A Cloud Free Day - Satellite Picture of Flooding

Sunday was a rare day of sunshine and clear blue skies. The weather satellite pictures received via EUMETCast showed the UK in a rare state of being almost cloud free.

The following picture shows the UK from a Metop AVHRR pass.

© EUMETSAT (2014)

It is not really clear from the above picture, but when viewed on a large screen, flooding along the River Thames and the Somerset Levels stands out very well.

I took the following detail from the above picture. This shows the Somerset Levels area with the extensive flooding clearly visible. It will be interesting to compare this with a picture later in the year when hopefully the area has dried out.

© EUMETSAT (2014)

 

After the storm overnight Friday into Saturday, the weather has improved, although still some rain, not as heavy as previous weeks.

 

JT65 Activity on 10m

The 10m band has been very good recently with plenty of JT65 activity.

Have not had much time for radio recently, however did get an hour yesterday evening and put out a call on 10m using the JT65 mode.

Worked the following stations in an hour:

KI0QS
WB0IKF
W9TLG
LU4WAP
W9MDB
KM6CQ
KB1O
KF7GMV
N8BIF

Plenty of stations on from North and South America and very difficult to find any free space on the JT65 frequency.

Did not get a chance to try out SSB on 10m. The Windom antenna had blown down in the rceent strong winds, so the Inverted L which I usually use on the FT2000 was connected to the TS2000 which is set up for data modes.

A Conveyor of Low Pressure Areas

So far this year, we have seen a succession of low pressure areas come across the Atlantic straight for the UK, dumping large amounts of rainfall and inflicting very high winds across the country.

Rainfall has been heaviest in the south of the country with heavy flooding in Somerset and across the Thames Valley.

The cause appears to be the jet stream stuck further south and flowing faster than usual, generating a conveyor belt of fast moving, intense low pressure areas.

I had a look through the NOAA APT satellite pictures I have received for the last few weeks and picked out a series of pictures that give an indication of this weather pattern

They all show intense low pressure areas tracking over the UK.

 NOAA 19 - 1st February 2014

NOAA 19 - 7th February 2014

NOAA 19 - 8th February 2014

NOAA 19 - 12th February 2014

The last picture from the 12th February brought very strong winds to the west and north of the country with gusts in excess of 100MPH.

We have yet another low pressure area tracking across the country through today and overnight bringing rain and gale force winds. There was too much noise on the NOAA 19 midday picture from today. The cross dipoles I use to received APT transmissions are located in the loft of the house. We have a large number of tall trees to the south and what with the rain and thick cloud, I suspect this combines to impact the signal received from the satellite.

Radio and Weather Statistics for January 2014

January 2014 has been a terrible month with so much rain that here in the south of the UK it has been the wettest January on record.

My radio and weather statistics for January are as follows:

Radio Operation

Total number of contacts: 18

Modes

JT65:  12
SSB:   6
A poor month for radio operation, not much time to get on.

Weather

Total rainfall for the month: 177mm

Average temperature: 6 degrees centigrade

Maximum temperature of 11.9 on the 6th January at 00:22
Minimum temperature of -1.9 on the 12th January at 05:03

Frost days: 4

The weather during the month has been very wet and windy with a succession of low pressure areas running from the Atlantic across the country.