Ascension : Met Office - Weather Report
Submitted by The Islander (Met Office) 15.12.2011 (Article Archived on 29.12.2011)

A mobile westerly regime dominated the weather across the United Kingdom last week

Statistics for the week ending Monday 12-Dec-11

	Max (Celsius)	Min (Celsius)	Rainfall (mm)
AIRHEAD	28.7	21.0	0.1
TRAVELLERS	28.4	19.5	0.1
RESIDENCY	23.4	16.9	3.4
GEORGETOWN	29.9	21.4	0.0
ST. HELENA	20.9	13.3	18.8
FALKLANDS	19.6	2.4	3.1
UK (Brize Norton)	12.0	-1.0	11.4

Past Week’s Weather

UK

A mobile westerly regime dominated the weather across the United Kingdom last week .At the beginning of the week temperatures dropped quite sharply across Scotland & northern England and there was some heavy falls of snow with night frosts for many areas.

Falklands

West or north-west winds from the South American continent brought reasonably sunny skies to the Falklands last week – and reasonable temperatures too. Top temperature of the week was a very pleasant 19.6 last Saturday with overnight minima above freezing and in some cases – well above. At 3.1 mm it was drier than the Residency here on Ascension!

Ascension

The end of the ‘drizzly showers’ season seems to be in sight with only 0.1 mm recorded this week at the Airhead; none at all in Georgetown just a little smattering at the Residency – 3.4mm. Temperature on the up too with Georgetown just nudging 30° with the Airhead not far behind on 28.7°C.

St. Helena

As per usual the south-easterly trade wind blew moderate to fresh for much of the week and there were showers on most days. Friday was a notable wet day when low cloud led to fog over the hills and there were outbreaks of heavy rain at times.

Interesting Missive, compiled by Wind E Banks

Continuing on from the unsettled weather across the United Kingdom as outlined above, Thursday was a particularly stormy day across Scotland. A deep depression tracked eastwards across the Northern Isles and in the circulation around it brought some fierce gusts to the Scottish mainland; 105 mph was recorded at Tulloch Bridge with an incredible 165 mph at 1245 metres above mean sea level on the summit of Cairngorm mountain. Thursday’s mid-winter storm was described by one senior fire officer as the worst he’d seen in 20 years of service. The hurricane-force winds brought down trees, closed roads and schools and knocked out power supplies to 150,000 homes across Scotland. The last time a storm of such ferocity struck Scotland was in January 2005 when a similar depression tracked eastwards bringing gusts of 106 mph to the Outer Hebrides. On this occasion an entire family were blown with their vehicle off the island of Barra and into the sea!