Heatwave!
July 1, 2015
Summer is here, and temperatures in many parts of the UK are predicted to reach over 30 degrees C later today on what is expected to be the hottest day of the year so far, prompting much talk of heatwaves past and present in conversation and on social media (#UKheatwave). The hot weather has also prompted …
‘The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides!’
June 15, 2015
Following in the footsteps of Martin Martin (-1718), Thomas Pennant (1726-98), James Boswell (1740-95) and Samuel Johnson (1709-84), Neil Macdonald (who could almost be mistaken for being a native islander given his surname), Simon Naylor (a Cornish Glaswegian) and James Bowen (a regular tourist to the islands), travelled to the remote Outer Hebrides, to undertake …
Edward Joseph Lowe and extreme weather observations
June 4, 2015
This week I thought I would write about a weather observer from Nottingham who completed much of his work just a couple of minutes walk from my office. Edward Joseph Lowe (1825-1900) was born in Highfield House, University Park, now home to the Centre for Advanced Studies of the University of Nottingham. He is probably most …
The effects of weather extremes on the railways of Britain past, present and future.
May 4, 2015
The winter of 1963. In November 2014 I visited The National Archives (TNA) at Kew in London to undertake a period of focused research concerning the impact of the extreme winter of 1963 on British agriculture. Whilst considerable attention has been paid to the winter of 1947-8, less work has considered the effects of subsequent …
Franco-British collaboration, the Royal Society and Measuring Storms
April 28, 2015
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 200 years since the ‘super’ eruption of Tambora
April 1, 2015
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).
February 10, 2015
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
January 30, 2015
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 …
Cold weather records: reflections from the bus stop
January 19, 2015
As I was waiting for the campus hopper this morning my fingers were steadily growing numb. The texts and emails I sent from my mobile were even more laden with errors and typos than normal, as button pressing became increasingly challenging. It was most definitely cold. There is no snow on the ground here in …
Extreme weather events in focus: White Christmases
December 11, 2014
Following the first snowfall of the year on Sunday,and the arrival of a ‘weather bomb’ in northern parts of the UK , in my final blog of 2014 I thought I would explore some wintry weather of Decembers past. Data search The TEMPEST database is now up and running and we have been busily entering the …
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