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      Meteorological effects of the solar eclipse of 20 March 2015: analysis of UK Met Office automatic weather station data and comparison with automatic weather station data from the Faroes and Iceland

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          Abstract

          Here, we analyse high-frequency (1 min) surface air temperature, mean sea-level pressure (MSLP), wind speed and direction and cloud-cover data acquired during the solar eclipse of 20 March 2015 from 76 UK Met Office weather stations, and compare the results with those from 30 weather stations in the Faroe Islands and 148 stations in Iceland. There was a statistically significant mean UK temperature drop of 0.83±0.63°C, which occurred over 39 min on average, and the minimum temperature lagged the peak of the eclipse by about 10 min. For a subset of 14 (16) relatively clear (cloudy) stations, the mean temperature drop was 0.91±0.78 (0.31±0.40)°C but the mean temperature drops for relatively calm and windy stations were almost identical. Mean wind speed dropped significantly by 9% on average during the first half of the eclipse. There was no discernible effect of the eclipse on the wind-direction or MSLP time series, and therefore we can discount any localized eclipse cyclone effect over Britain during this event. Similar changes in air temperature and wind speed are observed for Iceland, where conditions were generally clearer, but here too there was no evidence of an eclipse cyclone; in the Faroes, there was a much more muted meteorological signature.

          This article is part of the themed issue ‘Atmospheric effects of solar eclipses stimulated by the 2015 UK eclipse’.

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          Author and article information

          Journal
          Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci
          Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci
          RSTA
          roypta
          Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences
          The Royal Society Publishing
          1364-503X
          1471-2962
          28 September 2016
          28 September 2016
          : 374
          : 2077 , Theme issue ‘Atmospheric effects of solar eclipses stimulated by the 2015 UK eclipse’ compiled and edited by R. Giles Harrison and Edward Hanna
          : 20150212
          Affiliations
          [1 ]Department of Geography, University of Sheffield , Sheffield S10 2TN, UK
          [2 ]Met Office, Edinburgh EH11 3XQ, UK
          [3 ]Icelandic Met Office, 108 Reykjavik, Iceland
          [4 ]Deildin fyri infrakervi/Infrastructure Department, Landsverk, FO-110 Tórshavn, Faroes
          [5 ]Danish Meteorological Institute , DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark
          Author notes
          Author information
          http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8683-182X
          Article
          rsta20150212
          10.1098/rsta.2015.0212
          5004046
          27550769
          dc27b3d1-5387-445c-a740-b96312e1053b
          © 2016 The Authors.

          Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.

          History
          : 11 November 2015
          Categories
          1005
          127
          Articles
          Research Article
          Custom metadata
          September 28, 2016

          meteorology,pressure,solar eclipse,temperature,wind
          meteorology, pressure, solar eclipse, temperature, wind

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