Over the past couple of days, many will have noticed the sky turning orange and sand covering everything outside. It’s sand and dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa that has been whipped up into the upper atmosphere and travelled with the current weather systems that are funneling it over Europe. It was particularly strong in Spain, where authorities said people should wear masks and try to stay indoors. It has been turning skies fiery shades of orange, red and yellow. You can track the sand storms using Windy.com CAMS and the Skiron Forecast below. Windy Particulate Forecast CAMS Par ..read more

Dr Ken Libbrecht is the world expert on snowflakes, designer of custom snowflakes, snowflake consultant for the movie Frozen his photos appear on postage stamps all over the world. His website is full of information about snowflakes http://snowcrystals.com ..read more

The Perseids 2021 peak on the night of the 12th/13th with a ZHR of 110. The radiant is visible as soon as darkness falls on the evening of the 12th, lunar conditions are good for 2021 with the waxing crescent moon setting at 22:45 on the 12th. The annual Perseid meteor shower is coming. The shower begins, gently, in mid-July when Earth enters the outskirts of a cloud of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle. No other comet produces fireballs like 109P/Swift-Tuttle–probably a result of its oversized nucleus. The comet’s core is 26 km in diameter, and naturally crumbles into fireball-sized chunks ..read more

The first noctilucent clouds of this season have been spotted from the UK. These beautiful midnight clouds illuminate the twilight sky of summer. If you see any be sure to report it at the NLC Observers website or using the Glendale atmospherics web app. Glendale web app Noctilucent clouds are the highest clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere, located in the mesosphere at altitudes of around 85 km, and are visible only when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon while the ground and lower layers of the atmosphere are in the Earth’s shadow; otherwise they are too faint to be seen. Nocti ..read more

Author links: Martijn J.HoogeveenaEric C.M.van GorpbEllen K.Hoogeveenc aDepartment Technical Sciences & Environment, Open University, the Netherlands bDepartment of Viroscience and Department of Infectious Diseases, Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands cDepartment of Internal Medicine, Jeroen Bosch Hospital, Den Bosch, the Netherlands Source: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143182 Highlights Testing pollen-flu seasonality theory for 2016–2020 in the Netherlands, overlapping COVID-19 Pollen have allergenic and immuno-activating properties. Highly significant invers ..read more

Today marks the day when the Sun is above the horizon for exactly 12 hours of the day everywhere on the planet. This astronomical event happens twice a year and is called the equinox. The name equinox comes from the Latin aequus(equal) and nox (night). For millennia, we have been observing this day in the calendar, and marking the path of the Sun and the tilt in the earth’s rotation around the Sun. This is also the day when the sun rises exactly in the east and sets in the west, so you can set your sun dial using the sun today. No matter where you are on E ..read more

The annual Perseid meteor shower is coming. The shower begins, gently, in mid-July when Earth enters the outskirts of a cloud of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle. No other comet produces fireballs like 109P/Swift-Tuttle–probably a result of its oversized nucleus. The comet’s core is 26 km in diameter, and naturally crumbles into fireball-sized chunks. Since 2008, NASA has counted more fireballs from the Perseids than any other shower. Dust-sized meteoroids, hitting the atmosphere, will streak across the night sky, at first only a sprinkling, just a few each night, but the rate will build. By A ..read more

The first noctilucent clouds of this season have been spotted from the UK. These beautiful midnight clouds illuminate the twilight sky of summer. If you see any be sure to report it at the NLC Observers website or using the Glendale atmospherics web app. Glendale web app Noctilucent clouds are the highest clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere, located in the mesosphere at altitudes of around 85 km, and are visible only when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon while the ground and lower layers of the atmosphere are in the Earth’s shadow; otherwise they are too faint to be seen. Nocti ..read more

Below you will find the latest, specific forecasts for snow and winter forecasts. Some of these links are specifically about predicting a White Christmas for the UK. Be sure and look at the model charts too. Snow Dreamer’s Blog Met Office White Christmas Forecast NetWeather White Christmas Forecast Weather Outlook Christmas Forecast Metcheck SnowRisk Forecast WxCharts Snow ICON Model Forecast Irish Christmas Forecast ..read more

Introduction 100 years ago in November 1919, the United Kingdom was in the middle of a severe cold spell. This was a cold spell that would be significant enough in the heart of winter, but the fact it took place in mid-November is extraordinary. Across the whole of the British Isles, from Scotland in the North, Ireland in the West to the most Southerly point on the Isle of Wight, there was thick snow. The month as a whole was on the “well below average” side in terms of temperatures, with it easily being the coldest November on record for the UK temperature series back to 1910, and the joint ..read more