Glidemet

The feature of today is that clearly was a properly high inversion level over a wide area, with Larkhill’s extra 1000z balloon and the Chilbolton and Wattisham profilers all nicely showing the level where a rising thermal would meet air as warm as itself to be around 8,000 ft. Of course, that’s a long way for a parcel of air to go without getting itself mixed up with the air around it, and the bottom the clouds I could see over the Thames Valley today didn’t look crisp. The invaluable comments on flights yesterday also suggest that the thermals were fairly weak for their height and that the parcels themselves were of more limited vertical extent, with blue thermals in between older clouds. It doesn’t help that we’re still being plagued by cirrus which is taking insolation down just a notch or two. The cirrus seemed to grow in situ during the afternoon which can’t have helped.

Cumulus-wise there was plenty around though somewhat inside the area I’d described (and it was very blue in Wales!), with bases slightly lower (~4,500 ft) in the west than towards the east where METARs (at least those I’ve checked) were reporting CAVOK all day.

Tomorrow’s (Tuesday’s) forecast is for a day pretty much identical to Monday, with cumulus to 5,000+ ft from the Chilterns southwest to Devon, and pretty much blue everywhere else. Wales should get cumulus but then I said that yesterday and look what happened . Haar on the far east coast too—-hopefully it won’t reach poor Tibbenham (I was at the Juniors last year and think I’m scarred for life now!). In the blue areas the inversion is forecast to be around 4,5-5,000 ft in the Midlands area, while over East Anglia the North Sea’s influence drags it down sharply to sub 3,000 ft levels. Climbs again widely spaced and of variable strength.

No forecasts for the rest of the week as my internet connection appears to think it’s 1973.

In Other News
There’s a new AIS website, said to be a bit simpler to use.

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