Flight Radar - what's going on at Southampton?

[twobluechickens]

Several flights circling, a couple diverted to Bristol. Can't see anything on Twitter yet.

From doing a twitter search, it seems like it's because of fog. I'm several miles north (and under the flightpath) and it's fairly overcast here. I guess fog would explain why they're circling and then diverting - hoping for a break in the weather - rather than diverting straight away.

Ahhh, thanks @hoteltango . Couldn't see anything on Twitter earlier.

And Rishi Sunak is there for Diwali

I think it was Sunak flying out.

It's really really foggy here this evening. I imagine it's that.
Surely Rishi would drive back to London (it's about an hour - 90 mins).

I’m about 45 mins from Southampton and it’s really foggy here.

From one of the met sites -

Last reported actual measured visibility and cloud was OK (at 2100 the reported visibility was 10km, no low cloud).

However in the forecast there's also chance of broken low cloud (at 500 feet) and at times a chance of it deteriorating further to a really crappy 100 foot cloud base and visibility down to 300 metres.

I don't have the required books to hand to check but I'd suspect Southampton doesn't have the required equipment on the ground to allow approaches in those sort of condition.

As a result if a flight arrives during a period when the weather has deteriorated they are either going to have to divert or, if they have enough fuel, hold and hope for a pick up in the weather.

No, I don't think so.

Rishi visited Dover (Kent) earlier in the year and FLEW in a helicopter there and back, despite there being the M20 motorway and trains from London. It'd have been 1.5 hours maximum in a car one way.

From personal experience it is quite foggy around there and we have previously been diverted to Cardiff. Not the happiest end to the holiday!

For anyone is still interested in events last night.

I've just had a chance this AM to look at some weather data for last evening and as forecast there was indeed a brief period where the visibility measured along the runway at Southampton wasn't at all great and was quite probably below the airports operating limits.

Fog was reported at 1820, it all started to get potentially marginal for operations in the 1850 report with 600 metres, and then it dipped to about 350-400 metres in the subsequent reports for the next hour, which ties in with the timing of events seen by @twobluechickens .

After that things cleared somewhat.

Thanks! I love this stuff, it's fascinating.