It must be spring soon?

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Buds are bursting on the bushes, leaves are slowly unfurling. Each tiny leaflet a herald of coming spring. A few crocuses and snowdrops are out. Rode Halls snowdrop walk, which is an annual event round here, is advertised on Facebook. Life moves on. The water from the storms is soaking the ground, and where there are trees and gardens the water is sucked up to swell the buds. Where there is concrete and bricks it washes down and floods out from the rivers.

The weather is on a knife edge, will it get to hot again this summer? Will we have floods or drought? Will warmth spread through the land gently or will we have fires on heaths and moors and in woods and forests. Our climate is in balance no more. It is up to us to do something to help it fall back into that balance of nature that is gentlest for the world. If we try hard I hope we can.?

Storm “Dennis”

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Storm Dennis has been tipped as possibly more damaging than storm Ciara last weekend. We have had some strong gusts of wind, bending the Eucalyptus sapling we have growing in the garden, it’s leaves acting like sails, catching the wind, and bending it almost in half. The Leylandii in the neighbours garden has been whipping about and it’s branches seperating as the winds buffet it. Sometimes great gusts of air force themselves between the tree and the privet hedge at the bottom of our garden.

We are waiting for the heavy rain that is forecast, an Amber and Yellow warning has been set for the whole country. Even planes have been cancelled fir the passengers safety.

Britain is not a large island (or islands) but its shocking to think that storms can encompass the whole of it. Whether the heating of the atmosphere could be causing it? I don’t know, but you do have to wonder?…

I thought it was cold.

I thought it was cold. Now it’s snowing! It hasn’t snowed in months. Since last year… Cars coming down the hill with hazard warning lights on. Luckily not slipping or sliding. The flakes are huge fluffy things. In an hour two inches have fallen. And the silence, the quiet that you get when snow falls. It muffled everything. Makes the world seem less busy. Now I’m going to put the heating on… For a bit…..

Storm Ciara

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I’m not going out so no exciting photos…. Its been blowing a gale and raining all last night and today although it seems to have calmed down a bit now. Winds over the north of Wales measured at 94 miles an hour. Flooding in Pateley Bridge in Yorkshire. Trees down, roads flooded. The main road round here is flooded to a depth of three or four feet with cars trapped in the water. The windspeeds over the whole of the UK have topped 80 miles an hour.

There are heavy seas around the coast with reports from Blackpool, Aberystwyth and Dover. Ferries have been cancelled and people who went to an international rugby game in Dublin are now stuck there. The jet stream across the Atlantic is very strong and fast at the moment and planes travelling from America to the UK have had their travelling time cut by about an hour. The fastest plane made the journey in just over four hours, with an air speed about 800 miles an hour. That made it the fastest sub sonic crossing of the Atlantic ever made!

The weather here is set to get colder. Oh what joy.

Quiet day

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Today I have done a bit of work around the house, but apart from that I’ve had a quiet day. The weather is cold and windy, I have heard there is a major storm coming in off the Atlantic so I don’t think I will be doing much outside tomorrow. I feel like one of these birds in the tree. Perched up there, trying to huddle and keep warm…..

More mad weather?

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I watched several pieces on TV about the weather in Australia recently. I have a few friends over there and I want to know they are safe.

Looking at the map on thunderstorms I can see one in the North of Australia at the moment. With all the wildfires that have happened over the continent I know they have been praying for rain. And some of the fires were so hot and high that they triggered thunderstorms. Unfortunately the lightening from them set more fires alight.

Then a few days ago there was rain in the East, which turned out to be torrential, and caused flooding. Then yesterday there were reports of hailstorms where the hail was golf ball sized. No sooner did we see that than today there was a report of 180 mile long dust storm of red top soil, travelling across parts of the country on strong winds. We also saw pictures of dead fish, who’s gills had been clogged by the ash from the fires.

We in the Northern hemisphere should be watching this with trepidation. There were fires in the UK in recent years on moorland in the North of England. There were fires in Europe, there have been massive fires in California.

The view seems to be getting more biblical. The idea that climate change is fake news is increasingly unbelievable. Politicians must take responsibility, not stick their heads in the sand.

Time to think, time for change. Before its too late.

The North Wind shall blow…

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The North Wind doth blow

and we shall have snow,

and what shall poor Robin do then?

Poor thing.

He’ll sit in a barn,

and keep himself warm,

and hide his head under his wing,

poor thing….

Image from my post on the 64 million artists January challenge, I cut out a shape of clouds and  drew a face puffing out wind and used that to frame the view of our annamometer and weather station.

I’m enjoying doing the challenges, some require more ingenuity than others, but it’s making me think.

 

Last decade had highest ever recorded temperatures.

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Three maps, dated 1970-74, 1997-2001, 2015-19. There were others but I didn’t snap them in time. So we are getting hotter. Life will change, and possibly catastrophically if we don’t do something. I remember doing a collage about population growth in the 1970’s. I did a picture of earth with a line of people snaking away from it towards the moon. I’ve always been conscious of the environment. I was a tree warden in about 1975 and told people off for damaging trees. I think I got carried away once and really told some boys off about their behaviour. Fast forward several decades, and things are only getting worse. X

Annamometer / weather station

Spinning cups in the wind

Gale force blowing across the land

Pressure dropping

Rain falling horizontal

Waves whipped into crazy foam

Crashing over coastal roads

Trees bending over fences

Birds cowering in hedges

Cold is the storm

Ready to snow?

Gales are unfriendly

Viscious and fearful

Great, gusting blow…..

Rain due

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It’s not rained for a while, but the air pressure is dropping. The sky went yellow grey before the sun set. Weather is interesting here. We don’t get long spells of sun or rain, it fluctuates depending on the jet stream.

As you can see by the photo the pressure had dropped very low (the current pressure isn’t as low as this). I’m trying not to add new photos as my memory on WordPress is going down.

The rain is falling now, I can hear cars splashing through the puddles outside. I can hear it thrumming on the roof of the kitchen extension. It might turn to snow.