In this issue of Weather

Abstract

We begin the October 2017 issue with an examination of the likely minimum mean sea-level pressure of Typhoon Haiyan, which struck the central Philippines 4 years ago. In ‘Did Typhoon Haiyan have a new record-minimum pressure?’ on p. 291, Karl Hoarau and his co-authors present the case for a central pressure almost certainly lower than any seen at sea level before, the previous record ascribed to Typhoon Tip in 1979. This year’s report: ‘Snow patches in England and Wales in spring 2017’ by Iain Cameron brings us up to date on p. 296. On p. 297, the effects of cold weather in Eastern Europe during the first two months of 2012 are examined in ‘The large scale environment of the European 2012 high-impact cold wave: prolonged upstream and downstream atmospheric blocking’ by Meral Demirtaş. Sustained periods of cooler (or warmer) weather generally require a lack of progression of weather systems and atmospheric blocking brought some unusually cool conditions to Turkey. On p. 306, Hisami Nakamura and Julyan Cartwight complete their examination of ice and snow in literature in ‘Why Eastern snowflakes are six-sided while Western snowflakes are unique – a history of ice and snow – part 4’ on p. 306. Their conclusion brings together their discussion in Parts 1, 2 and 3, ending with a perception of the place of the snowflake in modern culture and art. Next, Alan Lapworth and Simon Osborne describe a notable boundary-layer feature that had been observed on a walk by the first author on 13 September 2016. Using a relatively dense network of stations this is tracked in detail in ‘An atmospheric bore passing over southern England?’ on p. 310. We finish this month’s issue with a study of urbanisation in the tropics in ‘Variations in urban surface temperature: an assessment of land use change impacts over Lagos metropolis’ on p. 315. The cities of the tropics are growing rapidly, creating increasingly large urban mesoclimates, as is shown by Ayansina Ayanlade in this paper.