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Hi Harry,
I never heard that condition expressed as a “hosepipe” ban – over here in the U.S. we just place “water restrictions” on personal uses such as washing cars, watering lawns, etc. Very interesting!

And what is a “gorse fire” on the Glenshane Pass? Never heard that term “gorse” before.

Whatever the case, we are both having uncomfortably hot temps. We may top the 35°C mark for our Sunday and Monday high temps… Right now it is about 32.5°C (90.3° F – just converted in my head )

Stay cool and hydrated! I am living in the A/C here in my apartment.

Cheerio!
Kevin

The reason why hosepipe bans are called hosepipe bans comes from the drought of 1976 when the Government actually passed a law preventing the use of hosepipes for anything and since then the term has stuck for any regulation that prevents the free use of water, although actually the problem is not the lack of water (there’s plenty around) it’s the speed at which the water is being used that is the problem (with people up hills experiencing low or no pressure)

Gorse is a type of flowering shrub found on hillsides (or in our case here on the sides of cliffs) and just like any other type of brush when it dries it burns very easily

https://www.rspb.org.uk/globalassets/images/reserves/minsmere/gorse1014210.jpg

What are the major causes of these fires? I am sure the tinder is quite dry this time of year to help start the fires. Do you have very many lightning-induced fires? Or are they mostly human-caused, cigarettes, barbecues, kids horsing around, etc? My friend Marty’s next trip over here will, among other things, bring over a lightning detector. He got one for himself, and of course Ray already has one. With all the heat you are getting, I would think all that daytime heating would help generate some air-mass thunderstorms, unless you get stable marine breezes that would inhibit/stifle development. Thanks, Kevin

The main priority for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue at the moment is to put the fires out. The investigation into the cause will not start until that has happened and will probably involve Greater Manchester Police as well as the fire service. It is also possible that Tameside council (the area of local government that covers that area) may be brought it to establish what management controls need to be brought in to prevent another fire of this magnitude.

I think it is more than likely to be human related, as this heat has been very dry heat (humidity levels have been very low over the last few weeks) however it will be for the police and fire service to determine whether this was malicious (arson) or just an accident (that the people who caused it feel ashamed about and don’t want to come forward to admit it)

That’s a very good question actually as I cannot find any actual recorded data. All I know is that in the seven years we lived at our own house I can genuinely only recall one thunderstorm (and that was in October 2014)

Love that picture Brie! Such a nice variation of landscape and colors! And clouds too!! We are headed into a heat wave as we start July this weekend, and I am not looking forward to it. Your highs of upper 60s to around 70 sound wonderful! Keep up the great reporting! Cheers, Kevin

Over in the US a heat wave is defined by three straight days of excessive heat, usually considered to be 90 F (32 C) or greater. With global warming causing hotter summers the past several years, this threshold had less meaning, and should be extended to 5 straight days, IMHO. In DC, the normal average high in July is now about 89 F, so we can “normally” be in a heat wave almost more often than not. I pull for high temps of 80 F or less, and also cloudy days to help keep the temperature down. Some of the TV forecasters here locally in the DC area are calling for the next 10 days or longer possibly to have max temps of 90 or greater. I sure hope they are wrong. And more often than not, when the temp reaches 90 the dew point temp is often at 70 or more most of the time. We can get nighttime min air temps well up in the 70s (35 C) and occasionally at or a bit above 80 which is totally miserable. Often the dew point can be a good indicator of how low/high the overnight min will be. Ray tells me that the dew point temp at 3 PM can oftentimes help predict what the overnight min temps will be. Fronts, clouds, winds can put the “kabosh” on these predictions, however. Thanks for posting about these fires! We sure have our share of fires over much of the US, and “dry lightning” out west can really cause a major outbreak. Cheerio, Kevin

As I said in my post the current British definition is so complicated it might as well not exist. My personal feelings are that a heatwave should be defined as “at least 48 hours where the maximum temperature is 20% higher than average during the day”. For instance, the average temperature in the UK at this time of year is a maximum of 18°C (64°F) and a minimum of 8°C (48°F). Under my suggestion as soon as the daytime highs reach 22°C (72°F) a sliding scale of heatwave alerts is triggered. Level 1: 22°C – 25°C, Level 2: 25°C – 29°C, Level 3: 29°C – 32°C, Level 4: 32°C or more. Each level has a response based on local circumstances, so for instance a Level 1 alert would see care services speak to older people about how to keep cool where as a Level 4 alert would see that area of the country essentially shut down.

Thanks for your excellent post, Harry on your recent (lack of significant) weather and that you will be using your new thermometer for charting upcoming daily variations (or lack thereof) in your climate. It will be interesting to see how well your new thermometer performs. Have you been able to find a hook or nail to hang the thermometer from? I gave Ray your email – he is also limited in funds and space at his apartment so he has a real appreciation of that. I didn’t talk to him on Saturday. Our wet patterns at the same time of your Omega block dryness of May and June (so far) are logical – we were on the other side of the Omega block with warm, moist air coming in on SE winds off the ocean. Late this week upcoming it looks like a mini-heat wave to finish out the month of June, with high temps into the mid 90s (around 35° C) by the end of the week. Ray’s and my friend Marty has been reporting temps increasingly more frequently in metric units. Other units of measurement will be changing over later. I am at a stage where I still have to convert, I cannot “think” metric if you know what I mean.
Thanks again and have a great rest of the weekend!
Kevin