ossettweather.com
Sunday, 01 January 2012
Off to a mild start
The new year got off to a mild start with the weather continuing as the previous few weeks.
I noticed that the BBC and Met Office are recording 2011 as the second hottest ever UK year. As a gardener that surprised me somewhat as I can’t remember any crops struggling due to the heat. Our crops struggled more through lack of rain and cold temperatures throughout the main summer months than from a prolonged heatwave. Crops like sweetcorn failed to produce completely which I put down to a cold and dry summer.
Looking back over the year April was clearly the standout month with above average temperatures but that’s a little too early for most of the main vegetable crops to benefit, especially as we had a keen frost at the beginning of May which undid much of April’s good work.
Our early potatoes and outdoor grapes were frosted along with our Kiwi. The grapes and Kiwi never fully recovered from their set back so we can only hope for better luck with the weather this year.
Frosted Kiwi 4th May 2011
The other surprising thing I noticed was the value of the average annual UK temperature. The article above gives a little graph of the monthly temperatures and gives the annual average UK temperature as 9.62°C.
The average temperature recorded by my weather station for Ossett last year is 11.0°C which is positively tropical compared to the UK average quoted. I’m wondering where you have to live in the UK to experience this average temperature. Ossett is situated in the north of England so I’m thinking possibly Scotland say Edinburgh might be the place to experience something like this temperature. My weather station temperatures are usually in close agreement with other Weather Stations that display their data on the Internet via Weather Underground so I’ve no reason to believe my recordings are so far out.
It would be interesting to find out what the average temperatures are in the areas that my readers live in. It would be great if you could pop a comment here if you know what the average annual temperature is in your area.
Tuesday, 03 January 2012
Battered
Just like the rest of the country we were battered by gale force winds and rain on Tuesday. It’s windy almost every day at the moment but yesterday we had a couple of gusts measured at 30mph and many over 25mph which is unusual for our sheltered suburban garden.
As you can see from the above graph we had plenty of rain mixed in with the gales. In the end we had 14.0mm of rain producing our wettest day since November 8th 2010. Looks like our spell of below average rainfall might well be over especially as January isn’t generally a particularly wet month.
We were l
ucky that the wind didn’t do too much damage in the garden.
ucky that the wind didn’t do too much damage in the garden.
This bird table and RSPB feeding station felt the worst of the weather blowing over in the morning gales. I’m not too sure how it managed to do that as the bird table was weighed down with a small paving slab which the wind needed to dislodge before the table could blow over. One leg of the bird table rested on the base of the feeding station so I thought I had a foolproof method of preventing them from blowing over in any gales. Apparently not!
It looks like correcting the feeding station is work in progress as after an afternoon and night of more windy weather its taken on a rather jaunty angle this morning. It looks like it’s still recovering from a rather good New Years Eve party.
The plastic trays which fix to the bottom of the feeders to try to prevent some seed falling to the ground were smashed in the fall and will need to be replaced.
So in the garden we got off very lightly.
Hopefully all will be well when we next visit the plot and our shed and greenhouse will be in one piece and still where they should be on our plot.
Wednesday, 04 January 2012
Battered again
For most of Wednesday we had a lull from being battered by strong winds but then as forecast the strength picked up again and we were battered once again through the late evening and into the early hours of Thursday morning. The winds were stronger and more frequent than Tuesday’s gales.
The chart below (starting at Midnight on Tuesday) plots both storms and shows how last nights storm was more intense.
This time though our bird table and feeder station remained upright and we fortunately haven’t any other damage in the garden. Unfortunately this particular storm coincided with the the local council’s collection of recycled plastic. Their system doesn’t work in windy weather as the light weight plastic container supplied for collecting the rubbish just blows around in the wind depositing the contents everywhere - well not quite everywhere mostly in our garden!
So this morning’s first task was to collect other people’s rubbish before council collection lorry arrived - we didn’t put ours out as we knew what would happen - why do people put cardboard packaging in a plastic recycling container?
Thursday, 05 January 2012
Battered fades at last
After being battered by gales in the early hours of the morning the wind eased to strong and blustery by midday before eventually calming down in the evening.
After our run of dry months which came to an end in December it looks like January is set to get 2012 off to a wet start.
By the end of Thursday, just 5 days into January our monthly rainfall already tots up to 32.6mm set against an average monthly total of 43.8mm.
Friday, 06 January 2012
Allotment visit
Friday was much better than the last few days with a reasonable amount of sunshine and the gale force conditions of the last few days had disappeared.
We thought we should visit the allotment to collect some fresh vegetables and discover what state the plot was in following the gales. Visiting the plot just after lunch we managed to pick a time when the sun had disappeared but with virtually no breeze it didn’t feel too cold.
We were pleased to discover that there didn’t seem to be any damage at all and our greenhouse and shed had survived the gales intact. Most of our winter vegetables are still in good condition and we soon managed to gather what we thought was a pretty decent harvest for the first week of January.
As it’s the start of a new year I’ve decided to start a new page on my web site for our harvests from the plot for this year. Click here to see full details of our first harvest of 2012.
Whilst we were fortunate to have avoided any damage from the gale force winds that’s certainly not the case around Yorkshire where we live. Just a few miles away in the Pennines the winds were at their strongest and these wind turbines became rather high profile casualties of the gales.
Saturday, 07 January 2012
The Great Storm
Saturday wasn’t too bad although it was cloudy for most of the day it remained dry. The wind picked up for a short while in the evening but nothing too bad and it was short lived.
I thought last week’s storm was bad but obviously Britain has suffered from far worse storms in the past. All too often we only seem to consider our weather over it’s modern well measured era rather than delving too deeply into the past.
The Great Storm of 1703 lasted from 24th November to 2nd December with the worst of the storm hitting on the Friday night and Saturday morning of November 26/27. The winds struck at a reported 140mph in the English Channel and it’s thought winds speeds even higher than this would have been recorded further north.
There are parallels in the story of many windmills being destroyed in the storm some catching fire as their sails spun out of control in the wind.
The Eddystone lighthouse constructed 5 years earlier was totally destroyed killing its designer Henry Winstanley who visited the lighthouse to see how it would withstand the elements.
At sea the storm devastated the English Navy which lost lost 14 of its principal fighting ships and 1,500 crew. Around 40 merchant ships were reported lost.
The total loss of life was estimated at around 8,000.
Thought to be a 1 in 500 year storm it just goes to show you never can tell what the weather might throw at you.