Climate, weather and tides
GeoMon’s Climate weather and tides are crucial to exploring our geopark. So much of our geology is best seen from the coast, or even from the sea that understanding our tides is vital. The time of high tide varies considerably around the coast – and tidal currents are very strong through the Menai Strait and in various places, notably near South Stack [where the Morlais demonstration project for tidal stream power generation is being developed] and Carmel Head.
CLIMATE
GeoMôn’s climate is essentially maritime with relatively small seasonal variations in temperature and rainfall – in other words, cool summers and mild winters. Mean monthly temperatures vary between 5 and 15 degrees C. Hard frosts ae very rare.
Annual rainfall varies from 800-1100mm but snowfall is only occasional. This is in marked contrast to adjacent areas of the Welsh mainland. Also in contrast to the mainland is the frequency of sunshine – wet weather fronts from the west pass rapidly over the low terrain, lingering over the mountains so that Holyhead on the west coast has 1550 hours of sunshine per annum in contrast to less than1400 hours in the southeast of the island near the mountains of Snowdonia.
The mild climate helped the island secure the role of “Mon Mam Cymru” (the breadbasket of Wales), as a major grain producing area until recent times
WEATHER
Details of local conditions are available on the official Meteorological Office site at Met Office. Real-time data is available from Pentraeth on the east coast including a superb visual presentation of the current weather conditions and a remarkable record of weather conditions and phenomena from Llansadwrn, also in the east of the island
TIDES
High and low water times and heights at Holyhead for the next 28 days. Note that the times of high and low water vary considerably around the island. There are some very useful apps that give more details.
For example “Tides near Me” gives local predictions.
“Tides” shows the graphically tidal curve for a port
SHIPPING
map of current positions of ships around Anglesey – it’s fun to track ferries, passing ships or identify the many ships at anchor sheltering from storms off Benllech or waiting to enter Liverpool docks !
