Re: Weather And Latitude Are Not Allies

It's right enough, there is a public conception that latitude controls the
weather. I used to live in Aberdeen and people down south would say "it
must be cold up there in the winter". Well, I've also lived in Southend,
Essex and I would say the winter temperatures in those two places are about
the same despite the latitude difference. I'd be interested to know just
what the January mean temps are.

Ian Bingham.
Inchmarlo, Aberdeenshire.


<xikom01@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:7d2df2ab-9f0b-4dae-8c9b-68313d68e871@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
There is a popular assumption that if you move to higher latitudes
(toward the poles) you can escape the heat, and that by moving to
lower latitudes (toward the equator) you can escape the cold.

The equation is simple. But is it real? If it was, then the most
northerly capital, Reykjavík, would also be the coldest...at least
until they establish a country on Antarctica. Yes, it appears that
latitude is slacking off and failing to keep temperatures in line.

This was brought home to me when preparing for a radio interview in
Dublin, Ireland. February had just roiled in and I was sitting back
comfortably in my good old Ottawa weather, scraping icicles off my
toes. I was giddy with excitement over our warm spell, which it was
reaching a high of minus-5 (that's about 20-degrees American). I
always ask questions the day before an interview, to learn a bit about
my audience, so I asked the producer, "So what's the weather forecast
in Dublin?" asked.

"Oh it's horrible," she told me. "People are bracing for a deep winter
freeze that's supposed to hit tonight. It might even get as cold as
minus-5!"

This blew me away, that the folks in Dublin would be worried about the
thermometer dips as low as ours spikes high. After all, isn't Dublin
about the same latitude as Ottawa?

I whipped out my trusty atlas. We live almost exactly on the 45th
parallel. If we lived exactly on it, we would have to share our bed
with a cow and a dozen chickens across the road - that's how close we
are.

I turned the pages to find Ireland. Could I have been mistaken? Is
Dublin really quite south of us? No, it turns out that Dublin lies at
the 53rd parallel. Hey! They should

http://www.dontplayplay.com/html/Humor/20060929/25512.html


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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Weather And Latitude Are Not Allies
    ... lower latitudes you can escape the cold. ... latitude is slacking off and failing to keep temperatures in line. ... Dublin, Ireland. ... comfortably in my good old Ottawa weather, ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: Weather And Latitude Are Not Allies
    ... lower latitudes you can escape the cold. ... Dublin, Ireland. ... I am at latitude 54.5N in the UK and so far this winter we have hardly ...
    (sci.astro.amateur)
  • Re: Summer travel to Europe - Hints
    ... I don't know what parts of France you believe have the same weather as ... Paris is about the same latitude as the 49th parallel. ... And the gulf stream effect is even more ...
    (rec.travel.europe)
  • Re: nasal m and n
    ... Don't know, haven't been there in years, too cold and rainy. ... Every year this season I bitterly ask myself why my parents didn't think ... of emigrating to a lower latitude country. ... A friend of mine once told me of a camping site in Germany where the girls didn't mind showering nude in front of everybody, but we're not so lucky here.) ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Its getting WARM out...
    ... Sometimes the cold up here is easier to handle than the heat. ... the overnight LOW was 88 degrees. ... Latitude: 33.6 ... Longitude: -112.3 ...
    (rec.birds)