#UKSnowDepth

Following on from the #uksnow map started last year, Tom Barrett has set up a UK Snow Depth map... Measure the depth of your snow, and add it to the map:


View #UKSnowDepth in a larger map

Snow!!

If you're getting bored (?!) of sledging and snowman-building, have a go at one of these geographical snow challenges:

1. Measure the depth of undisturbed snow in different places - how and why does it vary?

2. Collect a cup of snow... Bring it inside and let it melt. How much water does it produce? Is this more or less than you expected?

3. If you have a thermometer at home, keep a record of the temperature... How does it change? Why? Keep a record of the times when it’s snowing... Watch the sky and how it changes... How do the temperature, the weather conditions and the state of the sky relate to each other?

4. Choose a particular spot – somewhere in your garden... or out of your bedroom window. Take a photo every hour. Put them together in MovieMaker to make a timelapse movie... (Email me the finished product, or upload to Vimeo or YouTube and email me the link.)

5. Wrap up warm and put your wellies on... Then go for a walk. Put together a snow/ice/cold weather hazard map for your local area.

6. Find some black paper and freeze it. When it snows again, take your frozen black paper outside and catch some snowflakes. Look at them carefully (with a magnifying glass if you have one). Describe them. Have a go at taking some photographs of them.

7. Make a glacier... Send me photos and/or video...

8. What does the snow look like? Feel like? Smell like? Sound like? (Taste like? H&S!!)

9. Make a geographical sculpture... The Eiffel Tower? The Taj Mahal?

10. Make some icicles or freeze some bubbles...

11. Go follow some footprints in the snow... Who or what made them?

12. Make a Frozen Earth video - Grace in Yr11 made a fantastic Urban Earth style video in January, taking photos every 8 steps on a walk through her snowy village... Upload it to Vimeo or YouTube and email me the link.

13. Something else!!! Can you come up with your own interesting educational snowy geographical challenge?

Snow Missions...

I've posted a few times about the excellent Mission: Explore... but now there are Snow Missions! Try some of them out and leave a comment or send me an email with your evidence Or have a go at creating your own snow mission...

If you're a Twitter type, search #SnowMission...

What happened to global warming?

Lots of people have been asking in the past few days why it is so cold when people keep banging on about global warming... A nice little video clip here from the BBC, which emphasises the difference between weather and climate.

Brrrr!

Fantastic satellite image of Britain this morning from Nasa's MODIS Rapid Response Gallery...


And a nice interactive from the Guardian looking at the causes of the weather and summarising the impacts... (Thanks Alan Parkinson!)

What's it like where you are?

And don't forget to send your snow photos in...

Snow...

Lots that I could say about the snow which seems to be everywhere at the moment (although not so much here as other parts of the country by the sounds of things...).

Check out the Met Office website here - with severe weather warnings covering pretty much the whole country today and tomorrow...

If you've been out and about, or watched/listened to news or traffic reports, you'll already know plenty about the effects that this "cold snap" is having. I was surprised to hear that Meadowhall was closing early:
If you want to know more about why the snow is happening, check out the pressure charts on the Met Office site - there is a big area of high pressure sitting over Greenland, and low pressure over the Atlantic, causing very very cold Arctic air to keep heading in our direction. An explanation here from the BBC about what snow is and how it forms...

Snow Photo Competition

There will be a small prize for the SHS person who takes the best snow photo and emails it to me by 3.20pm on Monday... To send your pictures, log into your school emails, and then type vel into the address bar.

Enjoy!

Twitter Snow Map

I mentioned the other day about Twitter and the UK snow map, and also about the arrival of Google Earth 5. The two have been rather neatly combined to produce this nice animation:



And there's more snow on the way, according to the Met Office... (Although still actually rather sunny outside at the moment here.)

Snow!! And a competition...

Lots more snow in the early hours of this morning... And a day off! Plenty of photos and videos, news articles about the lack of grit, etc. on the BBC website, and an explanation here of what's causing this weather...

My slightly lop-sided snowman:

And I think that it's about time for another Geogtastic photo competition. So, SHS students and staff - send your best snow photo to me via email (if you send from your school email, you just need to type vel into the address bar) before Tuesday 10th Feb...

And more snow...

Actually, not more snow in our neck of the woods, just very cold so that the snow we had yesterday and last night was nicely frozen and dangerous... It looked very pretty though:


Lots and lots of stories, videos, photos, etc. on the BBC website, and a nice set of photos by Twitter users on Flickr (including mine from Smalley Dam yesterday)...

I particularly like this though...

More snow....

Plenty of updates to the Twitter snow map throughout the day...

Rather more snow here today than there was yesterday, but still not enough for a snow day...

Photos (and maybe a video for Callum's benefit) from my walk to Smalley Dam this afternoon to follow...

Snow...

You will probably have noticed the weather forecasts over the weekend, with Met Office warnings for "heavy snow", and, depending where in the country you are, you might also have noticed some snow...

The East Midlands was meant to be one of the worst hit areas... There was nothing, however, til the middle of this afternoon - then a sudden flurry that lasted all of five minutes. I was going to go out and video it but on opening the front door, I changed my mind. Instead, here's the view from the bedroom window:


Snow in Smalley... from victoria ellis on Vimeo.


All that's left now is a fine scattering, nicely frozen and slippy ready to cause mayhem in the morning...

You will also, most likely, have heard of Twitter in the news of late. Like many other people, I didn't "get it" at first, but it's grown on me and I've discovered lots of interesting things - especially, though not exclusively, about ICT in education... Anyway, across the "TwitterVerse", people are "tweeting" snow reports, which are being incorporated into this Google Maps mashup:
I suspect that it says more about the locations of Twitter users who are still up and about than it does about where it's snowing most, but either way, it's interesting from a geographical point-of-view.

Is it snowing where you are?

You think it's cold here?

Some great pictures from Hannah, whose cousin lives in Canada... -25oC there at the moment...

SNOW!!!

The view from my front door about an hour ago!! I'm sure I get far more excited than someone my age should about snow, but hey ho!

A wintery day in South Georgia

It occurred to me today that it was quite a long time since I'd looked at the wonderful South Georgia webcam... A rather wintery day!

If you click on the South Georgia label at the bottom of this post, you can look at some of the previous pictures from the webcam, from when it was summer in South Georgia. If you look at the steps at the right-hand side, you can see just how much snow there is at the moment!

Winter in South Georgia

It's getting cold in South Georgia now - although there are still a couple of brave penguins about...

For those of you who've still not seen the fantastic South Georgia webcam, click on the picture above (or the link to the right) - and check out some of the older posts and compare the pictures!

Wild and Windy Weather!

Violent storms - with winds of upto 80mph - have caused chaos across Britain today (in case you hadn't noticed!).

The red areas on the map show where severe weather warnings were issued by the Met Office. Click on the map to visit their website, where you can check out the latest forecast together with satellite images and pressure charts.

Whilst my hour-long journey home and collapsed garden fence are annoying and inconvenient, I was very lucky compared to many people.

According to the BBC, at least 7 people have been killed, and others injured. Thousands of people have been left without power, ports have been closed and roads blocked -
resulting in traffic chaos. The picture above will take you to the main story on the BBC website, where you can also find other photos and news clips of the weather.

And it's not going to get much better next week, it seems... According to Sian Lloyd, temperatures on Monday will be "bone-bitingly cold"... And we might even see some snow!