The Headlines Today, Wednesday 23^rd. March, 2000 … Fog in Holland … Spring in Southern England … Contrails Galore … Alpine Sunshine … A Sundog at Reading … Snow Showers in Norway … Rain again in Spain.

During the last week in March a group of Year 10 Geography students took part in an Internet-based project organised by the Royal Meteorological Society to observe clouds and precipitation. Sixty-three schools throughout Europe took part in the project which was run during National Science Week in the U.K.

Three times a day, our two volunteers, Judith Owens and James Spelling observed and recorded cloud amount, cloud type and precipitation. They then entered their observations onto an online database and each day the Royal Meteorological Society prepared a report about the day’s weather, which was forwarded to each participating school.  The aim of the project was to encourage observation and to make students more aware of clouds.

As fate would have it, the skies over Clarens remained stubbornly cloud-free for almost the entire observation period!  We looked hard for the odd Cirrus and eagerly awaited the appearance of something more exciting like a Cumulonimbus … but to no avail!  Since cloud watching seemed to send the clouds into hiding we are planning more of these weeks in the future!  On a serious note, the students certainly became more cloud conscious during the week and we all enjoyed seeing St. George’s being mentioned in some of the daily weather reports.