The record temperature for Remembrance Sunday in Wales has been smashed. Wales and the wider UK is currently experiencing an unseasonably mild November. Though this has been helpful for people trying to keep their heating costs to a minimum, it also reflects the changing nature of our climate.
On Sunday temperatures reached 21.2C in Porthmadog. The previous Remembrance Day record for Wales was 19.1C in Aber, Gwynedd on November 12 in 1989. The highest temperature recorded for November was 22.4C recorded at Trawscoed, Dyfed, on November 1, 2015. Overall, Sunday 13 was the 6th warmest November day for Wales.
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But this begs the question of what has caused this? WalesOnline spoke to a Met Office meteorologist to try and find out. According to the Met Office spokeswoman, the reason for the recent warm weather has been a core of strong winds around five to seven miles above the Earth's surface, blowing from west to east known as the jet stream
The spokeswoman said: "It is the jet stream and the fact that we've had the high pressure centre close to the UK, which has led warm air in from the south. That high pressure is moving out of the way and we're going to see some more unsettled weather this week and we're going to see a return to temperatures that we would expect for this time of year. Basically, it's the position of the high pressure, which is related to the jet stream.
"We've seen that high pressure move out of the way. So what the high pressure does is it blocks predominantly the weather as it comes in from across the Atlantic. Those low pressure systems barrelling across the Atlantic bringing wet and windy weather to the UK at this time of year - well the high pressure sort of stops those in their tracks. So with the high pressure moving out the way we're going to see a return to this wet and windy weather and daytime temperatures for November. The average temperature for the month as a whole is around 10C for Wales. It is little bit warmer for England at 10.1C."
But is this to do with climate change? Well yes and no. "There's always been natural variability within the climate," said the spokeswoman. "So you can't attribute everything that's slightly away from the norm to climate change, because we have a variable climate. A lot of it is due to the natural variability of our climate. What climate change will do going forward is make the frequency potentially of those extremes increase. So the frequency of these events will go up. We're in a warming climate, so our climate is warmer than it has been in the past. So when you see an extreme in temperature, it makes sense that that extreme is a little bit warmer, because your baseline line is starting out warmer."
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