temperature ever was recorded this summer, 40.3 celsius. behind me are some of the typhoon aircraft based at this station, but what sort of impact do the temperatures have on operations here? well, tojoin me to tell me more is the station commander group captain billy cooper. good to meet you, billy. let s first go back to that day injuly. record breaking temperatures above 40 degrees. what sort of impact does that have on operations here at coningsby? so any extremes of weather and particularly temperature can have an effect even on very modern aircraft. in particular the performance of the engines, either at very high altitude or very high temperature. we find also the density of the fuel will change, so the way in which the maintainers operate with the aircraft can also be quite different. at coningsby you have the quick reaction alert squadron who have alert squadron who have to be up in the air at almost a moment s notice.
what sort of weather impacts do they look out for? we have to be aware of what the weather conditions are, not only here at coningsby but across all of the uk and into europe as well, so we d be particularly concerned about thunderstorms, if any areas were particularly cloudy, which might make it very difficult for us to intercept any other aircraft. but it s notjust modern day aircraft in operation here at coningsby, it s also home to the battle of britain memorial flight. these priceless artefacts are kept in airworthy condition and can be seen in the skies above all sorts of events over the summer months, keeping their rich history alive. and here we are in the hangar of the battle of britain memorial flight. behind me, just one of only two operational lancaster bombers in the entire world. it is here with other aircraft and in charge of them all is squadron leader mark sugden. thank you very much for having us here. it s an amazing, amazing site. we were with the station commander
of the country s most devastating floods. i will report on 2022 s biggest storms and look at what happens after weather disaster strikes. i am at raf coningsby, not only a place very close to my heart in that it is where i began my forecasting career, but to british meteorology it s a very important place, because this july at this very stevenson screen, we recorded the uk highest temperature of 40.3 celsius. good evening. it has been a day of record breaking temperatures across the uk. more than a0 celsius for the first time. july the 19th, the uk s hottest day, but as temperatures soared after the driest start to the year since 1976, drought and fire resulted.
alongside our newest data to compare how the climate is changing? sure, it s a great question, isn t it? when we look at these records, these are from durham 0bservatory back in 1890, and it can be quite difficult to read at times, but they were very systematic and careful. when we think about observations, we think about how they are used for weather forecasting, for the forecast we generate in the met office, there are observations coming in from a huge load of sources and of course observations are also very important to understand our climate and if we want to understand our climate of the future, the first step is we need to understand our climate now and we also need to understand our climate going back into the past. so we have got all those standardised and scientifically robust observations, just like the 40.3 from coningsby earlier this year. how has that fed into models to create a bigger picture on a wider scale of what is happening to our climate? we calculate values acros
how is that used alongside new data to compare how the climate is changing? great question. when we look at the records, these are from durham 0bservatory in 1890 and it can be quite difficult to read but they were very systematic. when we think about observations, we think about how they are used for weather forecasting, but the forecast we generate in the met office, there is observations coming in from a huge array of sources and it s important to understand the climate and if we want to understand the future climate, first we need to understand the climate now and we need to understand the climate in the past. we have all the standardised observations just like the 40.3 from coningsby but how is that feeding into the models to create a bigger picture? we calculate values across all of the uk and if we calculate an average, that provides us