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SUNSET - 31/12/08

Freezing moorland conditions and the sunset on the last day of 2008 is the theme for this latest update to the website, with pictures taken from around the Cheshire and Derbyshire border including Axe Edge Moor and Sutton Common.

From left to right the photos above show the sun setting across frozen moorland near the Cat and Fiddle Inn just off the Buxton to Macclesfield road. Centre photo is a view from Axe Edge Moor towards the east and the other photograph above shows the cloud inversion and sunset on New Year's Eve across the Cheshire Plain.
Unusually the sky was clear at higher levels with a layer of dense fog across lower ground. Under normal circumstances the air temperature gets lower with height but temperature inversion like this is caused when the temperature at lower levels is less than across higher ground. The peak you can see in the photograph on the right is Shutlingsloe, the 'Cheshire Matterhorn'.
The tower shown in the images is the Telecom Tower on Sutton Common; from this viewpoint you can normally see across the Cheshire Plain and the town of Macclesfield but not on this day, you can just about make out the shape of the Welsh Mountains rising above the mist in the background of the centre photo. On the right the view is towards the summit of Tegg's Nose in Cheshire and the mists rolling over the face of the hill in the last daylight of 2008.