The Weather Blog » Country

United Kingdom

Anthony — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:31:10 +0000

Hey, A country most people have heard of, and can actually find on the globe as well! The UK straddles the Prime Meridian, and as meteorologists, we use Zulu time (a.k.a. UTC time, or basically London time) exclusively in our forecasts and observations. The UK sits to the northwest of mainland Europe mostly between 50 and 60 degrees latitude. This is the same latitude as the southern half of Hudson Bay up in Canada, so why doesn't London get crazy amounts of snow like Southern Canada get? All of that is thanks to the North Atlantic Current, which as an extension of the warm Gulf Stream keeps Northern Europe relatively mild throughout the winter months. While the temperatures aren't normally too extreme (with the all-time high around 101), they can get below zero at times, with a record of nearly -18 on 3 separate occasions, all in Scotland of course. To illustrate this, Winnipeg is roughly around the same latitude as southern England, but England's average high temperatures vary from 44-69 deg F (only a 25 deg difference), while Winnipeg's ranges from 9-78 deg F (69 deg difference!). The vast majority of the western and northern portions of the country are more hilly/mountainous while the southeastern section is significantly flatter. Given this topography, it's easy to figure out that the lion's share of the precipitation falls in the western part of the country, varying from over 100" in parts of the Scottish Highlands to under 25" at times around Cambridge. Just because they don't have a ton of rainfall doesn't mean bright sunny skies all of the time though, as it rains on well over 100 days in Cambridge.

Obviously, as one of the countries on the meteorological forefront in the world, the UK has a very in-depth website to peruse through. Simply called the Met Office, they are the UK's National Weather Service. Forming back in 1854 and evolving through the years, they constantly are at the forefront of new technology and bringing better forecasts to the masses. (Note: the Met Office assisted the US in forecasting a window in which D-Day operations could occur back in 1944, correctly so as well. How different could this world be today if D-Day wasn't successful? Something to think about!). Navigating their webpage one can find updated city and region forecasts for the country in 3 hour blocks for the 1st 2 days then by day onward. Radars are updated every 30 minutes on their website as well, in addition to current satellite images. Since obviously they use the metric system, everything is in Celsius and millimeters for temperatures and precipitation, but I'm sure all of our math-savvy readers will be able to handle the conversions! Along with Climatology pages and a plethora of information, the Met Office's website can keep you occupied for hours seeing what they have to offer.

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The Gambia

Ryan — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:07:23 +0000

The Gambia is the smallest mainland country in Africa, and as such has a fairly simply defined climate. The nation follows the route of the Gambia River inland into Senegal, hence it's name. It is north of the Equator but within the Tropics and is subject to the seasonal motion of the ITCZ. The capital, Banjul, can go without rain for the winter, spring and most of the fall, only to have it rain non stop during the summer. It's a low lying nation as well, as it is in a river valley, and there is no relief from the tormenting heat, aside from the fact that humidity is not an issue during the winter months.
The Department of Water Resources "carries out meteorological functions", however their staff, as described by the UK Met Office consists of only 1 meteorologist and 5 meteorological officers, two of whom are out of the country and one is on sick leave. There are also 42 meteorological technicians, whatever that entails. Needless to say, the Gambians do not have a website.

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Bhutan

Anthony — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:01:53 +0000

Bhutan is a small landlocked country in south-central Asia, sometimes called "Switzerland of Asia" due to it's landlocked and mountainous nature, bordered by India on it's southern and eastern sides and China to the North. The southern border is where the valley river plain of India starts and off in the northern half of the country are the famous Himalayas. While not as high as their Nepalese neighbors (that's right Everest, hog all the glory why don't you?), many peaks crack the 23,000 foot level, with Kula Kangri topping them out at a whopping 24,780 feet. Naturally, the climate in these extreme mountain ranges is one of nasty winter blizzards with perpetual snow cover, which is partly the source of the country's name, which translates to "Land of the Thunder Dragon". A bit further south in the country's midsection the climate changes over to a cool, temperate variety with average rainfall of roughly 40". The southern portion of the country sees a hot, humid climate with average temperatures often pushing into the 90s during the summer in the southern valleys. Given the monsoons that push into the region from June through September, some locations have reported annual rainfall of an incredible 200-300 inches! Certainly a nation of extremes given it's relatively small size of around 14,800 square miles, which is slightly larger than Maryland.

Bhutan's Meteorological and Hydrological services are headed by the Council for Renewable Natural Resources Research, but sadly doesn't appear to have an active website.

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Palau

Ryan — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:50:31 +0000

Palau is one of the youngest nations in the world. It is an island cluster southeast of the Philippines. It gained it's independence from the United States in 1994, but continues to freely associate with the United States, relying on our fine country for military protection, among other things. The country is a tropical nation that sees rain all year, never truly escaping the ITCZ. The good news is that the country is too close to the equator to ever really be under the threat of any tropical storms or typhoons.The largest island, Babeldaob, is mountainous and sees more rain than the surrounding, mostly coral islands.
As the United States is entrusted with the protection of the island nation, the US also provides Palau with any weather information they may seek.

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Republic of the Congo

Ryan — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 17:33:39 +0000

There are two Congos in our world today. One is the former Zaire, and the country we will highlight today is the one that has always been the Congo, the one that feature Brazzaville as it's national capital. If you are still confused, here's a map of the country. It's located right on the equator, so the Congo sees a typically consistent climate. It's hot, humid and very rainy all year long. Fortunately, much of the eastern part of the country is found at higher elevations, which allay some of the heat, but rarely much of the humidity or rain.
The Congo is a member of the World Meteorological Society thanks to their meteorology department, the Direction De La Meteorologie Nationale. Their website is is entirely in French and looks like it was probably designed in the late 90s. As such, I found it difficult to penetrate for our purposes.

UPDATE: I looked at a weather forecast. The most recent was from 2008. So I don't think the site is presently maintained.

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Kuwait

Ryan — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 04:52:48 +0000

Our trip around the world takes us to Kuwait, a nation that might fly under the radar for most Americans were it not for the first Gulf War in 1991. It lies wedged between Iraq and Saudi Arabia at the northern end of the Persian Gulf. As one should expect in that part of the world, Kuwait is in the middle of a desert, and as such it suffers through a long, dusty and hot summer. Kuwait does lie far enough north that their winters can be a bit chilly thanks to the dry air that blows in from the northwest in the right environments, The get most of their rain in the winter thanks to the systems that can actually sneak into the area.
The Kuwait Meteorological Center is the source for Kuwaitis to get local forecasts from local forecasters. The site is definitely utilitarian. Many countries use their sites more as advertisement for their meteorologists and their operations, but you'll find none of that at the KMC. Instead, they have all the things you need. They have forecasts, satellite, radar and even a surface analysis. You don't often see these in a prominent position on a map anymore, and it's greatly appreciated by meteorologists like myself. They don't really share much about the organization but they do offer a cool option embed data from their forecast on your site. It's the most free with their information I have seen from any country yet.

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Barbados

Ryan — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:17:41 +0000

Our trip around the world takes us to the Caribbean, not very far from today's forecast in the grand scheme of things. Barbados is north of Venezuela and separated from the rest of the Lesser Antilles by a few hundred miles, as the island sits east of St. Lucia. It's position means that it is often the first site to see hurricanes marching from the coast of Africa into the Caribbean. Their rainy season lasts for the latter half of the year, essentially through the hurricane season when tropical waves are marching across the Atlantic. The hurricanes typically aren't fully developed when they arrive in Barbados, but it's a good benchmark, seeing what they may do when they arrive at other populated areas of North America.
This beacon out in the middle of the sea alerting the continent to potential hurricanes does have a weather service, Barbados Meteorological Services, though presently their site isn't functioning properly at present.

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Nauru

Ryan — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 06:00:07 +0000

Nauru is a small island in the Pacific with a tormented history of invasion and enslavement in a pair of World Wars and German colonialism, so you have to believe that is why they are as fiercely independent as they are. Nauru is the smallest island nation in the world and they lie in the midst of the tropics. Their rainy season is November to February as the ITCZ passes through. The island is typically quite warm, with highs often in the upper 80s. They are on the equator after all.
They are not a member of the World Meteorological Organization, and I haven't been able to find anything on a weather bureau. They do have a weather station, however.

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Liechtenstein

Ryan — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:35:21 +0000

Liechtenstein is a mountain nation wedged between Austria and Switzerland. It covers less than 62 square miles, which makes it smaller than many counties in the United States. It is also the wealthiest nation in the world, per capita thanks to it's banking industry. It also has a prevailing southerly flow that keeps things fairly warm compared to other areas at their altitude. The mountains do, however, induce a lot of little microclimates and induce quite a bit of elevation snow.
Liechtenstein, despite their financial cache, does not have a weather department.

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Iceland

Ryan — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 04:49:06 +0000

Two weeks in a row we take our travels to an island nation, though Iceland is a bit different from last weeks topic country, Cuba. Iceland, of course, is in the north Atlantic just on the outside of the Arctic Circle. They are generally too warm to be icy, at least on the coasts, because the Gulfstream that I constantly refer to in our East Coast forecasts eventually passes just south of the island nation. This keeps the Icelandic winters milder than one might expect for their latitude. The summers, however, don't tend to be very warm. A hot day in Iceland is one that reaches the mid 70s. The path of systems that bring nasty weather to the northeast eventually takes them to Iceland. In many senses, Iceland is the place where systems go to die, and the country is often cloudy and precipitating in some fashion as an area of low pressure disbands over the area. Winds are also a common concern with the strong pressure gradients with those systems. Generally speaking, they never see any thunderstorms in Iceland, and only get lightning when one of their famous volcanoes erupts.
The Icelandic Met Office is the bureau that keeps Iceland abreast of the weather. Their site's home page features three maps, one for wind, another for temperature and the last for precipitation. On the surface, Iceland appears to be one of those countries that keeps the weather forecasting behind the scenes, and hides things like radar or model data. With some digging though, the radar and satellite can be found under the "weather" tab, and further on the "observation" option on the sidebar. Further, under the "shipping forecast" option, you can poke around and find the actual surface analyses as well. So, while it seems the Icelanders are doing their meteorology in the background, they do offer a bit of a window into their world.
(I linked to their English site... for fun, check out Icelandic. They use a lot of letters.)

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