It's Getting Repetitive!
I realise that my blog posts, like the weather, are getting repetitive. Storm Dennis has followed almost exactly one week on from storm Ciara.
Storm Dennis - Temperature, Rainfall and High Wind Gusts 15-17 February 2020
For us Dennis hasn’t been any worse than an average winter storm, in other words wet and windy. I'm not sure whether Dennis occurred at some time between Saturday and Monday or if it lasted from Saturday evening all the way through to Monday night. It certainly has been windy all weekend. Enough rain fell on Saturday to make this February the wettest I’ve recorded. The previous wettest February was in 2011 with 84.0mm. It also makes this February the third wettest month since January 2010.
Winter Rainfall & Wettest Months 2010 - 2020
It’s rather worrying that thanks to last week’s storm Ciara we’re already past that amount and we are only half way through the month. I thought that this winter would be easily the wettest I've recorded but it isn't the case just yet. It's currently in third place but with a couple of weeks to go to the start of meteorological spring it might yet manage to move into number one position.
However, the wet and windy weather has meant that temperatures have remained on the mild side. There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight to this weather.
Checking back through my records, March 2011 was a cold sunny month following on from that very wet February and we managed to catch up on our jobs at the allotment. We haven’t visited the allotment much at all this month and, should the weather continue into March, we will have an extremely late start to the gardening season. The greenhouse at home has survived Ciara and Dennis intact and I was pleasantly surprised when I popped in to check for any damage to find our apricot was in full flower.
Apricot - Flavourcot
It's normally the first of our fruit trees to come into flower. It's hard to imagine there are any pollinating insects around in these wet and windy conditions so Sue headed up to the greenhouse around lunchtime with her pollinating brush.
All outdoor gardening activities continue to be on hold until we get some improvement in the weather and both the garden and allotments can start to dry up before any sowing or planting is due to take place.