WeatherQuest

This week on our exploration of our favourite weather phenomena we have cirrus clouds! ☁️

Cirrus clouds are one of the highest types of cloud, located at around 6 – 12 km above the earth’s surface. They are formed when dry air rises, and what little water vapour is held by it undergoes deposition, changing directly from a gas to a solid (ice crystals). The process is catalysed by the presence of mineral dust, organic aerosols and metallic particles.

To read a bit more about the clouds and how they form, head over to our article on them using the link below:

https://weatherquest.co.uk/weather-phenomena-cirrus-clouds/

Weather Phenomena: Cirrus Clouds - Weatherquest Cirrus clouds are one of the highest types of cloud, located at around 6 – 12 km above the earth’s surface.

Next up on our 25th Anniversary celebratory series of our favourite weather phenomena is radiation fog! 🌫️

Fog is caused by the same mechanism in which clouds are formed, but close to the ground - moisture in the air cools and condenses to form suspended water droplets. In order to be called fog, the number of these suspended droplets needs to be dense enough to reduce visibility to below 1 km. There are many different types of fog, each with different formation processes, including:
Radiation fog, Valley fog, Advection fog, Upslope fog, Evaporation fog, Freezing fog and Coastal fog. 🌁

Radiation fog specifically is a common type that mainly occurs at night during autumn and winter in the UK. As with all visibility limiting weather, our society can be greatly impacted by it, potentially increasing the number of accidents and slowing services to a standstill. ⚠️

To read more about radiation fog specifically and dive deeper into how it is formed and the impacts it can have, head over to our article using the link below:

https://weatherquest.co.uk/weather-phenomena-radiation-fog/

Weather Phenomena: Radiation Fog - Weatherquest Fog is formed by moisture in the air cooling and condensing to form suspended water droplets that reduce visibility to below 1 km.

The May stats have been released by the Met Office, so let’s take a look back at the very unusual month!

There was a very clear pattern of sunshine across the UK, with the South and East having the most sunshine hours at between 110-130% of the long-term average, with very few spots in these regions receiving just over 130%. Other specific areas that received 110-130% of the average sunshine included the Dee and Mersey estuaries and the Llŷn peninsula. More broadly, the Southwest, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Scottish borderlands all received around average sunshine. North of the Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland received less than average sunshine at between 70 and 90%, whilst the Isles of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides received even lower at 50-70%.⛅

It was a very dry month for those in East Anglia and the South as large areas received below 50% of the average rainfall. Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex had the least rainfall, with areas receiving below 33% of the average, with the east coast of Norfolk and Suffolk receiving below 20%! A large belt across the centre of the UK spanning from Yorkshire to North Wales received around average, with the North York Moors and Durham areas actually receiving upwards of 175%. Rainfall in Northern Ireland was also around average. For most of Scotland, the rainfall was below average remaining around 50-75%. The Orkney and Shetland Isles received slightly above average at 125-150%.☔

Temperature will be something on most people’s minds when talking about May, and for good reason. For much of the month temperatures were below average across the UK, and using data from our office weather station, the average temperature before the bank holiday was around 1°C lower than average. However, the rest of the month was incredibly warm, and the temperatures the UK received over the bank holiday were record-breaking, providing two consecutive days with the hottest max temperatures recorded in May, both exceeding 10°C above the average. The maximum temperature recorded was 35.1C in Kew Gardens, whilst the highest minimum temperature was 21.4°C overnight at Camborne in Cornwall. The sheer heat from this heatwave brought the monthly average temperatures up to between 1.5-2.5°C for most of England and Wales. Northern Ireland, North Wales, northern England and most of Scotland were at 0.5-1.5°C greater than average by the end of the month. Only northwest Scotland was at or below average temperature for May.🌡️

June looks likely to start out relatively unsettled and showery, before settling and turning drier by the middle of the month!

We are very excited to say that we will be at the Holbrook Open Farm Sunday, 7th June, 2026!

Woodlands Farm at Holbrook, Ipswich, are hosting an open day of farm tours to show and tell which crops are being grown and how, whilst looking after the environment. The event will have, tractor-and-trailer rides, machinery on display, a farm shop, BBQ and ice cream, and a ‘Shed of Industry Experts’ containing representatives from chemical/fertiliser companies, machinery dealers, grain and potato markets, and other allied industries to ours, ready to answer questions from the public!

Our very own Chris Bell will be manning a stand within this shed, ready for questions about the weather, how it is changing and its impacts on agriculture.

For tickets and more information, head over to the website below:
https://www.trybooking.com/uk/events/landing/110761

We are looking forward to seeing you there!

Holbrook Open Farm Sunday 2026 Come on down to Woodlands Farm for our third Open Farm Sunday event, and this year will hopefully be even better! We’re a small arable family farm,...

Continuing our 25th Anniversary celebrations, here is another instalment of our favourite weather phenomena, this time on hoar frost!

Hoar frosts are a type of ground frost that mainly occur on cold and clear nights, especially during winter, and result from surface temperatures being below freezing. They produce frosts on most surfaces and create landscapes with a very picturesque wintry feel!

To read the full article, use the link below:

https://weatherquest.co.uk/weather-phenomena-hoar-frost/

Weather Phenomena: Hoar Frost - Weatherquest A hoar frost is a specific type of ground/surface frost that mainly occurs on cold and clear nights, especially during winter.

For our second instalment in our 25th Anniversary Weather Phenomena celebrations, we will be looking into nacreous clouds!

Nacreous clouds, otherwise known as mother-of-pearl clouds, are a very rare iridescent type of cloud known as Polar Stratospheric Clouds (PSCs). They form in the stratosphere, 15 to 25 km above the polar regions when stratospheric temperatures drop below -78 °C, therefore mainly during winter. Being made of very fine ice particles, they scatter sunlight to produce clouds with a luminescent and iridescent appearance, long after the sun has set!

To find out more about them, have a read of our full article using the link below:

https://weatherquest.co.uk/weather-phenomena-nacreous-clouds/

Weather Phenomena: Nacreous Clouds - Weatherquest Nacreous clouds, otherwise known as mother-of-pearl clouds, are a very rare, iridescent type of Polar Stratospheric Cloud (PSC).

As part of our 25th Anniversary celebrations, we thought we should celebrate the weird and wonderful world that is the weather by going through some of our favourite weather phenomena. In a sub-series of articles, we will be going into the details of how they are produced and provide some examples, so keep your eyes peeled over the coming weeks!

As a nice start to the series, we will be looking at quite a few peoples’ favourite, snow! 🌨️

Snow is one of most transformative weather conditions we have in the UK, making the environment look completely different when it settles. Depending on where it falls, and how much, it can cause disruption for many. ⚠️

But what actually is snow? How does it form? How often does it fall in the UK and how much do we normally receive? To find out, head over to our article using the link below:

https://weatherquest.co.uk/weather-phenomena-snow/

Weather Phenomena: Snow - Weatherquest Snow is one of most transformative weather conditions we have in the UK, making the environment look completely different when it settles.

The first article in our 25th Anniversary celebration series is out now!🌦️

Weather Forecasting: 25 Years Later

A lot has changed in the forecasting world since WeatherQuest’s inception, with massive advancements in technology, understanding of processes and number/availability of observations.

Development of Numerical Weather Prediction models has increased both accuracy and spatial resolution of forecasts. Combining this with ensembles has allowed these forecasts to reach out even further into the future, making them more useful for planning operations ahead of time. This has also been bolstered by the increase in number and type of observations worldwide, simultaneously aiding the accuracy of climatological studies and verification. And now with the development of AI models in the forecasting sphere, the world of meteorology is always changing!

To find out more, and learn about how WeatherQuest uses these advancements, read our article using the link below:

https://weatherquest.co.uk/weather-forecasting-25-years-later/

Weather forecasting: 25 years later - Weatherquest A lot has changed in the forecasting world since WeatherQuest’s inception, including advancements in technology, processes and observations.

Some big news from us!

This year, WeatherQuest are celebrating our 25th Anniversary! 🎉🎈🎂

To celebrate this wonderful milestone, we will be publishing a series of articles/posts on our website and social medias, looking into how meteorology has changed over the last 25 years, our favourite weather phenomena, and some big weather events WeatherQuest has experienced and forecast for clients. These will go up alongside our usual monthly stats and current weather-related posts.

Starting tomorrow, there will be a new post each week, with the first being a look back over the last 25 years and how meteorology has changed. So, keep your eyes peeled for that!

Finally, we want to send a big thank you to everyone that has been part of WeatherQuest’s journey throughout the years. To our clients, customers and partners, our followers online, work experience and university students, and our past and present colleagues, WeatherQuest would not be where it is today without you.

Here’s to 25 years, and hopefully many more to come! 🥂🍾

Now that meteorological Spring has arrived, let’s take a look back at the last month of Winter with the February Met Office monthly stats!🌱

There was a strong latitudinal relationship with temperature, with the anomaly decreasing northwards. Across much of the South, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, the anomaly was between 2.5°C and 3.5°C. This decreased down to 1.5°C-2.5°C in the far Southwest, Wales, the Midlands and the East. Much of the rest of the UK had temperature anomalies between 0.5°C and 1.5°C. Only parts of Aberdeenshire, the northern Highlands, Skye, the Outer Hebrides and Orkney had around average temperatures, with some parts of Shetland being slightly cooler than average. 🌡️

It was a very wet month, with most of the UK receiving more than average rainfall. Along the south coast, across the Midlands and in parts of Northern Ireland and eastern Scotland received more than 200%, with surrounding areas dropping down to >125%. For north Wales, Lancashire and Cumbria, the anomaly dropped to around the average, whilst parts of eastern and northern Scotland had below average rainfall, dropping as low as