Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: There was, as in most years, plenty of lively weather in 2011. In the United Kingdom, we had the odd experience of a cold winter that was not at all cold in this calendar year as the severe cold of late 2010 soon vanished. The only cooler-than-normal weather in 2011 came in the summer, whilst the most concentrated warmth and sunshine was to be found in late April and late September/early October. It is a year that could prove to be the second warmest on record in the UK. The normally-prevailing southwesterly winds have been even more frequent than usual, making it much wetter than normal over most of the north and west, whilst it was exceptionally dry over the English Midlands. That overview was, of course, written without knowledge of how the last five weeks or so of the year might turn out. Extensive publicity was given in the autumn to rogue forecasters predicting another severe winter. They might be right, but they are guessing. One group forecast that the winter would start with snow in a cold October – and claimed to have got this right! Our subject does suffer from crazy media coverage, but credit should be given to BBC Two's ‘Will it snow?’ programme, broadcast on 6 November. It made it quite clear that seasonal forecasting is a very imprecise science, but also pointed out that we can expect some cold weather and snow – because it is winter. We should always be prepared, and have patently not been in some recent winters. Equally, we are almost certainly not prepared for an exceptionally hot summer which, given the overall rise in global temperature, we are now overdue. On behalf of everyone involved with Weather, a happy Christmas and all the best for 2012 to all our readers.
Source: Weather
DOI: 10.1002/wea.885
Author: Bob Prichard
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1996100600