:00:11. > :00:14.This time on Weather World we are in Northern Ireland airside at Belfast
:00:15. > :00:18.International Airport. We are going behind the scenes to find out what
:00:19. > :00:27.it takes to keep these planes flying and you and I safe, whatever the
:00:28. > :00:32.weather. Also on Weather World, devastation
:00:33. > :00:37.and deadly floods in south America. But some dramatic escapes too after
:00:38. > :00:43.months of heavy rain leave towns under water. And mud. As landslides
:00:44. > :00:51.kill hundreds. Weather bomb, the storm so strong they hold a unique
:00:52. > :00:57.place in weather science. And have taken California from drought to
:00:58. > :01:00.deluge with the ground giving way. And extreme heat, wild fires as
:01:01. > :01:04.parts of Australia endure their hottest summer.
:01:05. > :01:09.Plus, you have some history there. Taking the temperature, I will be
:01:10. > :01:12.opening the archives of one of the world's longest running weather
:01:13. > :01:16.observations and watching how it is still being done today. I will be
:01:17. > :01:19.taking a trip back to my own family history and aviation's past to see
:01:20. > :01:35.how some of today's technology was born.
:01:36. > :01:41.Welcome to Weather Worm at Belfast International Airport.
:01:42. > :01:44.-- weather World. 13 miles north-west of the city of Belfast
:01:45. > :01:49.this site was first established as a military base in the First World
:01:50. > :01:51.War. Since then, it's grown to become the busiest airport in
:01:52. > :01:54.Northern Ireland with over five million passengers travelling
:01:55. > :01:58.through it last year. The airport serves other UK and European
:01:59. > :02:03.destinations, plus there are flights to the USA.
:02:04. > :02:08.Weather and airports, so much can go wrong, can't it? It's an interesting
:02:09. > :02:12.relationship, thunder storms, fog, wind, snow, someone that knows all
:02:13. > :02:14.about those weather challenge is Michael, the general manager of air
:02:15. > :02:18.traffic control here. Hello, Michael. Hi. Is there a day when you
:02:19. > :02:22.are not thinking about the weather? No, every day, every day controllers
:02:23. > :02:26.come into work they're obviously thinking about the weather. The
:02:27. > :02:28.surface wind is very important in terms of deciding what's the
:02:29. > :02:39.direction of runway for take-off and landing. Interested in the cloud,
:02:40. > :02:43.the type of precipitation. We are interested in knowing all we need
:02:44. > :02:47.to. There is something specific about the airport here at Belfast
:02:48. > :02:52.which is about the weather and increases your flexibility. Yeah, we
:02:53. > :02:57.are one of the only remaining UK airports that still operates across
:02:58. > :03:03.runway. It faces east-west. We have a cross runway which sits at right
:03:04. > :03:08.angles, from the main runway. It's orientated more or less north-south.
:03:09. > :03:12.During the autumn when we get low pressures coming across the conflict
:03:13. > :03:17.we get strong southerly gales and a pilot's preference is is to land
:03:18. > :03:22.into wind, when the cross wind gets roughly around 30 knots, the pilots
:03:23. > :03:26.will opt to take the other runway for a safer approach and take-off.
:03:27. > :03:29.Weather is so important and Sarah's in the control tower now to take a
:03:30. > :03:34.look at how they get the very latest weather information here.
:03:35. > :03:37.This is the main weather system used here in the air traffic control
:03:38. > :03:40.centre. All the numbers and figures on the screen correspondent to
:03:41. > :03:46.continuous weather data that's collected. We record things like
:03:47. > :03:50.wind direction and speed, visibility, any significant weather
:03:51. > :03:56.around as well as importantly cloud amounts and heights too. Every half
:03:57. > :03:58.an hour a report is issued. That will help pilots make operational
:03:59. > :04:04.decisions about whether it is safe to land or whether they might need
:04:05. > :04:09.to divert to another airport. When the weather gets rough, the landings
:04:10. > :04:14.get tough. This plane struggles to maintain a steady approach to
:04:15. > :04:18.Manchester Airport in February, in the UK's fourth named storm of the
:04:19. > :04:23.season. Winds of up to 100mph hit the UK as Storm Doris blows in. As
:04:24. > :04:27.you see the foam hitting me from the sea that it definitely has
:04:28. > :04:30.materialised, gusts here are so powerful I can't even face in the
:04:31. > :04:35.direction of the wind is coming from.
:04:36. > :04:38.As reporters tried to remain upright, some trees failed. A lucky
:04:39. > :04:43.escape here for a driving instructor.
:04:44. > :04:46.But the storm did claim the life of a woman hit by falling debris and it
:04:47. > :04:52.wasn't just the wind doing the damage. There was heavy snow too
:04:53. > :05:01.here in Scotland. Storm Doris was an area of low pressure that underwent
:05:02. > :05:07.explosive genesis so strengthening quickly. Storms like this have
:05:08. > :05:13.become known as weather bombs. Life-threatening storm... This was
:05:14. > :05:16.another. A major snow storm hits the north-east USA in March bringing to
:05:17. > :05:24.an abrupt end what had been a mild start to the year. And for the first
:05:25. > :05:29.time in 33 years in New York, March was colder than February. There is
:05:30. > :05:34.cold and there is frozen solid. This house became encased in ice
:05:35. > :05:38.after strong winds blew water from lake Ontario over it that froze.
:05:39. > :05:43.Amazingly when the ice melted these pictures show the house emerging
:05:44. > :05:47.virtually unscathed. Europe's coldest winter month was
:05:48. > :05:52.January. With the unusual sight of snow on Greek island beaches. But
:05:53. > :05:57.the bitterly cold weather brought fresh misery for migrants at camps
:05:58. > :06:03.such as these in the Balkans. Then disaster in Italy. A mountain hotel
:06:04. > :06:08.buried by an avalanche, 29 people are killed but amazingly, some
:06:09. > :06:15.survive, rescued more than two days later. Oh my God!
:06:16. > :06:24.Tornado season in the USA peaks in spring but this is February in
:06:25. > :06:29.Louisiana. And New Olleans is hit with its strongest tornado on record
:06:30. > :06:33.but worst came even earlier. A January outbreak of tornado sweeps
:06:34. > :06:37.through south-eastern states leaving total devastation and 20 dead. More
:06:38. > :06:47.than died in tornados in the USA in the whole of last year.
:06:48. > :06:50.It's a beautiful day here at Belfast International Airport today but
:06:51. > :06:55.visibility is not always this good. In fact, the airport can be prone to
:06:56. > :06:59.seeing dense fog. Michael is going to join me now and can you explain
:07:00. > :07:03.just how do you land a plane when you can't see the runway? Certainly.
:07:04. > :07:08.We have an instrument landing system at the airport, part of is system is
:07:09. > :07:11.the glide path t sends a signal to the pilot and tells him if he is too
:07:12. > :07:15.high or too low as he makes the approach. We have another signal at
:07:16. > :07:20.the other end of the runway, the localiser, and it tells the pilot if
:07:21. > :07:24.he is left or right of centre line. The combination of the two, left
:07:25. > :07:27.right, up, down, safety guides the aircraft to land. Wonderful. We have
:07:28. > :07:31.had a look at what it looks like from the ground, I would love to see
:07:32. > :07:33.is how this instrument landing system works from up in the skies.
:07:34. > :07:38.Shall we take a look? Absolutely, let's go.
:07:39. > :07:42.Michael, we are up in the air. Can you explain to us a little about how
:07:43. > :07:46.this instrument landing system, the ILS works from the pilot's
:07:47. > :07:50.perspective up here? Absolutely. You can see the pilot gets the distance
:07:51. > :07:56.from touchdown. It's displayed at all times in the cockpit. So he
:07:57. > :08:02.knows how far he is from touchdown. You can see from the ILS signal at
:08:03. > :08:06.the moment the needle is to the left. That means the aircraft needs
:08:07. > :08:10.to fly left to get on track. I suppose in poor visibility
:08:11. > :08:15.conditions, in thick fog or blowing snow the pilot would rely upon this
:08:16. > :08:19.instrument? Absolutely. And the system at alter Grove allows the
:08:20. > :08:25.aircraft to auto land in those sort of conditions. We took to the skies
:08:26. > :08:27.thanks to airambulance Northern Ireland, but every commercial
:08:28. > :08:31.airline has an instrument landing system on board, so, no matter where
:08:32. > :08:34.in the world you make your landing, the guidance given to your pilot
:08:35. > :08:39.will be exactly the same. It takes an awful lot of power to power the
:08:40. > :08:42.ILS, all this kit, and also an entire airport but you might be
:08:43. > :08:49.surprised to hear where that power comes from. Let's head down to Nick
:08:50. > :08:54.on the ground to explain more. In fact, Sarah, Belfast Article
:08:55. > :09:00.Airport requires 1. 8 megawatts of electricity every day. And they get
:09:01. > :09:05.it right here, right next to the airport from tens of thousands of
:09:06. > :09:12.solar panels and on a sunny day this gives the aerp all the power it
:09:13. > :09:15.needs. Over here f you listen carefully, that whiny sound is the
:09:16. > :09:21.power being made, because even though it's cloudy there is still
:09:22. > :09:25.solar energy coming through converted through this inverter.
:09:26. > :09:29.Alan is the operations manager here at the airport. How important is
:09:30. > :09:35.this farm, and has it become to the airport? It's been a great success
:09:36. > :09:39.for us. The first nine months it produced 27% of the energy that we
:09:40. > :09:42.use on airport. It still is producing on a day like this, on a
:09:43. > :09:48.really good day absolutely everything on airport from radars to
:09:49. > :09:52.instrument landing systems, security systems, baggage systems, everything
:09:53. > :09:56.on airport is running on it. It is still producing excess for the grid.
:09:57. > :10:01.We can see what it's been doing for the airport today through this
:10:02. > :10:06.display unit here. The sun has come out occasionally today. Yes, this
:10:07. > :10:09.shows the last 24 hours of production with it. Last night
:10:10. > :10:12.around sundown it was still producing, then it dropped off
:10:13. > :10:20.through the night period. From dawn, it's gone up. We had a rainy period
:10:21. > :10:26.here this morning. It still is producing 250, 500 kilowatts. At
:10:27. > :10:29.peak time when the sun has come out it's producing 1500. So it's working
:10:30. > :10:36.very well. Even for Northern Ireland. I wish you many more blue
:10:37. > :10:39.sky days. Thank you very much. BBC weather watchers know cloudy
:10:40. > :10:43.days have their pluses too. And they just got a whole lot more
:10:44. > :10:47.interesting thanks to the release in March of an updated cloud at lass
:10:48. > :10:53.from the world meet logical organisation. It features newly
:10:54. > :10:59.classified cloud formations such as these as seen in Dorset.
:11:00. > :11:05.And these dramatic undulating clouds pictured here in the Peak District.
:11:06. > :11:09.Still to come on Weather World: Michael, you have some history
:11:10. > :11:13.there. Temperature tradition, more than 200 years of weather observing
:11:14. > :11:16.in Ireland. I will go back to the beginning and see how it is still
:11:17. > :11:21.being done today. We have had a look at modern
:11:22. > :11:24.aviation here at Belfast International Airport. But now I am
:11:25. > :11:27.stepping back in time to learn a little bit more about the history
:11:28. > :11:30.and the relationship between aviation and the weather. I have a
:11:31. > :11:35.personal reason for being here today. We will look at that later
:11:36. > :11:42.on. For now, let's head inside and meet our guide Ernie from the Ulster
:11:43. > :11:47.Aviation Society. Hi there, Ernie. Hi, Sarah, it's a pleasure to
:11:48. > :11:51.welcome you. Before the introduction of satellite and radar data,
:11:52. > :11:55.aircraft played a vital role in forecasting. Can you tell us more
:11:56. > :11:59.about that. Yes, indeed, what it involved was the aircraft of the
:12:00. > :12:06.weather flights going out over the Atlantic primarily from where most
:12:07. > :12:10.of our weather systems come, and taking a range of observations and
:12:11. > :12:15.different altitudes, observations of temperature, humidity, pressure and
:12:16. > :12:20.so on. It would have involved in some cases flights of up to eight or
:12:21. > :12:24.nine hours in length. Every so often the data that was being collected
:12:25. > :12:29.would be signalled back to Aldergrove. And from Aldergrove it
:12:30. > :12:34.would be sent to the fraing office. Why don't I interviews you to
:12:35. > :12:37.Malcolm, a colleague who was a Met observer on the weather squadron at
:12:38. > :12:45.Aldergrove in the post-war period. That would be fantastic.
:12:46. > :12:52.Malcolm, you were Met Observer on those weather flights. What was it
:12:53. > :12:57.like? A very interesting period in my life doing National Service in
:12:58. > :13:01.the force. We initially had very old aircraft, the Halifax, we used to be
:13:02. > :13:06.directed by the weather forecasts, we would fly for a day into weather
:13:07. > :13:09.worst weather wasn't find out what was really happening. As we tended
:13:10. > :13:13.to fly the majority of the flights fairly low down it could be very
:13:14. > :13:20.bumpy, very wet at the front because the aircraft used to leak a bit,
:13:21. > :13:24.being old. You could have lightning and it was a very difficult exercise
:13:25. > :13:29.for pilots and navigators to get there and back. At the poor radio
:13:30. > :13:36.waves and everything we would often be a bit of truck. It was arduous
:13:37. > :13:40.for the whole crew. Bernie, I mentioned earlier that I had a
:13:41. > :13:43.personal link to this place. My grandfather was an aeronautical
:13:44. > :13:47.engineer in Northern Ireland for many years. Can you tell me more
:13:48. > :13:54.about that? I really wanted to show you this aircraft, the short Sherpa,
:13:55. > :13:57.a unique aircraft. It was built in 1953 to test the properties of a
:13:58. > :14:07.novel type of wing your grandfather designed. The revolutionary new
:14:08. > :14:11.aircraft goes for its trials. The chief designer, David Keith Lucas,
:14:12. > :14:15.planned the Sherpa on his drawing board and no test pilot Tom Brook
:14:16. > :14:20.Smith looks set to continue. We are delighted it is part of the
:14:21. > :14:24.Ulster aviation collection because it is a unique research aircraft and
:14:25. > :14:26.your grandfather was responsible for that.
:14:27. > :14:29.Thank you so much for showing me this little bit of my family
:14:30. > :14:34.history. For now we will be leaving these
:14:35. > :14:37.historic aircraft, later we're heading back to Belfast
:14:38. > :14:41.International Airport for more on modern day aviation.
:14:42. > :14:46.Now to events in southern hemisphere summer and this from Peru. If ever
:14:47. > :14:50.you need proof of the force of flood water it is here. Look how the
:14:51. > :14:55.driver of this truck manages to get out just it is swept away.
:14:56. > :15:01.And again as this hotel collapses into a flooded river. Dozens of
:15:02. > :15:08.people had died in Peru since the start of the year. Here is another
:15:09. > :15:13.lucky escape as a mudslide churns up the debris of what was once
:15:14. > :15:18.someone's home, a woman emerges. Slowly she is able to find her feet
:15:19. > :15:23.and step to safety. The rain has been blamed on an unusually warm sea
:15:24. > :15:25.water off the coast of Peru, but not just Peru has suffered.
:15:26. > :15:33.Disaster in Colombia, torrential rains is a mudslide into town,
:15:34. > :15:37.submerging homes, businesses and people. The death toll reaches into
:15:38. > :15:41.the hundreds. Some in the area have blamed climate change for the
:15:42. > :15:49.extreme rain, others say deforestation means are more likely.
:15:50. > :15:54.Further south in Chile in January, drought, he took, strong winds and
:15:55. > :15:58.then fire. This town was destroyed by wildfires said to be the worst in
:15:59. > :16:03.the modern history of the country. Thousands of homes are burned to the
:16:04. > :16:07.ground. Summer fires also broke out in Australia, nearly 100 at one
:16:08. > :16:12.stage in February in New South Wales as record high temperatures produce
:16:13. > :16:18.catastrophic fire danger. In March the weather took a dramatic
:16:19. > :16:22.turn as Cyclone Debbie hit Queens land and then New South Wales.
:16:23. > :16:27.Floods follow and after its hottest summer, Sydney has its wettest
:16:28. > :16:30.margin 20 years. Viewed from helicopter, something
:16:31. > :16:36.quite astonishing is unfolding California in February. Car
:16:37. > :16:41.swallowing sinkholes are appearing. There goes another. It is not just
:16:42. > :16:45.cars disappearing, the ground is literally giving way as the state
:16:46. > :16:48.undergoes a remarkable transformation from drought with a
:16:49. > :16:53.succession of storms and weather bombs bringing flooding rain.
:16:54. > :16:57.There is so much water that the overflow from this town is needed
:16:58. > :17:00.for the first time in 50 years but it fails, leading to evacuation with
:17:01. > :17:06.fears of unrestrained floodwater being sent downstream.
:17:07. > :17:10.In a world of changing climate and weather, some things change very
:17:11. > :17:17.little. Like this weather ritual which has been happening for over
:17:18. > :17:22.200 years. At 9am every day, Shane Kelly takes
:17:23. > :17:27.weather observations at the Armagh Observatory 40 miles south-west of
:17:28. > :17:30.Belfast. His work and that of those before him has made this one of the
:17:31. > :17:41.longest-running series of manual weather observations in the world.
:17:42. > :17:45.Shane, you have been doing this for 18 years and the temperature record
:17:46. > :17:50.goes back over 200 years. Do you feel the weight of responsibility of
:17:51. > :17:54.keeping this going? It has been unbroken for 200 years, I don't want
:17:55. > :18:00.to be the one who breaks that are bad becomes infamous. It is a unique
:18:01. > :18:05.empirical record, it is a very useful record in research, schools,
:18:06. > :18:13.education for the general public. Lots of weather stations are
:18:14. > :18:16.automated, what is the benefit of having you doing this every day? We
:18:17. > :18:19.had an automatic weather stations several years back, and experimental
:18:20. > :18:26.one. It broke down, sometimes you lost records. We did not lose any on
:18:27. > :18:32.the manual side. On the automatic station you were sometimes recording
:18:33. > :18:37.wind speeds of 417 mph, you can see how an automatic station can get it
:18:38. > :18:40.wrong. Do you think of the day when this might become automatic and you
:18:41. > :18:45.will not be required to do this any more? I think it will become
:18:46. > :18:49.automatic but I think the manual station will run side by side as
:18:50. > :18:52.long as there is a will for people to get up in the morning and take
:18:53. > :18:57.readings and do it every morning and keep the unbroken record.
:18:58. > :19:01.These are those first records, safely stored at the observatory.
:19:02. > :19:10.Its director Michael Burton is about to show me how it all began.
:19:11. > :19:14.You have some history? I certainly have, these are the first reading
:19:15. > :19:19.software that the Armagh Observatory. Let's look at that
:19:20. > :19:23.first one. We have the logbook and we have this page at the top, these
:19:24. > :19:31.were the very first measurements made. It has held up quite well?
:19:32. > :19:38.Indeed. What is it telling us? The date, the first measurement is the
:19:39. > :19:41.27th of December 17 94. We are measuring the temperature inside and
:19:42. > :19:47.outside, two thermometers, one inside the observatory and one
:19:48. > :19:51.outside in the grounds, and the barometer, the air pressure. Things
:19:52. > :19:56.get more detailed over time? Notes are made about significant weather
:19:57. > :20:03.event. If we can call the 19th-century the more recent past,
:20:04. > :20:10.what happened there? 1839, the time of Bromley Robertson, the director
:20:11. > :20:15.here for 59 years. He is recording notes, the comment says a tremendous
:20:16. > :20:18.gale in the night. There was a fantastic storm that night, it got
:20:19. > :20:22.Robertson thinking about how one quantifies the strength of the wind
:20:23. > :20:27.and a few years later he came up with the design of what we call the
:20:28. > :20:32.anemometer, which is now use the world over to measure the wind
:20:33. > :20:36.speed. One of his first models this year? On the roof of the observatory
:20:37. > :20:41.building, you can go and see it. I have an amateur weather station on
:20:42. > :20:46.my back garden and it has this on it, and to think it all started here
:20:47. > :20:50.in Armagh? This is the cap anemometer, it comes from 1870 but
:20:51. > :20:53.the very basic design is how we measure wind speed the world over.
:20:54. > :21:06.It say something about design that it has
:21:07. > :21:09.lasted the test of time? A simple design, four club spinning in the
:21:10. > :21:11.wind, you can measure the wind speed and that is how we know wind speeds
:21:12. > :21:13.around the world. It has been fascinating seeing the weather
:21:14. > :21:16.history at the Armagh Observatory, thank you for showing us around.
:21:17. > :21:19.We are back at Belfast International Airport, so far we have looks at how
:21:20. > :21:23.weather is pivotal to operations here and had seen some of the
:21:24. > :21:25.systems in place to deal with changeable weather conditions. I
:21:26. > :21:30.will put some about into practice and with the help of Michael we will
:21:31. > :21:37.use the traffic control simulator to try to safely land a plane. Imagine
:21:38. > :21:42.it is a foggy day at Belfast, we have two inbound easyJets, one to
:21:43. > :21:47.the north and one to the south, we will factor them and establish them
:21:48. > :21:50.at ten miles, once they are safely established under the instrument
:21:51. > :21:57.landing system we can transfer and we -- can pretend we are
:21:58. > :22:03.transferring them to the tower. Easy for 64, descent altitude 3000 feet.
:22:04. > :22:07.We record the level on the strip and we watch the radar. You can see the
:22:08. > :22:21.aircraft is starting to descend. It looks like this aircraft has
:22:22. > :22:26.safely intercepted the instrument landing system and it is on the
:22:27. > :22:29.approach to the runway? The aircraft is now approaching two miles from
:22:30. > :22:34.touchdown, he has been safely established. It is probably on a
:22:35. > :22:38.full auto land because it would be in fog and the pilots will be
:22:39. > :22:44.letting the aircraft land. That was really well done as a first attempt
:22:45. > :22:49.at vectoring and aircraft. It descended at nine miles, that is
:22:50. > :22:52.what we expected. Weldon, a very good first attempt. My first
:22:53. > :22:58.aircraft, safely landed. Fantastic. Now from a busy skies to
:22:59. > :23:03.roads, and these iconic London cabs are far from where you would
:23:04. > :23:07.normally expect to see them. This is the Arctic Circle, they are being
:23:08. > :23:11.tested as they get a 21st-century makeover with a virtually silent
:23:12. > :23:16.electric engine cutting emissions. It has been awhile since London has
:23:17. > :23:19.seen snow like this but the manufacturers hope to sell the cabs
:23:20. > :23:25.in other polluted cities like Moscow, which gets a bit colder in
:23:26. > :23:31.winter. Finally, we have had automobiles,
:23:32. > :23:34.planes and now trains. This is what happens when you are waiting at a
:23:35. > :23:40.station after a snowstorm but the first train is nonstop. In March,
:23:41. > :23:45.New York commuters get a second helping of snow, but this one was
:23:46. > :23:49.not in the forecast! That is it for Weather World this
:23:50. > :23:53.time from Northern Ireland. We will be back later in the year.
:23:54. > :23:58.Until then, keep checking the forecast.
:23:59. > :24:04.Let's look at that first reading. Where did I put it?! We have lost
:24:05. > :24:11.the first reading from 1794. From now onwards the first readings will
:24:12. > :24:15.be from 1795. What is going on with my hair? What is it doing? She is so
:24:16. > :24:19.polite, isn't she?!