Flamin June? Flamin weather!!!

The Safari enjoyed the geology in school this morning - never knew we knew so much about the pebbles found on the beach, some fantastic, in the truest sense of the word, stories to be told about them.

Nothing fantastic about the weather though - torrential all day, apart from the half hour Frank dragged us round a full Patch 1 walk early on. A Peregrine was on the tower and plenty of juvenile Wrens in the park but everything was pretty soggy and about to get soggier.

View from the new French doors - might like to throw them open...one day!

A day after the Summer Solstice and at noon the temperature was 12.1C...the June long term average daily maximum for Blackpool is a barely frazzling 17.5C so we're way way down on average. Not only that but the last decade's Junes have been cooler than 'average...possibly due to la Nina which has been dominant in the Pacific for at least four years. Or a fair blob of climate change. As the tropical Atlantic gets warmer than it has been previously more water is evaporated and the warmer the air the more moisture it can hold (double whammy) which as it moves northwards with the climatic circulation reaches cooler air and all that moisture has to condense out...as rain...guess where?

This situation could get worse and worse as the global climate continues to warm...well it was postulated years ago that one of the few places to get cooler as the climate warmed was the north west coast of Europe...ie us :-(

There could be a little ray of hope for coming summers as la Nina looks likely to be replaced by El Nino. 

Forecasts of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies for the Niño 3.4 region (5°N-5°S, 120°W- 170°W). Figure courtesy of the International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate and Society. Figure updated 15 May 2012. (Nicked from NOAA)

The chart shows that about half the computer models show ENSO neutral (approx 0.0) conditions while the others show a move to temperatures above the long term average ie El Nino conditions.

That could mean better summers for us, with the possibility of some heatwave conditions. 1997-98 and 2003-4 were strong El Nino years and in Blackpool at least were the hottest years on record, 2003 hitting 33C for a couple of days....if we get El Nino next year will the mercury somewhere in the UK soar to a scary, but as yet unreached, 40C?

Where to next? Event in the town centre tomorrow - supposed to be outside but we reckon it'll be moved inside...don't fancy trying to hang on to display stands in 40mph winds.

In the meantime let us know if it's stopped raining in your outback yet.