Wednesday, 09 January 2019
First Flowers of the Year
It's been a very dull and dreary start to the new year. Up until yesterday, Tuesday, my weather station hadn't recorded any sunshine hours at all. With all the cloud it's resulted in a pretty mild start to 2019 even if it's been on the dull side.
Temperature & Rainfall Records 03-09 January 2019
Sunshine or not our hellebores are starting to flower and with a bit of luck will provide us with an early display of colour for a couple of months.
I've noticed that there's a suggestion our weather could turn much colder by the end of the month and into the beginning of February. This might well be the weather models responding to the Sudden Stratospheric Warming which occurred over Christmas. Of course this comes with the usual warning that predicting what our weather will be like in a couple of weeks time isn't set in stone by any means.
Saturday, 12 January 2019
Continuing Dull and Mild
The dull and mild start to the new year continues but there are all sorts of stories about how the weather might change by the end of the month. I don't think anything is certain at the moment but it seems the longer range weather models are suggesting much colder conditions towards the end of January and into February probably as a result of that Sudden Stratospheric Warming event at the end of last year. The shorter range models haven't picked up on this cold weather pattern yet so anything could still happen.
Yesterday, Friday, we set out to see 60103 Flying Scotsman haul the Scotsman Salute a charter train from London Kings Cross to York. This was in memory of Sir William McAlpine who repatriated Flying Scotsman from America. Sir William was the owner of Flying Scotsman from 1973–1996.
Sir William bought Flying Scotsman for £25,000 and paid for the locomotive to be brought back to the UK from San Francisco where it had been on tour. He then paid for the locomotive to be restored and brought back into main line operation.