site regularly and recently he's been through a cyclone where the wind speed hit 130 knots.

Fortunately the crew rose to the moment and continued with those all important bingo sessions!

Read all about it here.


Picture from: By Ken Levine.

The big slush

I'm having trouble taking the "big freeze" story seriously.

My flight into Heathrow might have been delayed over 2 hours but as I walked down the steps and breathed the sweet smell of aviation fuel my impression was of balmy weather.

At 2 - 3C it was about 30 degrees higher than I'd experienced the same time the day before, and there was just a thin layer of slush rather than several metres of packed snow:

Maybe I'll feel differently tomorrow during rush hour!

The weather forecast

This morning I saw not one but two groups of kayakers head down river with the tide, possibly going as far as Greenwich before returning with the flood propelling them back to Putney.

Despite this being the first work free weekend since August I did not join them - the reason being the subject of this classic 80s video from Annie Lennox and the Eurythmics.

Visibility Poor

This was the weather last weekend, but not all the time....

Bank Holiday Weather

It's been a Bank Holiday weekend here, and as expected the weather has been all over the place, with at times furious winds and driving rain.

Now as the long weekend draws to a close the wind had dropped and its a fine evening promising a lovely week.... when of course we'll all be back at work.

Typical!

Note for those checking photo's attributes you'll spot that these pictures are actually of clouds on other days but they'll give you an idea of how its been.

A proper summer

Us Brits like to grumble about the weather, particularly if we can add a dollop of nostalgia at the same time. "We used to have proper summers" is a typical complaint "when it was warm and sunny for weeks on end."

Well by golly that is just what we are having in London, and I have concrete proof: I have been out kayaking four weeks in a row! And every time it was as perfectly warm as you could want and what can only be described as summery.

Above you can see Putney Bridge earlier this evening.

There were also out on the Thames some rowing boats, old wooden ones that is not the racing type, which I thought Chris would have been interested in. Alas the "water proof" bag the camera was in turned out to be "water collecting" and soon after I took the photo above the on switch made no difference.

Ah well, it was a lovely evening.

Britain under snow

This great satellite photo is Britain under a covering of snow that really seems to go from coast to coast.

Today I don't think even London was above freezing all day on top of which there is a viscous wind chill from the North East.

But I don't mind any of that as much as my frozen email!

London becomes Narnia

I must rush to defend Blighty from attack. Over on the Bursledon Blog Tillerman says that the US is better than the UK at:

a) baseball

b) fast food

c) coping with a few inches of snow.

Right, here we go, over the top, into battle:

a) So? we've grown ups and no longer need to play rounders let along watch it

b) Huh! I've never had on the other side of the pond kebabs charcoal grilled, hand ground burgers or pizza with real Italian base like we get here (hurrah for the foodie revolution)

c) Ah....er.... bother! In the timeless words of Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Run away!!!

For alas Mr T might have a point. It is truly ridiculous that about a cm of snow could grind the capital to a near halt.

Having said that that the coating has made London stunningly beautiful, suburbs turned to white crystal as if Narnia has jumped through the wardrobe into our city.

Of course Narnia has the wicked White Witch to worry about. And here too there is a jingling coming towards us all, an ancient enemy that brings woe where ever it goes.

Yes its the tax man, distributing notices reminding us about online filing and payment deadlines.

And not even some Turkish Delight to soften the blow!

Exciting Weather!

A recent post showed how popular is the weather as a topic for discussion. Well today we were lucky enough to see some classic November weather in old London town. As you can see from the above 3 hourly forecast, we saw a great variety too.

It started off a bit damp, then there were the odd drops leading up to a sprinkling followed by a drizzle. Then had a gentle shower after which there was some light rain. There was a time when it was nice for ducks, before it settled in for the day.

And the temperatures rose to an almost nearly heading towards sultry 5 C before falling back to a chilly 4 C.

See! All those different conditions, all in one day!

Weather, like irony, is alive and well old Blighty!

Talking about the weather

We Brits like talking about the weather.

"Nice day, isn't it", "bit chilly for the time of year", and "scorchio!" are the phrase that oil the conversations across our little land.

And even if it never gets that hot or that cold, there is a lot of weather to talk about, as fronts come off the Atlantic, from the North Pole, or from the European land mass.

I hear there are countries where talking about the weather is thought to be boring. I even heard that argument used as the poorest of poor excuses to not talk about Global Warming!

But the weather is a connection between us and the world around us, and the planet on which we live. And it can have dramatic effects on the life we live.

To take just one topical example: the St Helena high is in the wrong place, and that's about to stop the Vendee Globe fleet in its track.

The figure above shows the wind arrows and fleet just off the web site, and there is great uncertainty about where best to position to take account of the stronger pressure when it comes.

I'm sure there is lots of talk and thinking going on about the weather now amongst the captains down there.

It was a dark and stormy night....

Honest it really was! More here.

Waterspout in Wales

This photo of a water spout comes again from the BBC and was spotted recently in Wales. They may, as the article suggested, be "fairly common" but I've never seen one!

Its a slow time of year for sailing and work is pretty intense so likely to be posting less frequently than normal for a bit.