// Archives

Weather Extremes: Making and Breaking Records in Nottinghamshire

Over the last few months Georgina and I have been working closely with staff at the Department of Manuscripts, University of Nottingham, to curate a public exhibition for the Weston Gallery, Lakeside Arts, on the University campus. It opens today. Last night we held a private view that was opened by BBC meteorologist Helen Willetts, …

Whitby and the ‘year without summer’

Last week I was lucky enough to be able to attend a Royal Meteorological Society regional event in Whitby, North Yorkshire. The theme of Saturday’s meeting was ‘1816 – the year without a summer’. The programme was put together by Dennis Wheeler (University of Sunderland). I wrote about the extreme weather of 1816 as experienced …

Floods as Heritage

Limoges workshop At the beginning of October, was held the Floods as heritage workshop at the Université de Limoges by the Chair on Environmental capital and sustainable management of waterways (Capital environment et gestion durable des cours d’eau).  With 14 presenters (myself included) from the UK, France, Algeria and Tunisia it was an occasion to look …

The trouble with wind….

Britain’s windiest year? 2015 is on course to be the windiest year that Britain has experienced for two decades. Since the start of May there have been just eight days described as calm (ie highest wind is measured at less than 11mph) by the Met Office. Some places in the UK are obviously windier than others …

Franco-British collaboration, the Royal Society and Measuring Storms

Care for the Future – LABEX Last week Georgina and I represented the Weather Extremes team at the 2nd AHRC Care for the Future and LABEX joint workshop. More information on the partnership can be found in my post on the first workshop. This time the meeting was held at the Royal Society in London, …

Marking the anniversary of the eruption of Tambora

1815-2015 As detailed in our previous post, last week I attended the ‘International Conference on Volcanoes, Climate and Society: Bicentenary of the great Tambora eruption’ in Bern, Switzerland. It was a fantastic event with speakers drawn from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds and from all over the world. Throughout the week I was able to …

Marking 200 years since the ‘super’ eruption of Tambora

5-11th April 1815 Next week I’m fortunate to be attending the International Conference on Volcanoes, Climate and Society at the University of Bern, Switzerland. The purpose of the conference is to mark 200 years since the eruption of the Tambora volcano, on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, between 5-11th April 1815. The eruption is one of …

Sources in focus – Newspaper reports of extreme weather in the Western Isles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (part 2).

Sources in focus – Newspaper reports of extreme weather in the Western Isles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (part 2). ‘Sources in focus – Newspaper reports of extreme weather in the Western Isles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’ part 1 (https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/weatherextremes/2014/11/28/sources-in-focus-newspaper-reports-of-extreme-weather-in-the-western-isles-in-the-nineteenth-and-twentieth-centuries-part-1/) explored the impact of extreme weather on ferries and shipping. Following on …

Delving back into the past to look into the present and future

AHRC and LABEX – a new partnership A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to represent the Weather Extremes team at a Franco-British Research Workshop organised by our funders AHRC, and LABEX (Laboratory of Excellence), a similar funder in France. The title of the workshop was ‘Delving back into the past to look …

Sources in focus – Newspaper reports of extreme weather in and around Stornoway and the Western Isles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (part 1).

Sources in focus – Newspaper reports of extreme weather in and around Stornoway and the Western Isles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (part 1). Since the project started in December 2013, blogs have highlighted several categories of historical sources which can provide evidence of past extreme weather events, for example, diaries and parish registers. In …