Ascension : The Met Office Weather Report
Submitted by The Islander (Met Office) 03.11.2011 (Article Archived on 17.11.2011)

Long before Dorothy & Toto and the ‘Wizard of Oz’ came on the scene, it was noted by some that chickens would lose all their plumage if they were ever caught up in a tornado.

Statistics for the week ending Monday 31-Oct-11

	Max (Celsius)	Min (Celsius)	Rainfall (mm)
AIRHEAD	28.1	19.9	5.3
TRAVELLERS	26.8	19.4	15.7
RESIDENCY	23.5	16.7	19.3
GEORGETOWN	28.4	20.9	4.9
ST. HELENA	19.7	13.5	11.6
FALKLANDS	20.3	0.4	0.8
UK (Brize Norton)	17.1	2.9	18.0

Past week’s Weather

UK

Changeable would be a useful word to describe conditions across the UK with Atlantic weather fronts affecting many areas on most days. Thursday was a particularly wet day with a deep depression swinging northwards across the Bay of Biscay bringing outbreaks of heavy rain to many areas. 

Falklands

Surprise of the week is the really balmy conditions on the Falklands on the last day of the month. A strong breeze from the South American continent pushed the relative humidity down to a low of 30% and the temperature up to a very pleasant 20.3!

Ascension

A rather cloudy week for Ascension Island, with rain showers on most days. As usual - a notable difference between the Georgetown area and the Residency with more than four times the total of the former falling over Green Mountain.  Despite the cloud & the rain it was still warm with the daytime maximum at the airbase close to the long term average of 27° Celsius.

St. Helena

Quite a windy week on St. Helena this week with the south-east trade wind making its presence felt on most days. Showery too, showers were also recorded on most days – although these were generally light. Sunshine was at a premium with just over 20 hours for the week.

Have you ever wondered?

Long before Dorothy & Toto and the ‘Wizard of Oz’ came on the scene, it was noted by some that chickens would lose all their plumage if they were ever caught up in a tornado. Many had wondered what the required wind speed would be to completely pluck all the feathers from a perfectly healthy chicken. One American professor by the name of Elias Loomis decided to find out – so one day back in 1845 he hired a cannon for the day and bought a dozen chickens from the local market. Unfortunately on his first attempt he used slightly too much gunpowder and no trace of the chicken could be found! But as he refined his measurements and his calculations he eventually determined, within an acceptable error band, the maximum wind speed inside a mi-western tornado. And the result? He came to the conclusion that it was somewhere between 300 & 320 mph.