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Weather or climate? (again)

As someone whose mood is quite significantly affected by the weather, I have to say that I'm feeling rather grumpy and irritable right now.

Although the late spring and early summer were great, things have gone to hell in a handbasket of late and according to the latest forecast, they're not predicted to get better any time in the next week or so.

In fact, our weather has been so bad that even the BBC reported on it today.

According to one report, the reason we're seeing such a lot of rain and unsettled weather right now is because of higher than normal sea temperatures down in this part of the world.

This, combined with an unstable polar vortex has seen frequent clashes between humid airflows and cold arctic ones. When humid air meets cold air you get a lot of precipitation, thunder, lightning and other bad things.

However, New Zealand isn't the only place where we're seeing weather extremes. Across the UK and Europe we've seen powerful storm systems wreaking havoc and in parts of Russia there have been near-record snowfalls that have burried entire towns.

The climate change folk have been warning us for a long time that climate-change will play out as greater extremes of weather. I looks as if they weren't too far wrong.

I'm sure that climate change will be high on the list of topics at the WEF meeting taking place right now. All those "movers and shakers" won't be happy if their private jets have to divert from their holiday destinations because of bad weather resulting from climate change so I have no doubt they'll come up with ways to force the poor people to reduce their carbon emissions.

With no return to those glorious sunny, calm 25+ degree days in sight, I'll simply cross my fingers and hope that February will see a return to the summer I long for every year while huddled in the cold and dark of winter.

In other, only vaguely related news, it seems that space weather is also getting pretty stormy right now. That G4 solar flare that hit earth earlier this week supposedly created some pretty impressive auroras. What a shame that 100 percent cloud-cover robbed most of us in this part of the country from observing the beauty of such an event.

Apparently the solar cycle is now beginning to wane but experts predict that there could still be a few more significant events before things really start to quiet down so fingers crossed that clear skies and CMEs coincide next time.

Carpe Diem folks!

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