Ascension : The Weather Report - Met Office
Submitted by The Islander (Met Office) 10.05.2012 (Article Archived on 24.05.2012)

You might have noticed that the moon seemed unusually bright over the weekend,

Statistics for the week ending Monday 7-May-12 

	Max (Celsius)	Min (Celsius)	Rainfall (mm)
AIRHEAD	30.8	26.0	Trace
TRAVELLERS	30.2	22.8	0.6
RESIDENCY	28.6	19.4	3.4
GEORGETOWN	31.2	24.4	0.0
ST. HELENA	22.8	16.8	4.8
FALKLANDS	11.4	3.1	9.5
UK (Brize Norton)	16.2	2.7	19.4

Past Week’s Weather

UK

A wet and windy start to the week, although more settled across northern areas. Further rain for the end of the week with some snow in exposed areas as the temperatures dropped below average for the time of the year before settling down again for the end of the weekend.

Falklands

A windy start to the week with gusts in the range of 50-60 KT, along with some rain and mild temperatures. Drier with some sunshine for the end of the week and the weekend, although overcast with drizzle for Sunday into Monday with somewhat lighter winds.

Ascension

A fairly dry week with temperatures slightly above average for this time of year, even with a couple of pretty cloudy days in the middle of the week. Light winds in general.

St. Helena

A rather cloudy week with a couple of showery days at the beginning of the week. Light winds once again.

Supermoon, compiled by Lotta Hottaire

You might have noticed that the moon seemed unusually bright over the weekend, and you might have thought that your eyes were playing tricks on you….. However, on Saturday night the moon was at it’s closest point to the earth (356, 955 km away) since March 2011 so it appeared bigger and brighter than usual. The moon won’t be that close to the Earth again until 10 August 2014, and the closest moon in the 21^st century (356,421 km away) will be 6 December 2052, so we have a while to wait yet!

When the moon is closer to the Earth the effect of the gravitational pull is also accentuated, this means that the tidal range will be larger than usual with an especially high high tide and an especially low low tide.

Crown Copyright 2012. Met Office.

Met Office  Ascension Island Base