Fall Finally?

When I first was offered a job in London I had visions of rainy, gray days and pea-soup fogs. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest so I am no stranger to rain, gray and fog and none of them bother me. I have always thought of thick layers of cloud or fog like a warm fuzzy blanket laying over the city.

So it has come as a surprise to find that London is not at all as it is portrayed in movies and television. We have more sunny days and less rain than Portland Oregon.

The British Isles are surrounded by water which helps keep us more temperate but what really makes us warmer than the Pacific Northwest is the ocean currents and winds. Often weather fronts that come up the Easter seaboard of the US continue up and over to the British Isles. We also get warm fronts that come up the west coast of Africa.

London itself is in the south east corner of the island and weather fronts coming across the Atlantic must pass over Ireland and western England before hitting us. More often than not the weather front dies out before it reaches London. At other times the winds sweep weather fronts up and away from London, hitting northern England and Scotland on their way to Norway and Sweden.

So even though London is at the same latitude as the northern tip of Vancouver Island, our weather is closer to that of Virginia.

However, our nights are finally getting cooler and a bit of rain has come our way but this has been a very mild fall and November could pass for September. Until today, I was still seeing people out in shirt sleeves or light jackets. It has been a very lovely fall!

(Pictures above of the Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre and the view from my classroom on 23 Nov. 2009)