The weather-based long range plans for your astronomical expedition

Cloud fraction global map NASA

If you are an astronomer, astrophotographer, or even amateur tourist, you have some dreams about long-haul trips for sure.  Quite often these trips are such long-range plans, because of our financial situation or spare time available in the foreseeable future.  In astronomy or astrophotography, these plans are mostly determined by rare celestial events, which often … Read more

Upload vector layers to Windy.com in order to check the weather for your trip

KML layer at Windy.com

It’s been about half a year since Windy.com launched an option to upload .kml, .gpx and .geojson files into the weather map. It happened thanks to the Leaflet-kml plugin, available here. Apart from the Leaflet Javascript API map software, where we can use this plugin for loading our own .kml files, we can add them … Read more

Short heat plume with record-breaking temperatures

UK Heatvawe 2019

Late July is usually the hottest period in Europe, especially in the countries located further from the Atlantic influence. Unless we are talking about the areas, that lie close to the western shore, then the highest temperatures fall in August usually. Living in Poland I always deemed this period of the year as something like … Read more

Top 21 things to see during solar eclipse

Total solar eclipse 2017 Wyoming Riverton

At the finish of my considerations about the solar eclipse phenomena observations, done during the last total solar eclipse in the USA as well as another few partial solar eclipses, which I have been fortunate to witness in my life, I would like to summarize all things and put them in one piece. I was … Read more

Photography of the Sun through a natural filters

Sun through fog

Gazing at the Sun with the naked eye is dangerous. Much more dangerous is watching the Sun through instruments like binoculars or telescopes without a filter! It causes serious eye damage, which is a retina burn and blindness for the rest of your life. Basically, there are two types of solar filters: white light and … Read more

Should Mediterranean people be prepared for a tropical cyclone?

Mallorca flood

In this article, I would like to try to answer the question in the title. I based my suggestions on the last weather patterns, that used to happen in the Mediterranean region for the last several autumnal periods. Besides I was  (un)fortunate to experience similar weather phenomena during my stay in Mallorca in December 2016. … Read more

Horizontal visibility as the main factor of long-distance observations, part 2 – contrast, human perception and weather forecast

Bryce Canyon horizontal visibility

In the 1st part of this article, I have explained the relationship between visibility and weather conditions as well as an astronomical factor and light scattering issue. Now I would like to explain the contrast phenomena and human eye perception of the view, which are also integral elements of long-distance observations. Recently the contrast issue … Read more

Horizontal visibility as the main factor of long-distance observations, part 1 – weather, astronomical and optical elements

Navajo Mt Horizontal visibility

This article is sort of a continuation of issues related to light scattering in the Earth’s atmosphere as well as haze presence. These subjects are closely associated with each other, so some stuff presented here can be pretty much similar and it will be developed on the grounds of my previous articles. This 2-partial article … Read more

The hottest summer in Britain and Europe

Cambridge Park & Peace drought 2018

Being abroad in Great Britain I was fortunate to witness the hottest summer, that ever occurred in the British Isles. Because I am from Poland, in this article I would like at least a bit to compare last British Summer with the Polish one and say a little bit about this summer in general, referring … Read more

Why the haze is an important weather factor, part 2 – impact on visibility and light scattering

Haze impact on light scattering

This writing is a continuation of a whole article about haze as an important weather factor. Previously I have described the basic types of haze and I drew attention to the impact the atmospheric aerosols on human health. Now, in terms of the continuation, I would like to describe the impact of haze on the … Read more

Why haze is an important weather factor? part 1 – types of aerosol and impact on human health

Inwersja widziana z Karkonoszy

People when checking the weather forecast usually focus on standard weather factors like temperature, pressure, wind, precipitation, and cloud cover. There are weather elements important in our day-to-day life, unlike other elements like dew point temperature, humidity, haze level, etc. In this article, I would like to describe the importance of haze in forming weather … Read more

Light scattering in the Earth’s atmosphere part 3 – clouds, haze and surface

Light scattering on clouds

Previously I have described the light scattering mechanism on the smallest particles of the Earth’s atmosphere, where mainly the Rayleigh Scattering plays a role. Now is the time to round off this whole article and say something more about a different group of elements, that also contributes to the light scattering process. There are bigger … Read more

“Beast from the east” a nightmare for British people

Beat from the east Cambridge UK

“Beast from the east” is the common British expression for the wintry air mass, that comes to Britain mainly from the east or northeast. It happens when a big land-based high-pressure system is coming to Eastern Europe and bringing arctic air mass from north-west Russia (The White Sea or the Ural Mountains) to Central and … Read more