In our journey so far we have explored the impacts of the Earth's Spin and Orbit on the weather and climate.

The final instalment of the series explores the influence of the tilt on the Earth's weather and climate, and how the Earth's relationship with the Sun affects the way we live our lives.

Originally the series was called 23 Degrees, (the angle of the tilt) as we considered this factor extremely significant to the variability in seasons our planet experiences. Although the series is now called Orbit, the tilt of the Earth continued to be an extremely important factor of the series. What do you think?

From the arrival of spring in the Hay river to the affects of the monsoon to the people in India, we wanted to uncover how Nature and culture respond to the variations in the Sun's energy.

Kate takes us through the ancient archeological site Chichen Itza, Yacatan region of Mexico. At its peak, in the 10th century AD it was a thriving city that sprawled over 25 square kilometres and was home to more than 40000 people.

We wanted to explore how ancient civilizations had developed a great understanding of our Earth's journey around the Sun, and Kate takes us there on a significant day; the March Equinox. How significant are sites such as temple of Kukulkan and Stonehenge to us today?

In this episode we also wanted to breakdown the key factors that drive the extremes of weather like the Monsoon, Dust storm and the Tornado.

Helen travels to Kerala, South of India to discover what drives the Monsoon and visits Tornado Alley with atmospheric Scientist Josh Wurman to explain 'What causes a tornado?'

A record six EF-5 tornadoes were confirmed in 2011, the most deadly being Joplin Missouri tornado (158 killed, 14 mile path length.)

What do you think about Episode three? How significant do you think the Earth's tilt is to our climate and weather? How far are we in understanding why one supercell drops a tornado and another doesn't? Has our cultural relationship with the Sun changed over time? Leave your comments on this post.

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Distance travelled ~ 819'651'200 km

Last week was quiet week weather wise for the UK. Most of the country saw mainly cloudy, drizzly conditions with some mist and fog.

Despite a few frosty mornings in the north west of Scotland, temperatures remained mild for the time of year. Double figure highs were reached every day and a maximum of temperature of 18.1 °C was recorded on Sunday at Otterbourne, near Winchester, Hampshire.

Elsewhere in the world, flooding continues to cause havoc in Bangkok, where the death toll has now risen to over 500. The weather has started to ease after months of monsoon rain, but the volume of flood water is continuing to cause problems.

Image credit: NASA

Heavy rainfall has also affected Italy, where thousands were forced to evacuate around the River Po in Turin when water levels rose by 4 metres. Seven people are thought to have died as a result of the storms and torrential rain in the country.

Over in North America, severe winter storms have hit both Canada and Alaska. In British Columbia a snow storm caused severe disruption to travel networks and power supplies, with ferries to Vancouver Island forced to stop sailing. Meanwhile, Alaska saw winds of up to 100mph combined with high seas and blizzard conditions. During the storm the rate of ice accretion - the process of ice building up on solid objects - was more than 15.6 inches an hour.

The week ahead

The UK:

• The quiet weather is expected to continue with temperatures remaining generally around or slightly above normal throughout. However, there is the potential for some heavy rain and strong winds across north-western parts of the UK later in the week.

Across Europe:

• Low pressure over the eastern Mediterranean brings strong northeasterly winds through the Aegean Sea early in the week. Severe weather warnings have been in place for much of Greece, with storm force winds forecast in some areas. Although the strongest winds are likely to be on Monday, it will stay pretty breezy in the area for the next few days.

• Bitterly cold weather continues in eastern Turkey, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, although temperatures should start to rise from Tuesday.

Across the Americas:
• Following the recent storms affecting the west coast of Alaska, the state is set to see temperatures falling dramatically over the next few days to be 10-15 °C below average by Friday. Night time lows of -35 °C look possible in places, with daytime temperatures at times not far above.

• In South America there's heavy rain, strong winds and some relatively low temperatures for a time in southern Brazil at the start of this week, before the associated low pressure system moves east into the Atlantic around Tuesday.

Across Africa:
• The same eastern Mediterranean low pressure that brings strong winds to Greece is also causing lower than average temperatures over large parts of Egypt, mainly the north east, over the next few days, with above average winds and precipitation as well at first.

Across Asia:
• A spell of unsettled weather is forecast for the Philippines over the next few days. The system causing this will move into the South China Sea around mid-week and may later affect parts of southern China.

• Some unseasonably low temperatures are expected in the Himalayas - Tibet, Bhutan and Nepal - with daytime temperatures at Lhasa, Tibet potentially around ten degrees below normal.

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Distance travelled ~ 765'997'600 km

Across Asia, several areas are severely flooded after unusually heavy monsoon rains since July. Over 200 houses were swept away by flash floods in Burma, where up to 50 people are thought to have died. Thailand and Cambodia are also badly affected, with the worst flooding in 50 years.

 

 

 

The above images captured by Alexis Taylor 23 October. "They were taken in the center of Bangkok town...10 min from Khaosan road on foot. The hotel I was staying in on Khao San was bricking the doors up - 1 meter high. You have to enter over sand bags"

 

Ari Honka took this photo of the first signs of flooding in China Town, Bangkok on 23 October.

 

 

The above images were captured by Derek Armstrong 23 October. "The exact location is outside my house on the Rangsit Nakon Nayok highway which is normally a very busy road linking Bangkok with NE Thailand. It is located in Pathumthani province, just to the north of Bangkok and about 10km from the old Don Mueang Airport.

The situation has deteriorated somewhat as the level of the klong(canal) is now climbing up to near the brim of the temporary sandbag/clay dykes. The road is also flooding over both sides and spilling into the canal as a result of water run-off from the North (see attached pictures taken yesterday at 9.00 am, Monday 24th October). We are now virtually marooned as we cannot get out of our estate to travel to Bangkok. Vipavadee Rangsit Road, to the west, where Don Mueang airport is located is heavily flooded now. To the east, we cannot access the Outer Ring Road, as there is heavy flooding up to Rangsit Klong 6 where that road is located."

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Distance travelled ~ 611'308'000 km

Some truly awesome Images and video sent to the 23 Degrees team by Netweather.tv monsoon chasers in Arizona, currently on day 9 of their chase...

Dust Devil, Arizona, captured by Craig Hough 18 August,
Casa Grande (near Phoenix).

To submit your severe weather images and video into 23 Degrees for a possible feature or for next week's 'weekly roundup blog' - email them to 23degrees@bbc.co.uk or add them to the weather photography pool.

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Distance travelled ~ 588'206'400 km

"Cloudburst" sounds dramatic, doesn't it? As though a cloud was a large balloon filled with water and someone had just arrived with a very large pin. Pop! And then what went up must come down and the one place that you don't want to be is right underneath.

Although the real thing isn't quite like that, the people underneath can be forgiven for not caring about the difference. This week a cloudburst in the town of Kullu produced 176 mm of rain in three hours and drenched three villages. A cloudburst is defined as any rainstorm where the rain rate is greater than 10 cm each hour, and they are usually only a few km wide. Just stop and think about that... 10 cm of rain in one hour. That is enough to turn an entire village into a temporary river bed. And these are large damaging drops, accompanied by strong winds and thunder. Cloudbursts are very hard to predict, but devastating to the places that they hit.

Not long ago the 23 Degrees team were in India to film the monsoon rains

A cloudburst is a hard thing to study, because it's tough to be in the right place at the right time. So we don't have a good description of exactly how they form or what causes them. They're relatively common during the monsoon in India, especially close to the mountains. Scientists think that these huge amounts of rain come from very tall clouds, reaching up to 15 km into the air, and so the droplets falling from the top of that huge cloud have been able to hoover up lots of smaller drops along the way. That's why the raindrops are so big when they get to the bottom.

The trigger for the storm seems to be that something nearby (for example shape of the local mountains) starts a huge upside down fountain of air that's very strong but only covered a very small area. Warm moist air pours upwards, releasing energy as it rises, and this builds the storm cloud very quickly. Once it gets big enough and if the conditions are right, all the water that had been lifted up comes down. Very quickly. This is similar to the process that generates normal storms, but what makes cloudbursts different is that this whole process happens inside a small area and very powerfully.

The problem for the areas that are vulnerable to these events is that accurate prediction of cloudbursts is hard to do and would require some really detailed weather monitoring. You would need to have a weather station every couple of kilometres all over those areas, and installing and maintaining that system would be very expensive. To understand and predict really local events, you need to have really local measurements.

Hopefully, new technologies and new monitoring systems will solve some of these problems soon. But until then, cloudbursts are going to remain a dramatic reminder of the invisible complexity of the air we breathe, and how little control we have over it.

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