“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 …
The trouble with wind….
August 12, 2015
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 …
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 the anniversary of the eruption of Tambora
April 16, 2015
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 …
Recent Comments