Glidemet

Today ended up a bit “mixed”. It actually turned out better than forecast in places such as Wales and western England, but I was surprised that Booker got a task in with around half the field getting round. The center of England was really spoiled by a big old patch of spreadout that refused to go.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) sadly continues the spreadout theme, though this time it will be locally home-grown stuff rather than old warm front advecting in. Bases to 3,0-3,500 ft with considerable spreadout over most of England and Wales, with sea breezes pushing into the southwestern peninsula, and sea haar along the eastern coasts (not getting inland though). It’s not clear how much the spreadout will develop—-should be some gaps and cycling in there, so maybe taskable. Wales looks the best area where the spreadout should be least. Winds minimal, but now from the southeast as the high oozes from the English Channel to the North Sea.

Not really been managing a look-ahead so far this week, so here’s one, though it’s a “mobile” situation and confidence isn’t great. The southeasterly flow is bringing in nice dry air (think about where it’s coming from, and what the gliding is like over there…). Thursday thus should be decent high bases in the south and east, with the damper air pushed back into the north and west. Friday had been looking quite good but now it seems a low comes in from the west; maybe the east will be OK. Wouldn’t like to say about the weekend.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) doesn’t look much use at all, with a weak warm front lying over the south of the country and rather moist air behind, leaving lots of stratocumulus (i.e. spreadout) at low heights, 3,000 ft or less.

On the other hand, Wednesday looks useable, and Thursday might be OK too if some expected cirrus doesn’t arrive too soon.

Tomorrow (Monday) looks a good day with the caveat of still a rather high wind at height. The reason for this is that the low pressure system just east of Scotland is refusing to move away into Scandanavia as they usually do, instead, it’s sinking south through the North Sea and is in no particular hurry to fill.

As a result the wind at 3,000 ft will be around the 20 knots mark, just a little lower than the last few days, still from the northwest. However that aside the airmass will be much, much better than in recent days with much less moisture and little or no spreadout expected. Cumulus will start early and reach 4,000 ft in the east of England up to just east of the Peak District by 11am. Elsewhere (including East Anglia) 3,0-3,500 ft by 11am. Bases east of about Isle of Wight—Lakes and west of Wash—Sheppey will reach 5,000 ft around 1pm, and 4,000 ft elsewhere (including from the Lakes themselves down into the southwest). The only place where it will be poor is just in the Cheshire gap, though not extending far inland at this point. Cloud bases continue to crawl up another 500 ft or so over the next hour, but the area affected by sea air streaming from Liverpool Bay will quickly start to extend inland, perhaps as far as the Cotswolds by 3pm. The air in this area will be blue and low, down to about 3,000 ft at best. Southwest England will be suffering a bit too by then.

At 5pm that influx of sea air will have killed much of the area from Cheshire to the Thames Valley, but east of that area bases will still be around 5,000 ft with decent climbs. Wales and southwest England will also have succumbed to sea air by this point. A thin strip of cumulus from the Peak down to London should hang on even as late as 7pm.

So, nice airmass, shame about the wind (responsible for pushing Irish Sea air into a goodly part of the country).

More on the rest of the week later. Probably.

Tomorrow (Sunday) looks an OK kind of day, with cumulus going past 3,000 ft in most places by 11am and quite probably higher than that by then around Cambridgeshire and along the south coast. Cloudbase should top out at 3,5-4,000 ft, best in the south, though there will be considerable wave influence once again into central England downwind of Wales. Wind 10-15 knots from the northwest at the surface, going to the low twenties again at height (same direction). That wind might actually increase towards the end of the day. No risk of showers.

In central areas Monday should be pretty good, with current cloudbase forecasts of around 5,000 ft; northern England won’t be far behind. More general cloud may effect the east and west coasts. The wind will be much lower too, around 15 knots at height.

Tuesday, though we’re still under a high, isn’t looking too clever with rather a lot of cirrus and not a great airmass. Wednesday looks better.

Tomorrow (Saturday) will scattered showers over the whole forecast area, with western parts having the most cloud. The showers will have cloud bases of around 3,000 ft or a little more, and there should be cumulus in between. Wind 10-15 knots from the west at surface, and a brisk 25 knots or so from the same direction at height.

Sunday looks quite tricky now with quite a lot of fairly large and tall cumulus with bases of around 3,500 ft expected (not unlike last Sunday). Monday should be better with smaller cumulus to a higher base, though northwestern parts might suffer from a little more general cloud.

BTW I have done a personal post mortem on Wednesday so hopefully that particular error won’t happen again. From the comments and from what I’ve heard elsewhere the airmass beneath the cirrus was just what it was forecast to be, but (having looked at some solar radiation meters) the cirrus reduced insolation from the 900 W/sq m typical at this time of year down to 500 W/sq m—-more like an October day.

Competition News update
I’ve update it to now include news from the Booker Regionals (the British Team news will vanish in a day or two). As far as I know no-one is blogging the Bicester or Northern Regionals, so their website won’t be getting the benefit of over 500 more hits a day through being featured on Glidemet :p .

So, was yesterday’s forecast the…

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Tomorrow (Thursday) not particularly interesting, mostly cloudy and a bit moist at times. Wind about 10 knots from the west at the surface and around 15 from same direction at height. Friday the same.

Saturday sees showers for all, driest in the south east. Sunday looks dead good (no really, it does. No cirrus or anything!). The following week looks far better than recently.