Scargill

Archive for the ‘Weather’ Category

Lovely winter morning? Not lovely winter morning! The first of these pictures was sadly taken precisely 1,198.3 miles (1,928.5km) North of the second (hence the quality variation) mid-morning this morning. For anyone looking in while enjoying the sunshine in Southern Spain, please spare a thought for friends suffering the current god-forsaken weather in the Northeast of England.

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by Peter Scargill

I remember a couple of years ago, about this time – I was stuck in the house for a week due to horrendous snow. Here’s a reminder of it… great fun for cats, not much fun for the rest of us.

Well, despite warnings, we got about an inch of snow this morning which then immediately disappeared – meanwhile we’ve had lots of fog which makes for interesting photos. Here’s a couple of shots I took at the weekend nearby (below).

So for all our complaining it’s no-where near as bad as a couple of years ago.. unless you really hate fog.

We’re over in Spain right now enjoying the SUPERB weather – 33c mid-afternoon and dry as a bone with a slight breeze – what more could you ask for.

Well a car for one thing… the car packed in on the way here on Saturday and it’s been in the shop ever since. Between that and continued issues with electricity one could easily get depressed were it not for the broadband working really well and continuous sun – which makes up for a lot.

Nice walk down to the market today and working on my electronics projects while Maureen is enjoying movies on NetFlix.

Still no car… more details over on the Bedrock site.

Maureen and I spend the morning at "Embalse Del Negratin" this morning, enjoying the sun in preparation for a trip to rainy blighty…. got our list of things to do including getting a spare key for the Spanish car, fixing the Skype phone (who’s battery has inexplicably gone dead) and checking out Ikea to see if they have the excellent automatic stair lights in the UK that we just bought here… that and a thousand meetings… more over at the Bedrock site…

It’s hard to believe the weather we’re having here in the Northeast… it’s been sunny now for over a week – and to keep the gardeners happy and keep the air fresh, it has conveniently rained overnight twice only to return to full sunshine in the morning.

I remember “April showers” when I was younger, when it would be sunny with constant drizzling but in recent years the weather has just been PANTS ALL SUMMER.

If this is our share of global warming – bring it on!  It’s giving me the opportunity to do something I’ve not done in a while – play with solar lighting. I’m trying to do a better job than the Chinese do while keeping the cost to next to nothing. So far so good. 2 transistors and a couple of other bits. Just need to stop batteries getting too flat now.

Finally.. is it ME or is Adobe updating that stupid reader 2 or 3 times a week? You’d think by now they’d have it right.. Imagine what the infinitely more complex Windows 7 or Apple operating  systems would be like if they had a many problems – you’d be updating every minute!!!

It makes you laugh…. global warming… here we are in the second winter in a row that beats records for heaven-knows how many years.

This morning I got up at 5.30am and it was minus 13c, apparently the other morning as late as 7am it was minus 16c. Here in the Northeast (at least in Northumberland) we’ve been WHITE for over a week now – though at least the sun is shining today. I’ve never seen as many icicles in my life as we have here on our drainpipes.

Ok, last year didn’t come till the very end but this winter we’re off to a flying start in darkest Northumbria. While the rest of the country enjoys “variable weather” – we’re well and truly in the white stuff and it’s showing no signs of change.

Mid-last week the snow started and temperatures plummeted.. I don’t think we’ve seen anything above 2c since then and most of the time it’s way below zero.

Friday night the broadband went off here at Willow Cottage and stayed off until Monday – thankfully we’ve a “spare” in the form of Orange broadband which only JUST justifies the title. I was supposed to be in Blackpool but the roads here as you’ll see are very dangerous right now. If I had travelled I’d be coming back to even more as right now it’s snowing AGAIN.

Climate change YES, global warming… erm… I don’t think so.

Anyway, enough talk – here are the pictures taken this morning up in Wark.

Whilst it is fair to say that WARK is not the best indication of the weather potential of the UK, being part of the Northeast and hence raining most of the time, there’s no getting away from it – once again it’s been a MISERABLE summer in downtown Northumberland. what on EARTH place does 10 degrees C have in AUGUST??

Incidentally, that sign of rain on Tuesday in Galera on the right.. I’ll bet by the weekend that changes to an Orange sun.

Weather in Andalucía has been wonderful since the end of July (head on over to the Bedrock site and take a look) and looks set to remain so. A little hot at lunchtimes but then that’s what swimming pools and naps are for. I’m getting my work done in the early hours as it’s comfortable t-shirt weather overnight outside, meanwhile our house in the UK is being looked after which is a comfort.

After a tea-totalling night last night in which we worked on the hot tub and I got annoyed with tech support at work, I got up WAY too early this morning to do a spot of coding on a website and to update my blog. It’s pitch black here at 6.30am but still cool enough to walk around in shorts, which is nice. Got my new dictionary on the iPhone… marvellous – £17 and I get both the iPhone and iPad versions thrown in. Third of a million words complete with audio recordings in both languages and the ability to completely cross-reference – and all offline. Beats the pants off the paper versions. I’m not convinced that “he’s got cheesy feet” is the best definition of cheese but there you are…

You have to wonder… the forecast yesterday was the same – with rain. It’s 28 degrees around Hexham and in Wark, 30 degrees in Newcastle –absolutely roasting with a slight cloud in the distance. There is NO WAY it’s going to be 9 degrees outside tonight – it was warm enough to be out at MIDNIGHT last night. They’d be better off getting up on the roof and forecasting from there as they do in Uganda.

Just as we thought it was time to bring out the swimming costumes….. BANG – we’re back into winter! This lot were all green last night and the last of the snow and ice was finally beginning to go. The weather forecast said we could look forward to warmer air and…