Ascension : Met Office Ascension Island Base - The Met Office Weather Report
Submitted by The Islander (Met Office) 23.02.2012 (Article Archived on 08.03.2012)

UK Northerly winds bringing a cold start to the week

Statistics for the week ending Monday

20-Feb-12

Past Week’s Weather

UK

Northerly winds bringing a cold start to the week, along with rain and occasional snow showers, especially in the north.  Turning milder with outbreaks of rain for a time from Wednesday, but a further cold snap affecting the south on Sunday.

Falklands

Windy with scattered showers to start the week, with a gust of 38kt recorded on Monday.  More unsettled through the rest of the week and into the weekend with a combination of wind and rain, but generally mild.

Ascension

A mainly dry week with only the odd shower, but cloudy for the most part.  Despite that Travellers Hill recorded the highest temperature of the year at 30.9C.  Most of the rain fell during persistent showers on Sunday afternoon.

St. Helena

A wet start to the week with plenty of showers and low cloud, 10mm of rain being recorded on Monday.  Drier from Thursday with some long sunny periods and light southeasterly winds.

Tidal Ranges compiled by E Penguin

A tidal range is the vertical height difference between a high and low tide.  Tides themselves are mainly caused by the pull of the sun and the moon on the ocean, combined with the rotation of the earth.  The range of the tide is a combination of this along with smaller factors such as the shape of the coastline.

Burntcoat Head in the Bay of Fundy on the east coast of Canada has the highest tidal range at 11.7 metres.  This is mainly due to a narrow inlet into the bay.  By comparison, the tidal range on Ascension is around 1 metre although this varies slightly around the island.

Interestingly, the pull of the moon on the tides is slowing down the rotation of the earth, so a leap second needs to be added to all the world clocks at irregular intervals.  Given a few billion years the earth’s day would be as long as it’s month. 

However this is unlikely to be the reason that your watch is wrong.

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Met Office  Ascension Island Base