Weather page on Poltava-Astro website

[Roman White]

I have announced my statistic weather observations in this topic, and now I have uploaded a bit of that on my site.

Let me introduce my weather page.
Now it is a single page, completely dedicated to weather in Poltava. It consists of:
- weather forecasts (web-services, not mine  )
- weekly weather descriptions
- a bit of statistics
- my most recent weather photos (since November)
- some weather highlights
- link to NLC page

Next is what I plan to add there in the nearest future:
- more statistics (since 2006)
- reports on several events of severe weather
- links to my weather photography archives

Updated 2-3 times a week.

Please comment 

[martinastro]

Nice info Roman. Glad to hear you have introduced a new weather page on your site. It's great to see astronomers taking an interest in the weather!. The two subjects go hand in hand, however not always to our advantage - but that's why it's fun. 

[Roman White]

Thanks for your reply, Martin

[John9929]

Looks fine to me Roman, plenty of info on there. I was very interested in the temperature readings, and it should be interesting to see how your's differs from our's over the winter period.

[Roman White]

Glad you liked it, John 

I was very interested in the temperature readings, and it should be interesting to see how your's differs from our's over the winter period.

I bet you'll like this...   

[John9929]

Gosh that's cold The last time I remember being in temperatures like that was 1976 when I spent 4 days in Moscow about this time of year and the river was frozen over, I think it was down about -14 and never rose above it, and that was cold enough for me.

[Roman White]

I haven't been to Moscow (&anywhere in Russia BTW) but the minimal temperature I've experienced was ~ -30C (at home) nearly 10 yrs. ago.

Things like that occure when (during the winter) high pressure areas from NE (Arctic ocean either Siberia) occupy the great part of E Europe, sometimes getting far south.
But in recent years it happened only several times: 2006 Jan, 2006 Feb and 2008 Jan (much milder). I don't know whether it's a sign of global warming or it's just an anomaly of those years.

But everything is OK with winter in Siberia.  Already -20 to -40C in the most part of it. Watch forecast http://weather.msn.com/localmaps.aspx?&wealocations=wc%3aRSXX0077&q=Novosibirsk%2c+RUS&map=1
I have just read a post from Alexander Kaplinsky on astronomy.ru forum, he reports (in Barnaul 53°21' N, 83°45' E) nighttime -32C and daytime -20C. Here is also his  photo with frozen Ob' river

BTW, I like winter very much 

[brianb]

Things like that occure when (during the winter) high pressure areas from NE (Arctic ocean either Siberia) occupy the great part of E Europe, sometimes getting far south.

Tongues of polar continental air sometimes reach the UK too - they don't often persist for very long, but I well remember winter 1962/3 when then temperature stayed below freezing day and night from mid Jan to early March, in fact in Derby we had a fortnight when the temp stayed below -10C. The river Derwent, which is nowhere near the size of the Ob but quite a respectable river by UK standards, froze hard enough for people to drive cars on it. Milk in third pint bottles froze in my classroom between being delivered at 9am and being served to us at 10:30! We were allowed to wear our coats in class as a concession to the unusually low temperatures - the heating wasn't very good as the school was built in 1827 and the heating system was original! Oh, and the railways which were scrapping steam engines & replacing them with diesel had to go back to steam as the diesel engines wouldn't start in the cold temperature (the fuel froze) and couldn't supply enough steam for the carriage heaters.

[Roman White]

Interesting story, Brian.

Can you imagine my emotions, when I'm writing about the winter, and it is actually December, but outside there is +7C, overcast & foggy for the 4th day in a row, and on Friday I may have +15C !!  poor winter

[Roman White]

I made the diagram of snow covering presence, based on observations from Dec.2005 until now.


I want to hear some comments about your winters comparing to this.

P.S. The previous winters were poor with snow (only 2005/2006 worth something), so this diagram doesn't represent what I wanted to see. This winter also doesn't seem to be rich with snow, but who knows...

[Roman White]

Today the first test of my new meteostation completed.
Here are the results




Now a little more testing & adjustments and I'll try to start new set of observations since the new year. 

[martinastro]

Those are great records Roman! 

[Roman White]

Thanks Martin. Those were only test measurements, but the device is very useful indeed.