With a maximum UV of 4.8 been recorded down here today, and also the bbc weather guy just had a warning for high UV at the moment in the forecast, I'm curious are we currently experiencing an area of low ozone?

P.s. It's been clear blue skies down here so cloud magnification is out the question.

For mid April it really shouldn't be above 4.2-4.4 down here.

The Polar Vortex  which has been very strong this year, is breaking up. There was  ozone depletion in the stratosphere when the sun reached the polar vortex. As it breaks up pockets of low ozone containibg stratospheric air pass over us. This is happening now.

I think we had an unusual high UV sometime last year too. According to BBC weather it is a level 3 here all this week, but weatheronline says a level 4 on Wednesday, not sure who to believe. Either way the sun is gaining strength now. Went out earlier at "peak UV time" and you can feel it on you're face and top of head. But still compared to somewhere south of Madrid our sun is relatively weak when compared to those areas below 40 degrees North.

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Thanks tom for the explanation.

I knew that low ozone floating over the uk is nothing exceptional and that it happens from time to time. As alluded to by medlock the same thing happened last year around early May time. I remember UV levels as high as 7 in early May - something that wouldn't normally happen until late May/ early June.

I actually thought that my favourite local weather station had developed faulty UV equipment last spring when it happened, but other local starion where also giving similar readings making me doubtful something was wrong. Strangely though it took the metoffice something like 5/6 days to realise a statement on their website warning people. 🌅🌇

UV readings for the past year can be seen here for the gosport/ Pompey area.

http://www.weatheringosport.co.uk/YEAR/History_Vantage_Pro_Plus_1.htm 

The BBC weather report yesterday morning did mention 'levels as high as June' which had me baffled at the time but I guess they meant UV rather than strength of the sun (they could have made it clearer really).

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. The strength of the sun is to my knowledge how much radiation it's delivering under clear skies to a given spot, UV being just one kind of radiation.