Tropo / Temperature Inversion

While at the new Gibraltar Point Visitor Centre this afternoon, I took a few photos out over The Wash from the viewing platform. The platform is no more than about 20 feet above the ground.

When I returned home, I used a distance-to-horizon calculator and I discovered that the visible horizon at only 20 feet above the ground is only 5.5 miles, yet I could clearly see the other side of The Wash some
15 miles away, plus a few vessels about ten miles down the coast, seemingly floating in the air. I didn't think anything of it until I entered some data into http://www.ringbell.co.uk/info/hdist.htm. So what I was able to see was only possible because of the temperature inversion. I guess this all ties in with the level of tropospheric ducting is in the atmosphere at the moment.

Temperature Inversion over The Wash

Photo1 shows trees a the far end of The Wash near Boston. The Pilgrim Hospital and clock tower of the Boston Stump can be seen on the right hand half of the horizon.

Photo 2 shows a vessel roughly ten miles down the coast, used for target practice bu the miiltary.

German signals from the Aurich and Steinkimmen transmitters are S9+50dB here in broad daylight. This is a BIG tropo and, with a bit of luck, it will spread elsewhere inland this evening.

Good DX!

John