Weather Extremes: Making and Breaking Records in Nottinghamshire
December 16, 2016
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, …
Guest post: A hive of weather data: exploring the International Bee Research Association’s collection
December 6, 2016
Guest post by Siobhan Maderson. Modern life appears to be dominated by time. Our phones beep incessant reminders, urging us on to our next appointment. But we are fundamentally biological organisms, ruled by elemental systems. The ancient Greeks recognised the difference between these two distinct patterns. Chronos describes the time of the clock, while Kairos …
April showers… of snow?
April 28, 2016
As we have previously explored on this blog, sometimes it is not the intensity or severity of weather that makes an event extreme, but its timing. This week many people have been taken by surprise at the falls of snow around the UK (as pictured in the feature image © Nigel Brown, geograph), some music fans interpreting the …
Sources in focus: estate correspondence
February 29, 2016
Since Christmas I’ve been spending some time over at the University of Nottingham’s Manuscripts and Special Collections, looking more closely at their weather-related holdings. A large proportion of the documents I’ve so far consulted have been letters. Corresponding about weather The weather is a popular topic of conversation, and, in a similar way to diaries, …
Widespread flooding and the centrality of ‘community’ response
December 29, 2015
The scale of loss and destruction wrought by the recent flooding across the north of England has been sobering. Communities in Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Yorkshire have all been, and continue to be affected. Amid threats of renewed floods with the imminent passage of ‘Storm Frank’- headline news at the time of writing- weather …
Cherry Blossom and Daffodils: Mild Decembers in the Archive
December 18, 2015
This week the Weather Extremes team has been catching up in Nottingham. As well as reviewing recent activity, setting goals for the year ahead, and Christmas plans, the conversation frequently turned to the weather itself. The mild weather that much of the country is currently experiencing was one talking point, as blossom and other traditional …
Waltzing on Water
November 24, 2015
Guest post by Catherine Duigan and Sarah Davies (Aberystwyth University). During extreme weather, a frozen lake can be a scientific, social and cultural event. In temperate regions, like Wales in winter, frozen lakes are mainly seen in inaccessible relatively high altitude mountainous areas. Even here people pause to consider them; photograph them; paint them. They …
“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing”
October 9, 2015
Weather and wardrobe The quote that I’ve used for the title of this post is popularly attributed to fellwalker and guidebook author and illustrator Alfred Wainwright, who spent much of his time outdoors, in the weather. Walking the remote Lakeland Fells it’s essential to be prepared for the weather, which can of course change rather …
Guest post: Bog Bursts at Cappanihane, Ireland, 1697 and 1727
September 16, 2015
by Dr Angela Byrne, University of Greenwich The first published account of the phenomenon known as the ‘moving bog’ – the bogslide or bog burst[1] – was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1697. It occurred in Cappanihane, a townland in Co. Limerick in the west of Ireland, just over 30km …
School log books as a source for investigating extreme weather events in the Western Isles during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
August 24, 2015
School Log Books The main historical source material being consulted for the north-west Scotland case study are school log books, the keeping of which became compulsory after The Education (Scotland) Act of 1872 which sought to standardise education through the establishment of school boards in a region that was predominantly Gaelic speaking and where education …
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