Max (Celsius)

Min (Celsius)

Rainfall (mm)

AIRHEAD

28.0

21.9

Trace

TRAVELLERS

27.0

20.9

0.1

RESIDENCY

n/a

n/a

n/a

GEORGETOWN

28.9

21.4

NIL

ST. HELENA

19.8

14.9

1.0

FALKLANDS

9.8

-1.5

9.6

UK (Brize Norton)

      23.6       

8.5

8.8

UK

Generally unsettled with wet and windy conditions across the country. High pressure built in from the south on Friday bringing drier but still rather cloudy weather for the weekend.

Falklands

Low pressure lying to the southeast of the islands brought generally cool conditions at first this week, with occasional rain and sleet. Thursday onwards saw milder weather return briefly.

Ascension

It’s been dry but cloudy week with overcast skies well into the afternoons and a few sunnier spells breaking through later on.

St. Helena

Also dry with only a few isolated showers on Wednesday. Generally cloudy in the mornings but sunnier in the afternoons.

Members of the diving community on Ascension are I’m sure very aware of the chilly sea temperatures we’ve been experiencing over the past few weeks. A nippy 23C (73F) -well nippy for Ascension standards- has been observed lately, proving we are well in the midst of winter! This cooling however is merely seasonal, as an overall warming of tropical sea temperatures in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans is expected over the next year. This slight warming is called El Niño, a periodic change in tropical oceans, which has been proven to have a huge driving effect on many long term weather patterns around the world. The atmosphere and the oceans are far more linked in the tropics than anywhere else on the planet due to the lack of the Coriolis Force (the force behind the rather exaggerated phenomenon that water goes down a plug hole the opposite way round in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres) allowing a strong coupling between the behaviour of the weather and the seas in these regions. Such changes in weather patterns include drier conditions in Australia leading to an increased risk of bush fires, fewer Atlantic Hurricanes and warmer and drier winters as far away as Canada. Warmer and wetter conditions are also observed in western South America which can increase the spread of grape diseases causing vast wine crops to fail. During the El Niño period of 1997-98 the price of Chilean wine alone went up by 10-15% so stock up on your Merlot and Exportiόn before the year is out!