January 6th, 2025

Hi All,

Well Happy New Year and all that and welcome to 2025 😊

What a start to the year meteorologically-speaking as we have gone from muggy, dull and mild weather to winter proper and probably the longest run of cold weather likely in January than we have had for a long time. Meanwhile across the Atlantic, parts of America struggle in record low temperatures and snowfall. Last night we picked up 18.5mm of snow / sleet / rain and the local rivers are at bursting point again.

We have though passed the Winter Solstice (December 21st) and are gradually making our way back towards better weather (hopefully). I don't know why but I have a sneaky feeling this summer will be a hot one, just a hunch. The image above from the Sun Seeker app shows today's sun arc in yellow just above the light blue line showing the arc of the sun at the Winter Solstice. Little steps like....

Yesterday, I fly fished Rutland Water in the afternoon, it was 1°C with not a breath of wind, small Black Midges were hatching and I managed 3 Trout, chilly at first but by the time I packed up in darkness, it was 8°C. This is the beautifully-lit Normanton Church that sits on the banks of Rutland Water.

I followed the tweets from The Met Office yesterday forecasting snowfall across the U.K and felt very sorry for them. They were lambasted by people (presumably with a dominant entitlement gene) if the forecast was inaccurate, when in reality it was a very difficult meteorological situation to call.

A southerly-biased low pressure system pushing moisture into dominant cold air sitting across the U.K, not just moisture though but very mild air as well. Some places like The Midlands saw snow followed by a murky drizzle, other places just got snow and others rain. It was entirely dependent on the shape and progress of that mild air and in reality that was too difficult to call. Damned if you do, damned if you don't neatly summarises the Met Office's situation and they (along with other weather forecasters) have my sympathy.

I charted out the air temperature yesterday from a number of locations and you can clearly see where and when that mild air arrived and where / when it didn't.

Look at the Worcester location, it climbed nearly 10°C in the space of an hour ! Forecast that accurately I ask you ?

Last night, the BBC reported the coldest of the year in Loch Glascarnoch (a beautiful Loch in the Central Highlands sitting next to the A835) at -13.3°C vs. 11.4°C in St James Park, London, that's a 24.7°C temperature differential across the U.K !

Before I get into the weather in more detail, now is a time to prioritise looking after wildlife so please feed your birds and as importantly. put out some water for them. My Blackbird contingent sit in the trees around my back garden and whoop enthusiastically as I turn on the kitchen light in the morning. One dominant male always lands on the door handle to ensure that their feeding is above mine !

I counted 21 Blackbirds at first light along with Pied and Grey Wagtails, Greenfinch, Dunnock, Robin, Great, Blue, Coal and Long Tailed Tits. I love watching them, they give so much back (apart from the Pigeons and Squirrels that is !)

General Weather Situation - w/c 06-01-2025

Well, it is a very complicated situation but for places that have suffered severe flooding, like The North West, there may be some drier weather on the way that'll allow you guys a chance to dry out somewhat.

So after a cold and snowy (in places) start to the month, how are we looking for the rest of the week ? Well this week is dominated by cold, low pressure systems, a predominantly chilly westerly / north westerly airstream and mid-week, a southerly low pressure system that skirts the south coast of the U.K, before high pressure begins to assert itself at the end of the week / weekend. Told you it was complicated.

So Monday looks potentially the wettest day of the week for many areas as that low pressure system pushes wintry showers across the southern half of the U.K. Also the north west of England will see further showers of rain unfortunately. As we progress through the day, this mix of wintry showers will push eastwards and exit stage right across The North Sea. It will be pretty windy for the 1st half of the week and so with low temperatures and cold air sitting over the U.K, Ireland and Denmark, they'll be a pronounced wind chill. For example, currently it is 2.4°C in Milton Keynes, but the wind chill is -1.4°C !

I am duty bound to mention Denmark where I think we will see these snow, sleet and rain showers pushing across Jutland for the 1st half of the week, some of them moving east across Funen and Zealand. Initially I think with a south westerly / westerly airstream, most of the showers will be rain and sleet but later in the week, as that high pressure begins to exert an effect, the wind will turn northerly and it'll be drier as well as colder.

Back to the U.K & Ireland, a potential fly in the ointment pops up mid-week as a low pressure system skirts the south of England. This could introduce a mix of snow, sleet and rain into The South West and South Coast later on Wednesday. Elsewhere I think we should be mainly dry on Tuesday through to Friday, bitterly cold with a pronounced wind chill as commented above. Some showers likely to affect The North West though. I expect frosts all through this week, increasing in severity as we go through the week.

The next one to watch is Thursday pm into Friday am when an Atlantic front will push into the south west, south and south east of Ireland falling as a mix of rain, sleet and snow on its leading edge, as it butts up against cold air. This will also affect South Wales and The South West before fizzling out. One to watch.

So a complicated weather picture this week, predominantly dry, cold and frosty with some interlopers popping up to queer the pitch. As we approach the week, high pressure begins to exert itself, so the winds calm down, temperatures will stay on the low side and the frosts will continue. This high pressure looks to dominate through the weekend into next week, settling the weather picture down nicely.

Weather Outlook - w/c 13-01-2025

So next week is much easier for me to articulate from a weather perspective because we have a stable high pressure system calling the weather shots. From Monday, I think it'll become a little milder, probably 6-7°C day time temperatures and maybe staying above 0°C overnight dependent on cloud cover. Now across Ireland I think you'll pick up some southerly, milder winds which could introduce a bit of disease pressure from Microdochium, more on that later. For the U.K and Denmark, very light winds, probably a mix of cloud and sunny intervals and again, a little on the muggy side.

As we move into Tuesday, things get harder to forecast as we see the formation (shown above in the tropicaltidbits.com GIF) of a huge cut-off low pressure system. Firstly it means easterly winds for the south of Ireland, England and Denmark and of course more in the way of cloud cover. It may also mean the formation of showers pushing across the southern half of England and Ireland from The North Sea. Further north, away from the effects of this low pressure system, it'll be more settled. Now we could also see some significant rainfall across southern Europe, Italy, Spain and the like. At this stage, I don't see major effects from this low pressure system for England, Ireland and Denmark, so hopefully a pretty stable, dry week, staying cool with that easterly air steam and on the dull side. Not bad all things considered but forecasting the behaviour of this type of weather system is tricky, so it may well change yet.

If I Mystic Meg it towards BTME 2025, I think we will see low pressure gradually push that high pressure aside from the west, so wetter and more unsettled for Ireland and then across the U.K for Harrogate week. A perfect formula to sit in Betty's and savour a Flat White and Fat Rascal I think :)

Agronomic Notes

A bit of an advert first I suppose, I am doing a talk at BTME in the free seminar section entitled 'Everything you want to know about weather stations'. It takes place at 12pm in Hall 3 on Tuesday 21st of January. I look forward to seeing you all there, no heckling please :)

Ok onto disease pressure....

So you may remember in one of my December blogs, I flagged up the potential for Microdochium pressure over the Christmas period courtesy of a high pressure system (shown above) that threatened to pull up mild, humid air from southern Europe.

Well on the run up to and over the Christmas period, (when I was bored) I have been working hard on disease modelling and finally pulled together my model for Microdochium nivale in a format that I am happy with. So here is the readout for December from my model and it picks out the activity periods accurately. This model is based on actual data from a Davis weather station, in this case it is based at our default location @ The Oxfordshire. So it isn't a predictive model, which of course has its own merits, it is based on real-time data.

Unlike the Smith Kerns model (which showed zero over Christmas because the data fell below its pre-set temperature range of 10-35°C for Dollar Spot), my model works on an accumulated score basis compiled from a specific subset of climatic factors which includes leaf wetness, utilising data from the Davis Leaf Wetness Sensor.

At the moment I have chosen a borderline level were I expect to see activity around established scarring this time of year and you can see how we nudged up to it between 24th December through to the 30th December.

You can also see how we got pretty close yesterday as air temperatures rose rapidly. On other locations, we pushed above the borderline level yesterday so I would have expected to see the familiar smoke ring around an existing scar as shown above. Reading through the Facebook pages (bored again) I found a lot of comments about disease activity up to and over the Christmas period including many bemoaning the efficacy of applied products.

As I have commented on before, there are certain periods of time when climatic factors promote fungal growth faster than control options (pesticides) can reduce it.

It was also that way 10 years ago (and 10 years before that) when we had much stronger pesticide options but even they couldn't halt the growth of Microdochium nivale during such periods of weather. Now the period over Christmas was quite a concentrated one with 7 consecutive days of disease pressure.

Sometimes it isn't outright disease pressure, more the cumulative effect of consecutive days of pressure that allow the fungus to continue growing. The period over Christmas was one such period, with dew reforming even after it has been removed during the day.

So yes it is a pain, but I can assure you it would be 100% worse if you hadn't made a dew dispersant / non-pesticidal / pesticidal application. We have to live with it and so do our members in terms of expectation levels. Personally I think Microdochium isn't our worst foe anymore because most of the activity takes place at a low point in the playing calendar. The in-season diseases like Anthracnose and Dollar Spot are more of a threat / issue because they occur during that August - September period when play levels are at their highest.

Ok that's me for this week, wrap up well this week.

Mark Hunt