To Northern Ireland to look at the relationship between aviation and the weather. This time on Weather World we are in Northern Ireland, airside at Belfast International airport. Were going behind the scenes to find out what it takes to keep these planes flying and you and i safe, whatever the weather. Also on Weather World, devastation and deadly floods in south america. But some dramatic escapes too after months of Heavy Rain Leave towns under water. And mud. As landslides kill hundreds. Weather bomb, the storms so strong they hold a unique place in weather science. And have taken california from drought to deluge, with the ground giving way. And extreme heat. Wild fires, as parts of australia endure their hottest summer. Plus you have some history there. Taking the temperature. I will be opening the archives of one of the worlds longest running Weather Observations and watching how its still being done today. I will be taking a trip back to my own Family History and aviations past, to see how some of todays technology was born. Welcome to Weather World at Belfast International airport. 13 Miles North West of the city of belfast, this site was first established as a Military Base in the first world war. Since then, its grown to become the Busiest Airport in Northern Ireland, with overfive million passengers travelling through it last year. The airport serves other uk and european destinations, plus there are flights to the usa. Weather and airports. So much can go wrong, cant it . Its an interesting relationship thunder storms, fog, wind, snow. Someone that knows all about those Weather Challenge is michael cockcroft, the general manager of air Traffic Control here. Hello, michael. Hi. Is there a day when you are not thinking about the weather . No, every day, every day controllers come into work, theyre obviously always thinking about the weather. The surface wind is very important, in terms of deciding whats the direction of runway for take off and landing. Interested in the cloud, the type of precipitation falling, whether its rain, heavy rain or drizzle. And also down to fog, all affects flights nd flight safety. So we are very interested in knowing all we need to about that. There is something specific about the airport here at belfast which is about the weather and increases your flexibility. Yeah, we are one of the only remaining uk airports that still operates a cross runway. So our main runway faces west east west orientation. We also have a cross runway, 1735, which sits at right angles from the main runway. Its orientated more or less north south. We tend to find, during the autumn when we get low pressures coming across the atlantic we get strong southerly gales, and a pilots preference is is to land into wind, so when the cross wind gets roughly around 25 30 knots, the pilots will opt to take runway 17 for a safer approach and take off. So weather is so important and sarahs in the control tower now to take a look at how they get the very latest Weather Information here. This is the main Weather System used here in the air Traffic Control centre. All the numbers and figures on the Screen Correspondent to continuous weather data thats collected. We record things like Wind Direction and speed, visibility, any significant weather around, as well as importantly cloud amounts and heights too. Every half an hour a report is issued. That will help pilots make operational decisions about whether it is safe to land or whether they might need to divert to another airport. When the weather gets rough, the landings get tough. This plane struggles to maintain a steady approach to Manchester Airport in february, in the uks fourth named storm of the season. Winds of up to Ioomph Hit The Uk as storm doris blows in. As you see the foam hitting me from the sea, that it definitely has materialised, gusts here are so powerful i cant even face in the direction the wind is coming from. As reporters tried to remain upright, some trees failed. A lucky escape here for a driving instructor. But the storm did claim the life of a woman hit by falling debris, and it wasnt just the wind doing the damage. There was heavy snow too, here in scotland. Storm doris was an area of low pressure that underwent explosive cyclogenesis, deepening rapidly, so strengthening quickly. Storms like this have become known as Weather Bombs. Snow emergency. That life threatening storm pummelling the north east right now. This was another. A major snow storm hits the north east usa in march, bringing to an abrupt end what had been a mild start to the year. And for the first time in 33 years in new york, march was colder than february. There is cold and there is frozen solid. This house became encased in ice after strong winds blew water from lake ontario over it, which then froze. Amazingly, when the ice melted, these pictures show the house emerging virtually unscathed. Europes coldest winter month was january. With the unusual sight of snow on greek island beaches. But the bitterly cold weather brought fresh misery for migrants at camps such as these in the balkans. Then, disaster in italy. A Mountain Hotel buried by an avalanche. 29 people are killed, but amazingly, some survive, rescued more than two days later. Oh my god Tornado Season in the usa peaks in spring, but this is february in louisiana. And new olleans is hit with its strongest tornado on record. And new orleans is hit with its strongest tornado on record. But worst came even earlier. A january outbreak of tornado sweeps through south eastern states, leaving total devastation and 20 dead. More than died in tornados in the usa in the whole of last year. Its a Beautiful Day here at Belfast International airport today, but visibility is not always this good. In fact, the airport can be prone to seeing pretty dense fog. Michael is going tojoin me now, and can you explain just how do you land a plane when you cant see the runway . Certainly. We have an Instrument Landing System at the airport, part of that system is the glide path. It sends a signal in space to the pilot and tells him if he is too high or too low as he makes the approach. We have another signal at the other end of the runway, the localiser, and it tells the pilot if he is left or right of centre line. The combination of the two, left right, up, down, safety guides the aircraft to land. Wonderful. We have had a look at what it looks like from the ground, what i would love to see is how this Instrument Landing System works from up in the skies. Shall we take a look . Absolutely, lets go. Michael, we are up in the air. Can you explain to us a little bit about how this Instrument Landing System, the ils works from the pilots perspective up here . Absolutely. You can see the pilot gets the distance from touchdown. Its displayed at all times in the cockpit. So he knows how far he is from touchdown. He is currebtly being vectored by the controller to intercept the ils. You can see from the ils signal at the moment, the needle is to the left of the centre light. That means the aircraft needs to fly left to get on track. I suppose in very Poor Visibility conditions, in thick fog or blowing snow, the pilot would completely rely upon this instrument . Absolutely. And the system at aldergrove allows the aircraft to auto land in those sort of conditions. We took to the skies thanks to air ambulance Northern Ireland, but every commercial airline has an Instrument Landing System on board, so, no matter where in the world you make your landing, the guidance given to your pilot will be exactly the same. It takes an awful lot of power to power the ils, all this kit, and also an entire airport, but you might be surprised to hear where that power comes from. Lets head down to nick on the ground to explain more. Infact, sarah, Belfast International airport requires 1. 8 megawatts of electricity every day. And they get it right here, right next to the airport, from Tens Of Thousands of solar panels, and on a sunny day this gives the aerp all the power it needs. Day this gives the airport all the power it needs. Over here, if you listen carefully, that whiny sound is the power being made, because even though its cloudy there is still solar energy coming through, Converted Form Dc To Ac Power through this inverter. Alan whiteside is the Operations Manager here at the airport. How important is this solar farm, and has it become to the airport . Its been a Great Success for us. The first nine months it produced 27 of the energy that we use on airport. It still is producing on a day like this. On a really good day absolutely everything on airport, from radars to Instrument Landing Systems, security systems, baggage systems, everything on airport is running on it. It is Still Producing excess for the grid. We can see what its been doing for the airport today through this display unit here. The sun has come out occasionally today. Yes, this shows the last 2a hours of production with it. Last night, around sundown it was Still Producing, then it dropped off through the night period. From dawn, its gone up. We had a rainy period here this morning. Its Still Producing 250, 500 kilowatts. At peak time when the sun has come out, its producing 1500 1600 kilowatts of energy. So its working very well. Even for Northern Ireland. I wish you many more blue sky days. Thank you very much. Bbc Weather Watchers know cloudy days have their pluses too. And theyjust got a whole lot more interesting thanks to the release in march of an updated cloud atlas from the world meterological organisation. It features newly classified Cloud Formations such as these as seen in dorset. And these dramatic undulating clouds pictured here in the peak district. Still to come on Weather World michael, you have some history there. Temperature tradition, more than 200 years of weather observing in ireland. I will go back to the beginning and see how it is still being done today. We have had a look at modern aviation here at Belfast International airport. But now i am stepping back in time to learn a little bit more about the history and the relationship between aviation and the weather. I have a personal reason for being here today. We will look at that later on. For now, lets head inside and meet our guide ernie from the ulster aviation society. Hi there, ernie. Hi, sarah, its a pleasure to welcome you. Before the introduction of satellite and radar data, aircraft played a vital role in forecasting. Can you tell us more about that. Yes, indeed, what it involved was the aircraft of the Weather Flights going out over the atlantic primarily from where most of our Weather Systems come, and taking a range of observations and different altitudes, observations of temperature, humidity, pressure and so on. It would have involved in some cases flights of up to eight or nine hours in length. Every so often the data that was being collected would be signalled back to aldergrove. And from aldergrove it would be sent to the fraing office. Why dont i interviews you to malcolm, a colleague and from aldergrove it would be sent to the forecasting office. Why dont i interviews you to malcolm, a colleague who was a met observer on the Weather Squadron at aldergrove in the post war period. That would be fantastic. Malcolm, you were met observer on those Weather Flights. What was it like . A very interesting period in my life doing National Service in the force. We initially had very old aircraft, the halifax, we used to be directed by the weather forecasts, we would fly for a day into weather by the weather forecasts, we would fly for a day into where the worst weather was, find out what was really happening. As we tended to fly the majority of the flights fairly low down it could be very bumpy, very wet at the front because the aircraft used to leak a bit, being old. You could have lightning and it was a very difficult exercise for pilots and navigators to get there and back. With the poor radio waves and everything we would often be a bit of truck. It was arduous for the whole crew. Ernie, i mentioned earlier that i had a personal link to this place. My grandfather was an Aeronautical Engineer in Northern Ireland for many years. Can you tell me more about that . I really wanted to show you this aircraft, the short sherpa, a unique aircraft. It was built in 1953 to test the properties of a novel type of wing your grandfather designed. A revolutionary new aircraft goes for its trials. The chief designer, david keith lucas, planned the sherpa on his Drawing Board and now test pilot Tom Brook Smith looks set to continue. We are delighted it is part of the ulster aviation collection because it is a unique Research Aircraft and your grandfather was responsible for that. Thank you so much for showing me this little bit of my Family History. For now, we will be leaving these historic aircraft, and later were heading back to Belfast International airport for more on modern day aviation. Now to events in Southern Hemisphere summer, and this from peru. If ever you need proof of the force of flood water it is here. Look how the driver of this truck manages to get out just it is swept away. And again, as this Hotel Collapses into a flooded river. Dozens of people have died in peru since the start of the year. Here is another lucky escape as a mudslide churns up the debris of what was once someones home, a woman emerges. Slowly she is able to find her feet and step to safety. The rain has been blamed on an unusually warm sea water off the coast of peru, but notjust peru has suffered. Disaster in colombia, torrential rains is a mudslide torrential rains sends a mudslide into town, submerging homes, businesses and people. The death toll reaches into the hundreds. Some in the area have blamed Climate Change for the extreme rain, others say deforestation means are more likely. Mudslides are more likely. Further south in chile injanuary, drought, he took, strong winds and then fire. Further south in chile injanuary, drought, heat, strong winds and then fire. This town was destroyed by wildfires said to be the worst in the modern history of the country. Thousands of homes are burned to the ground. Summer fires also broke out in australia, nearly 100 at one stage in february in New South Wales as record high temperatures produce catastrophic fire danger. In march, the weather took a dramatic turn as Cyclone Debbie Hit Queens Land and then New South Wales. Floods follow and after its hottest summer, sydney has its wettest margin 20 years. Viewed from a helicopter, something quite astonishing is unfolding california in february. Car swallowing sinkholes are appearing. There goes another. It is notjust cars disappearing, the ground is literally giving way as the state undergoes a remarkable transformation from drought with a succession of storms and Weather Bombs bringing flooding rain. There is so much water that the overflow from this dam is needed for the first time in 50 years, but it fails, leading to evacuation with fears of unrestrained floodwater being sent downstream. In a world of changing climate and weather, some things change very little. Like this Weather Ritual which has been happening for over 200 years. At 9am every day, shane kelly takes Weather Observations at the Armagh Observatory A0Miles South West of belfast. His work and that of those before him has made this one of the longest Running Series of manual Weather Observations in the world. Shane, you have been doing this for 18 years and the Temperature Record goes back