Société Jersiaise

Meteorology Section

Notes following a meeting held on Wednesday 17th April 2019 at 8pm

Present: Caroline Leach, Christiane McCarthy, Christine Gill, Darlene Hewett, Frank Le Blancq, Georgia Le Maistre, Jennie Holley, Margaret Cabot, Roger Long, and Sue Hardy.

Apologies: Alan Le Rossignol, Eileen Lorche-Thomesen, John Clarke, Richard Perchard and Dorothy Vincent.

Admin: 1) Thanks went to Darlene for organizing a successful lunch for the Section on 30th March at St Brelade’s Bay Hotel.

2) Following Alistair Crosby’s offer to SJ Sections of a double page spread in Rural magazine, the Chairman has submitted a piece on weathervanes, through the SJ Office. It will probably appear in the September issue.

3) The Section was updated on the recent Chairman and Secretaries Meeting. Routine matters apart, it mainly covered the position of Valérie Noël as our Library Administrator and Patrick Cahill who has just joined the Photographic Archive. He also has skills in print preparation which should be very useful with SJ publications.

4) Members were encouraged to attend the SJ AGM on 25 April and were reminded that the lunchtime lectures are being held every Wednesday until 5 June.

Members Contributions: FLeB started by mentioning a recently purchased book ‘Where the winds are’ by Nick Hunt (2017). As yet unread it, the blurb suggests a good read, describing walks through areas affected by the Helm, bora, mistral and foehn winds.

JH also mentioned two books she has read. ‘Rouge Waves’ by Michael Olagnon (2015) published by Aldard Coles is a very good translation from the French. It deals with the technical aspects of waves without equations which is very useful for the layman. It is lavishly illustrated and a few minor niggles apart, she summed it up as a very interesting read. ‘Island on Fire’ by A Witze and J. Kanipe, who are both science writers, deals mainly with the eruption of Laki in Iceland in 1783 and its effects on weather and health in Europe and beyond. It covers other eruptions including the 2010 Icelandic eruption which closed European airspace. It is non-technical and described as an easy and interesting read.

CM stated that she was listening out for the cuckoo, an increasingly rare event in Jersey. She had heard one in April last year (several other people heard it too). I note that one was reported singing near the top of St Peter’s Valley on the 19th, according to the Jersey Birds website.

CG brought along a copy of the 1968 Climate Report published by the Jersey Met Office. Sadly the report ceased to be published in the 1990’s. Following comments on the rainfall figures, a discussion ensued about the current state of rainfall and the effects of the deficit last winter. Of interest the 10 months since May 2018 have all had less than the long term average rainfall.

Local information: The Chairman showed JEP cuttings from the last 3 months: several pictures of a heavy hail shower on 30 January - the closest we came to winter in 2019; cuttings emphasizing the good potato crop conditions: the record breaking warm weather in the last week of February, which was also became the sunniest February on record. There were several reports of the good position of reservoir levels for the time of year. One must hope this is not mere propaganda in view of the last 10 months deficit (May 2018 – March 2019) noted above.

Weathervanes: The Chairman showed another set of weathervanes photographed since the previous meeting. Well over 200 have been recorded and the hope is to put these in a couple of photobooks in the coming months. We had a short discussion on whether they should be ‘weather vanes’, ‘weathervanes’ or ‘wind vanes’ as consulting dictionaries and other books does not provide a definitive ruling. The consensus was weathervanes.

The Chairman also showed a number of cloud photographs taken over the last three months.

Final thought: I recently came across the word apricity, defined as the warmth of the sun in winter. Apparently it has been around since the 1600s, but it doesn’t trip off the tongue and I can see why it is only found in one dictionary - the spell checker has flagged it here.

Many thanks to all who attended our meeting. Apologies for any errors or omissions which are mine alone, as are any opinions expressed.

Next meeting: Wednesday 17th July 2019 at 8pm.

Photos Above - a classic anvil on a Cumulonimbus cloudBelow – an unusual weathervane in La Rue de Godillerie, Trinity

Frank Le Blancq – Chairman - SJ Meteorology Section – 23 April 2019