Book Review: The Secret World of Weather by Tristan Gooley

Weather is always with us, every day, where ever we are. You'd have thought that this would mean there is nothing left for us to learn about it, but in this brilliant book I discovered that is wrong. There is much more to weather than simply clicking on an app.

Previously Tristan Gooley has written a series of books about Natural Navigation and How to Read Water (as reviewed here) and his latest is called The Secret World of Weather (UK cover above, it is different in the US).

Full disclosure Tristan's a friend of mine, but that really makes no difference to this review, for this was a fascinating read.

The book looks at the relationship between the local, such as hills, valley, rivers, plants and buildings and the weather, how they interact, changing it.

A simple example comes from the sail Tristan and I did to the Arctic Circle: we spotted the clouds above the Faroes Islands before we saw the islands themselves, until all of a sudden we were there:

This contained many examples of these, from eddies around buildings, to birds rising on thermals, to the different types of rain, to the secret laws, to the tree fan, to canopy breeze, to the wind bulge, to finding coastlines from clouds to..... so many new ideas, and then integrated into a framework.

I kept wanting to try out what I've read by looking at the sky, trying to read the clues. This is a book to come back to, to observe the natural world and then re-read the relevant sections, to learn to connect what you see with what is happening, to know what to look for.

I found myself peering at the sky, checking out the commas, the mares' tails that come down from cirrus clouds, thinking myself into the layers of the atmosphere, reading the sky as I'd read the book.

Strongly recommended!

Storm Dennis and the Thames

Recently the UK has been hit by a series of storms, most recently Storm Dennis, and the Thames has not be unaffected.

On several days the Thames Barrier had to be closed to prevent storm surges and high tide flooding London. Even so, a BMW Z4 floated away from Putney Embankment, later found full of nasty brown water.

There also have been casualties amongst the trees, include the one above, rescued after floating down river. It could have been a danger to navigation so was extracted by the PLA and towed up river. One of the branches broke off:

But it was retrieved and also taken upriver:

Hopefully the next few weeks will be a little calmer.

The Boat Race (and spring) is coming

Spring seems slow in coming this year but one sign of it is already here, namely the Oxford - Cambridge University Boat Race.

Traditionally held in early spring it is scheduled for tomorrow and this afternoon there was a trial run complete with cherry pickers, a helicopter and two rowing eights.

Winter is going.

The beast from the east returns

Blighty is currently being hit by another cold snap, a few weeks after the last one which was dubbed by the media "the beast from the east".

However the temperature is still above 0C so the snow is melting rather than settling, hence its not very photogenic. Instead here's a photo from Geneva showing one of the marinas frozen over, something which hasn't happened to the Thames since 1814 when an "elephant was led across the river below Blackfriars Bridge".

No chance for an Elfstedentocht here on the Thames. If you haven't heard of this its a 200 km ice skating tour / race held in Friesland in north Netherlands whenever the ice is thick enough, which apparently is not very often.

You can get a feel for it (and the intense cold) in this Public Service Broadcasting (the band) video:

Icy conditions for Lake Geneva Swimmers

There were no swimmers with polar bear blood to be seen trying out the steps down into Lake Geneva above, and none climbing onto the basking platform below.

There was little need of the no swimming signs:

I've swum in the lake before but not this trip!

Ice Sculptures of Geneva

The boats in the previous post were not the only things covered in ice in Geneva down by the lake.

According to Wikipedia, Lake Geneva suffers from something called the Bise, which is a cold wind coming down the lake from the north-east.

The Bise was really was rather dramatic: it felt like a wild animal had taken over Geneva, with lights swaying wildly, creating pools of light that swirled in the dark, and gusts thrusting against one, as if trying to push over or whisk away into the night.

It also flung up spray from the lake which froze in dramatic fashion into ice sculptures (above)

Walk-ways  were covered in a smooth layer, causing dangerously slippy conditions:

Frozen Boats! Frozen Boats! Frozen Boats! .... in Geneva

I've been off in Geneva again, struggling with a cold and the cold, rather than posting.

It really was rather chilly, and the wind thrown spray froze on boats down by Lake Geneva, as can be seen by these three examples:

Actually, not sure if this one can still be classified as a boat, as it seems to be acting like a submarine:

Scorchio!

Unseasonably warm at the moment in Blightly land.

Skies were clear all across the country, a bit like this:

This photo was actually taken at the end of May when went to Seville for the Bank Holiday Weekend - have a post on that coming up. Apparently there it is due to hit 41C today and 43 later this week - that is proper scorchio weather.

For those that want to know where scorchio comes from, here's a short video:

The Last Tall Ship

Over the last few years, as part of the Thames Festival, tall ships have been coming to Greenwich for the last weekend of August, a three day long bank holiday.

On Monday there was a parade of sail followed by fireworks!!

There was also rain, lots of rain.

Now rain is typically incredibly rare in London - in fact, several hours can go by without it raining at all! Some people even call it the "Sunny City"!

[Ed: Who? Unable to fact check this!!]

Yesterday this unusual meteorological condition, combined with having a recurring bug, meant I felt more like making crab with linguine, watching Parks and Recreation, then having an early night.

Today I went exploring down river to see what could be seen of these majestic vessels. But alas, they had headed out to sea, leaving just this one remaining:

This is the Dar Mlodziezy, a Polish ship built in the Gdansk shipyards of Poland in 1981.

However I overheard one women say she had told her husband it was the Cutty Sark.

Just for comparison, this is the latter, land-locked in its glass sea:

And notice how it is not raining in any of these pictures! The Sunny City indeed!

WEATHER BOMB visible on web wind site

I was most impressed by the animated wind map found by the Improper Course, in which he describes the Volvo Ocean Race fleet entering "a stronger northeasterly".

So I turned the globe towards Blighty and the nearby Atlantic and... golly... that's a bit more than a strong north-easterly (above). For a start its a westerly but also the lines are red not green ... that can't be good.

Indeed the news streams are already pushing headlines like "weather bomb raises risk of severe gales" with another WEATHER BOMB story here.

Though I guess those in the NE of America would say that unless there's a metre of snow you can't really call it anything serious.

So what is a WEATHER BOMB? Well, according to the BBC here it is a fall of 24 mb or more in 24 hours, and they are predicting 18m waves, which does sound pretty impressive.

Noctilucent clouds over London

I have been off sick spending a lot of time staring out of the window.

I have seen a lot of boats go by and wished I could be out there on the water sailing, rowing or paddling.

And last night I saw the above - noctilucent clouds over London. More here from Wikipedia on this rare cloud formation.

There are also two building cranes: there are meant to be more in London than the whole of the rest of the UK so its hard not to include them in a shot.

Sunshine and rain

I was going to post about the 3D printed kayak but Tillerman got there first so instead back to that old blighty favourite, the weather.

It was of course a rather wet January and there was so much water coming downriver from the flooded Thames valley that the barrier had to be raised day after day after day.

In fact it was raised a grand total of 50 times in just a few weeks - which is a problem as for maintenance reasons the maximum number of times the Thames Barrier is meant to be raised per year is 50.

Fortunately spring seems to have arrived more or less with last weekend being spectacularly sunny.

And in the good weather we can come out to play with our toys, printed or not. In the video above someone has a rather impressive toy helicopter equiped with a GoPro camera.

Nice.

Extreme Warning: Ebb Tide

Recently the weather in blighty has gone from our favourite topic of conversation to something really quite serious, with force 12 in Fastnet and the Thames valley flooded.

The Thames Barrier has been raised every day for the last fortnight to allow as much water as possible to drain out of the upper Thames without flooding central London.

All well and good but that means that when the high fluvial levels (posh term for flow) combine with the tidal ebb the current is really rather strong - four times normal according to the Evening Standard. In fact dangerously strong.

The Port of London Authority (PLA) has therefore introduced a new web-based ebb tide safety flag indicator system and it's currently saying "Extreme Warning".

You can find the flag on the PLA's web site for recreational river users, boating on the Thames. There's even a widget you could stick on your own site.

To help explain why this really is serious look at the image above, which is a rowing eight stuck against a barge. As can be read here:

Their rowing eight was driven under boat moorings and  broken in half by the strength of the tide.

Canoers, kayakers and sailors should also take note.

As an extra warning, have a read of this article about what is contaminating the water - yuck!

Extreme warning indeed.

Fastnet Force 12

According to the Met Office's shipping forecast there are gale warnings pretty much everywhere including the following for Fastnet:

Southwesterly violent storm force 11 increasing hurricane force 12 imminent

Despite what it says on the t-shirt, at the moment I'd rather not be sailing, and not just because of my lingering cough.

From the Thames Barrier to the Thames Floods

Video from Channel 4 News.

That's a lot of water.


Updated: there's also a very similar video from BBC news which has sub-titles. Tillerman: note you can see the area around Marlow clearly

Foggy Thames, misty Mars

The last few mornings London has been covered with a thick blanket of fog, causing the Thames Clipper to sound its horn as it felt its way carefully up or down the river.

And it appears that the Earth is not the only planet to suffer from the seasonal vapours as can be seen by this photo from Mars which show the canyons covered in mist:

London's Flood Risk

Last week a storm together with high tides drove seas up the funnel of the Thames Estury to threaten London with devastating floods.

Fortunately London was ready, and the Thames Barrier was raised in time to protect the capital.

But what if it hadn't been there? How bad could it have been?

Well the answer is pretty bad as can be seen by the image above released by the Environment Agency which shows how most of Docklands and huge swathes of East London would have been under water.

The headlines could have been so different, with less talk about Christmas Dolphins, and more about disasters and devastation.



Updated: Google thinks that this picture needs snowflakes:

Err.....Mr Google.... are you sure that's a good idea?

After St. Jude

Unlike the storm of 1987, last night's St. Jude (as it was named) was forecast with what looked like high accuracy several days in advance.

Hundreds of trees were blown down (like the one above in Putney) causing all sorts of transport woes.

On the plus side we Brits love talking about the weather so you won't be surprised to hear that #ukstorm2013 is trending on Twitter.

Biking to Kingston

It is well known that English Bank Holidays are traditionally wet and windy. To this day, a holiday weekend of driving rain is enough to make Tillerman all nostalgic.

But not this one.

For once the weather gods smiled on London as clouds cleared leaving a sky light blue reminding us that, yes, somewhere up there there is the sun.

So I took the opportunity to bike to Kingston and back, and jolly good fun it was too. I'd gone for a 8k run earlier so didn't over-do it and stopped at Richmond for a smoothie and on the way back an ice-lolly in Kew.

It did cross my mind that I could complete the run and cycling with a swim, but I have this feeling its not going to happen.

Far more likely is something involving a drink and the sun setting.

UFO spotted over London!!

Reports have rocked the capital all day of a mystery UFO high in the sky.

Lingering for literally hours, it was said by the millions to have spotted it to be yellow-white in colour and so bright as to be blinding!

UV Ray Gun?

Scientists observing this phenomena detected high levels of UV radiation from a nuclear fusion reaction - beyond any engineering possible on Earth.

"The Yellow UFO could be dangerous" said a scientist with a beard. "I'd advise wearing protecting clothing when in its direct line of sight."

Aliens Danger

The Daily Mail is very concerned about this new CANCER risk from ALIENS and is asking for Government action. However Number 10 has issued a wait and see statement, while admitting that this Yellow UFO could appear in the skies over London later this summer. The opposition has already slammed this as another example of a do-nothing administration.

Ice Cream Agents

But the twitter-sphere is already speculating about the next visitation of this celestial apparition, and whether the alien agents are already among us. "On days when the Yellow UFO appears, you always see ice cream vans: how do they know? Is there secret communication or are they Yellow UFO agents?"

Watch this space - or rather watch the skies!! (*)



(*) carefully - don't look directly at the Yellow UFO