BBC news has reported that 40,000 homes are still without water in Northern Ireland after the recent spell of freezing temperatures. Many have been without water for more than 10 days, and reservoirs are being drained due to an unprecedented number of leaks since the thaw. Calls to a few friends confirmed that, yes, it is bad – friends in Lisburn have been without water since Christmas Eve due to a frozen mains supply (i.e. not in their house); others in Belfast report low water pressure. Water is being rationed in places.
Was it really that cold? A search of the BBC site revealed “‘Baltic’ Northern Ireland” tucked away on the BBC NI news page. Castlederg in the West of the province recorded a low of -18°C on 20th December – a new record. The thing about Ireland is that it sits on the very western fringes of Europe, bathed by the warm Gulf Stream (which is why Doug Keenan considered the 7000 years of Irish tree ring data so important that he pursued Queen’s University through FOI requests). Ireland, despite its latitude, just doesn’t do ‘very cold’ (or ‘very hot’ for that matter).
When I first got interested in climate I ended up corresponding with Tonyb about the temperature records of the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland. These stretch back to 1796. Incidentally there are a couple of WUWT posts featuring Armagh in the last year (here, here and here). How does this current cold month compare with the historical record at Armagh? Was the recent cold unprecedented?
The currently incomplete December record for Armagh consists of raw data – three automated readings per hour. Rather than waiting until they calculate the December average I looked for nearby stations on Weather Underground and found Glenanne PWS, about 15km to the SW of Armagh. The average temperatures for the two stations over the month of November is plotted in Figure 1. This gave a good linear fit (R^2 = 0.889) with an offset – Armagh being on average colder by just over 1°C.
Figure 2 shows the December data for Glenanne on the same scale. Up to the 28th December, the monthly average is -0.86°C. Mild conditions are expected for the next three days and, if I plug the forecast max/min (29th 8/6; 30th 8/4; 31st 6/2) into my spreadsheet to complete the month, the monthly average rises to an estimated -0.23°C for Glenanne, remembering that this is an approximation for Armagh, which is typically colder.
In the Armagh historical record, which I have for 1796-2002 from [1] the average temperature for December is 4.9°C; January average is colder (4.1°C). There are just two individual months colder than December 2010: January 1814 (-2.2°C) and January 1881 (-0.9°C) which puts this one as the third coldest on record at Armagh (2010 might yet tie with 1881 when the actual average for the month is published).
Coldest months according to the Armagh record:
- January 1814 -2.2°C
- January 1881 -0.9C
- December 2010 -0.2C
- February 1855 0.0C, January 1963 0.0C
- February 1895 0.2C
- February 1947 0.4C
- January 1985 0.5C, December 1878 0.5C
The list above also puts it in perspective with respect to other extreme years in living memory – most notably 1963 and 1947. According to the Armagh records none of the coldest months in these years saw such extreme cold as the Christmas period this year. The Arctic cold cut though the mild Atlantic air this year resulting in a monthly average 4-5°C below normal (Figure 3).
Even without all the warming we have been led to expect 😉 December’s cold probably can be described as unprecedented. I’ll await with interest the actual December figures for Armagh (and those from the Met Office). As for this being caused by global warming – bull – it was just an extreme weather event. They happen. Go back >100 years and they happened then too.
Reference
[1] C.J. Butler, A. M. García-Suárez, A.D.S. Coughlin and C. Morrell. Air Temperatures at Armagh Observatory, Northern Ireland, from 1796 to 2002 Int.J.Climatol. 25: 1055-1079 (2005) [Full paper]
UPDATE – from the Daily Mail (h/t Spectator in Tips & Notes). Looks as if this will be a similar record in other parts of the UK too:
“Met Office figures show that the average temperature from December 1, the first day of winter, to December 28 was a bitter minus 0.8c (30.5f).
This equals the record December low of 1890.”
The article goes on to point out that December is rarely the coldest month in the UK and a continued cold spell could beat the record set in 1683-84 of -1.17C.
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Barry Woods says:
December 30, 2010 at 12:49 am
The Daily Mail is reporting, that because of the Big Freeze, lots of new boilers are breaking down, because of the low temperature..
Here in South Western Pennsylvania an area known as the Laurel Highland, it’s common to see temperatures well below freezing during the winter months. In my 61 years, I have seen temperatures dip to -17 F (-27 C) in December and as high as 69 F (20.55 C), the extreme in both directions. Most heating contractors generally size heating appliance based on heat loss of a home and the outside ambient temperatures we might expect to see over the winter. Living here in South Western Pennsylvania it is best be prepared to see temperatures in the single digits at sometime during the winter months. I remember my father saying, plan for the worst and hope for the best. When I was a kid that inferred having a good stock pile of wood and coal in the basement.
WHY THE BOILER FREEZES
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1342357/Central-heating-break-big-freeze-Heres-.html#ixzz19aD80oer
The one thing that stands out in this article, is why the installers or the manufactures would recommend taking the plastic condensate pipe to a outside drain pipe exposing it to the elements. However if you live in an area where freezing is rare, that may be common practice. All the condensing boiler I have seen installed here in my area, the plastic condensate pipe drains to an inside waste drain.
des332 says:
December 30, 2010 at 3:33 am
the Guardian only has around 300,000 – 100,000 (down from 10 years ago).
Pretty soon we won’t have the Guardian to kick around anymore.
Ecrotratas,
I actually watched the Beebs polar bear show, expecting it to be full of gw nonsense…but…but…it wasn’t. It was bizarre. I actually stopped what I was doing and started listerning very carefully…but it didn’t really ‘go off on one’ like I expected it to.
For sure, it was the usual natural history nonsense, assigning human emotions to animals, projecting etc. And it did make me laugh when its storyline ran concern for the mother bear left stranded on Svalgard when the ice retreated (but no GW hysteria) as if it was a desperate plight of one bear that missed the bus…but then introduced loads of other bears who seemed quite well fed…I suppose the bbc does not do irony.
But overall, as a window piece for GW alarm……it did not follow the mantra.
I’m actually quite shocked. In a nice way. Maybe there is hope for the BBC yet…
First a disclaimer: My weather station is not ideally sited (no where on my property is) and the results should not be used in any decision making process.
I’m on the East side of Northern Ireland at 54 deg 31′ 55″ N and 6 deg 02′ 21″ W.
So far this December the temperature has ranged from +9.2 C (yesterday) to -13.6 C (morning of 21st but recorded as 20th since before 09:00 UTC). This latter was the lowest temperature I’ve recorded since I started keeping records in 1993.
More significant, in my opinion, was the continuous frost between 13:08 UTC on 17th and 09:38 on 26th. I’ve never recorded a frost of anything like that duration before. Snow that fell on 16th and 17th kept its powdery structure until the thaw on 26th.
However, now the Atlantic seems to be back in charge, temporarily at least.
Incidentally, the minimum corresponded with a total eclipse of the Moon on the day of the Winter Solstice. Maybe the IPPC can find an alarming link there.
Much of the coastline of southernmost Norway, which is also bathed in the Gulf Stream and has an average temperature around 0C in December, ends up around 8-9C below the average this year. For most stations this is 1-2C below the previous records, and some stations have records going up to 150 years back.
This follows November, which also broke most records.
Now that’s cold when you have to keep your boiler wrapped up in a warm blanky. The new regs on diesel are just as crazy. Here in Wallowa County, Oregon, diesel tanks now have a sticker on them saying they can no longer guarantee freeze proof diesel. Why? Green additives. So now we hook up heater blocks to electricity to warm up with engine block before starting it. Thus adding to our already rising electricity bill. And why is that rising? Required green additives.
The way I see it, eventually, dems won’t be seen in any governmental building for at least 30 years. The party has destroyed itself. 2012 can’t come soon enough. Maybe it is time for impeachment, censorship, and just plain tar and feathers over dereliction of duty. I for one have had enough and 2012 is too far away.
About the condensing boiler failures: it appears that nobody has taken into account the environmental footprint that is the consequence of prematurely scrapping 1.2 million boilers and having to build and install their replacements. On top of this is the environmental implications of the coercive adoption of boilers that have a noticeably shorter service life. All this to save a 10-15% in fuel costs. This is economic and environmental madness given that the whole exercise is justified solely on reducing CO2 emissions. What we do know about CO2 is that there is a positive correlation between it and crop yields. The issue of temperature forcing is still an open debate, at least amongst open minded people.
Are the published global temperature records, along with their adjustments, peer reviewed?
Isn’t this a hole in the process? If the temperature sets are not peer reviewed, how can anyone know that the underlying methodology in collecting, compiling and adjusting the sets is corect? There could very well be errors that were missed due to lack of peer review.
Doesn’t this call into question any published papers that use the data? The result could simply be GIGO, based on unfounded assumptions. Until there has been a peer review, how can anyone trust the published records?
Actually, this cold weather is much more extreme and much more unprecedented than you imply.
In the UK, we do not do cold Novembers and Decembers – Jan and Feb perhaps, but not Nov and Dec. You may need to check this with the records, but I think you are comparing apples and oranges, if you are judging this December against previous Januaries and Februaries.
It will be interesting to see what Jan and Feb 2011 bring, now that the North Sea is much colder than normal, having already cooled off with six weeks of freezing Siberian winds.
.
If water mains are freezing, this means they have not been buried deep enough. Utility crews know what the “frost line” is and nobody would think to dig a trench any less deep. This is one of those “everyone knows” in the culture of people who run backhoes. It comes from experience. After all, who wants to have to fix a line in bitter cold weather? I thus look on the news of widespread mains freezings as anecdotal evidence that the current cold weather is outside the experience even of the generation of those who wrote the construction standards in effect at the time the mains were laid.
NB: see this detailed discussion for one midwestern state: http://climate.missouri.edu/news/arc/feb2010.php
Denmark:
The so far coldest december was 1981 with an average of -4,0 degrees C.
Around 26 dec this year, the december average was – 3,7 degrees C.
However around 28 dec, on Danish TV weather news due a prognosis of a few more cold days, the speaker made clear that this december would definetely break the 1981.
So for now, best prognosis is: December will be all time coldes in Denmark.
K.R. Frank
Glow Bull Worming has already destroyed most of the annual winter crop of fruits and vegetables throughout most of FL, with the possible exception of strawberries. (The farmers turn on their sprinklers to give the berries a nice coating of ice to keep them at a balmy 32F, at least for a few hours, unless the wind is blowing too hard or the freeze lasts too long.) If your area usually gets its winter produce from FL, be prepared for your fruit, vegetable and orange juice prices to skyrocket in the next few weeks. Orange juice prices have already hit their 3-year high mark and we’re only a week into “winter”.
It would be interesting to have one of WUWT’s statisticians do a little research on the state’s historical temperature data and tell us Floridians if we should be getting ready to move to Hudson’s Bay for surfing or start building ski lifts on the sides of our infamous gypsum stacks. 😉
Yep, I agree, the problem isn’t the boilers, the problem is the piping of the waste water line. You could A. insulate it B. Run it inside ( though I understand lots of older british houses run waste plumbing onthe outside of the house!) C. Install a water line heater for the 5 days a year it’s that cold. D. Pipe some hottish waste water down it from time to time.
What amazes me the Lisbon MAIN line freezing. How the heck does that happen? Seriously. Do you know hard it is to freeze running water in pipe? You really have to work at it.
And: “reservoirs are being drained due to an unprecedented number of leaks since the thaw” Errr… that’s just bad civil engineering, what the heck kind of reservoir is affected a few days of weak ice, and leaks so badly as a result that they have to drain it?
I was just saying how much the North Sea had cooled over the last six weeks. Well, the Irish Sea has also cooled too – it now has ice-floes in it! This is how unprecedented this Nov and Dec freeze is here.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1342731/Welcome-frozen-wastes–Cumbria-Freezing-sea-creates-eerie-wilderness.html
And these cool seas will do nothing to keep us warm when the cold Jan and Feb months hit us, like they would usually.
And
Buckwheat – you mention a ‘frost line’ for water pipes. Errr, N Ireland does not have a ‘frost line’, it never freezes there. This is how unprecedented this freezing is – nobody even dreamed of buring the pipes deeper.
.
vukcevic says:
The BBC Bear programme was ………bearable, just, containing as it did some palpable mistruths and subliminal rather than overt AGW deceptions, complimenting the mawkish sentimentality that overlays any furry animal report.
As to the CET, how can any sane person reading the Met graph come to a conclusion that unprecedented catastrophic Global Warming is ocurring?
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/graphs/HadCET_graph_ylybars_uptodate.gif
Presented with this, even the intellectually challenged ragbag of career politicians that sadly now have become the incumbents at Parliament would not be fooled into believing the crap.
I had never before noticed the cathartic qualities of snow. It muffles the footfalls and sounds of everyday living whilst silencing the clamour of fools.
I wonder if anyone has worked out how much more expensive it’s going to be for all those folk with new condensing boilers that now have to keep them on all night to stop them icing up? Of course that only works down to a certain temperature. After that the drain pipe tends to freeze up and eventually the boiler will cut out automatically. A huge rush in the UK for insulation for the pipes has also meant a shortage of insulating materials. But then I guess that’s why they call it living memory. All my pipes are insulated because I can recall the last long cold winters. No doubt folk have also been forgetting to insulate or drain outside taps and pipes in Northern Ireland.
Pamela Gray- 16F at my place in Union Co. (S. LaGrande, a little bit of UHI heated
area-three schools , one hospital all with steaming physical plants. I am awaiting the
City Plow/sander with bated breath. I will turn blue with lack of O2 and cold at the
same time, if I do….
Being from an old UP Railroad family I wonder if UP (Union Pacific ) is using the Bio
crap diesel? they have a couple of SD-45 antiques that the local yard uses for right
of way maintenance . They sit a lot, not running, out in the switch yard. What happens if the diesel is gelled in the tanks and you need to plow snow? I also wonder about the local Governments and the snow removal effort along with oh busses,
and other govn’t vehicles this is worth following…
theBuckWheat says:
December 30, 2010 at 6:57 am
About the condensing boiler failures: it appears that nobody has taken into account the environmental footprint that is the consequence of prematurely scrapping 1.2 million boilers and having to build and install their replacements. On top of this is the environmental implications of the coercive adoption of boilers that have a noticeably shorter service life. All this to save a 10-15% in fuel costs. This is economic and environmental madness given that the whole exercise is justified solely on reducing CO2 emissions…..
Ditto the car scrappage scheme. The position in the States may have been different but here in the UK, the government introduced a subsidy (because of the economic problems) to subsidise the purchase of new cars when scrapping a vehicle over 10 years old. This was promoted on its enviromental credentials of reducing CO2. However, the difference in fuel economy between a 10 year old vehicle and a new one is only a few miles per gallon, probably less than 7%. The enviromental damage/CO2 footprint in building the replacement car and scrapping the old car far out weighed any reduction in CO2 emissions due to better fuel consumption.
In any event, if the politicians really believed in CO2 emissions from vehicles having a significant impact, they would overhaul the traffic light system so that traffic is kept running rather than needlessly held up at lights when there is no traffic on the other road. At night all traffic lights could be set to flashing amber for caution. Likewise, public transport other than rush hour service taking people to work and home from work would be scrapped. I do not know what the average occupancy of a bus is but where I live, it is unusual to see more than 10 passengers on a bus, 5 to 8 would be typical and only 1 or 2 not uncommon. A bus puts out about the same pollutants as 30 small cars. It is crazy to have buses driving around most of the day with only half a dozen people on board. This is exacerabted by traffic problems caused to other road users by buses and bus lanes which increases journey times for cars and thereby needlessly increases the CO2 emissions from cars due to extended journey time. There is no grown up thinking in any of this, but what can you expect from polliticians.
If I recall correctly, a new world record high, wherever it occurs (apparently imminent a year or so ago) according to Hansen et al, was going to be the final proof of global warming being upon us. How would a new world low fit into the picture?
Will this be the first Frost Fair on the Thames since the last LIA?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs
We would like to know from our friends in the UK, the following: How are those new tall Wind Mills, recently installed there, working under this obvious consequence of Global Warming?, how many pollutant “fossil fuel” power centrals will you shut down this year?
Have you noticed, while watching you every morning in the mirror of your bathroom, that you are becoming every day greener and greener, though a bit kind of grayish lately?
La Niña moves into Atlantic. Could someone (please, please!) close Panama Canal’s sluice gates, we are freezing on this side.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
Barry Woods says:
December 30, 2010 at 12:49 am
So the message is clear: if you have an old boiler, provided it is working properly and is serviced regularly, you are almost certainly better off keeping it until it is beyond economic repair. Parts will be cheaper, it will be less likely to break down and there is no danger of it stalling on the coldest night of the year.
Our 18 year old boiler had problems during the recent cold spell, and the plumber commented that the prices of spares was going up significantly as the manufactures want you to scrap your old one and buy their new shiny ones.
However, Barrys sentiments are correct, the life of the new boilers is only about 10 years according to our plumber, which is about how long it takes to get your money back.
On a different note we have just had our house fitted with cavity wall insulation, virtually for free, thanks to HM government throwing money at these green projects. Well worth investigating I would say, as I never thought we would be eligible for anything.
Ohh, whilst I’m on – I have just had an e-mail from our local Chief Inspector wanting those of us with 4×4 ‘Chelsea tractors’ to volunteer to help get his police officers to work should the need arise again.
So, on the one hand, you are a social pariah for driving such an anti green car and are made you pay though the nose for the privilege, then, on the other hand, the state wants you to volunteer your ‘dirty’ car to help the local plod get to work.
It must be part of that big society I keep hearing about.
I’m an avid reader of WUWT and enjoy all the banter at the end of each news story that is put out. However, at some point all this banter is not going to change the fact that the LUNATICS have not only taken over the asylum but they are hell bent on sending us all back into the fricking Stone Age (via ice age).
We can all have a chuckle when it comes to the green boilers breaking down but at the end of the day there is going to be a real human cost with these junk scientists driving an agenda that is destructive. How much human suffering will it take before the public says enough is enough? How many lives will it take or how much personal property is confiscated before the altar of Al Gore’s religion is smashed to bits?
Sorry guys but I’m more pissed off today because of the duplicitous people we’ve all put in charge. Just seems that everyone can see that the emperor is butt-naked but the emperor just doesn’t give a damn and presses on.
It just seems as though there is no hope to reverse all this insanity!