ossettweather.com
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Measuring Windy Weather
The gale continued to blow for most of the day and it was into the evening before it started to calm down. Once again it was mild but not very pleasant outside.
It set me off thinking how to measure the windy weather. It’s all well and good measuring the highest gust speed that’s just one measurement and the last gale blew for the best part of 3 days. So with a little help from the “Countif” function in Excel I decided to calculate how many wind gust speeds in increasing 5mph bands my weather station recorded from January 2011 to the present.
I was surprised by the numbers but they do show how windy the last couple of months have been. I have even checked the 590 roughly manually and it seems correct.
Our strongest gust was in February 2011 with a speed of 36 mph during a particularly windy spell that month. But for pure persistent blowing power December 2011 and January 2012 hold the record.
For information my weather station saves all its weather data in 5 minute intervals so a wind gust speed is logged every 5 minutes or 288 gust speeds a day, 2016 per week, amounting to just over 8000 values per month. So all Excel has done is count up the wind gust speed in each of the 5 minute intervals.
Monday, 23 January 2012
Chitting Potatoes
Monday was a mixed bag of weather, some sunny spells but then some short sharp showers and a gradually falling temperature.
Having decided to put gardening on hold for a few weeks and wait for some better weather that idea went out of the window when our seed potatoes arrived from Alan Romans.
Arriving as they do at this time of year it a tricky decision deciding the best place to keep them. They could go in the garage and be kept in the dark for a few weeks where they will be safe from any frosty weather or go into the greenhouse in boxes in the light to allow them to start chitting.
Our potatoes in storage in the garage have managed to grow a few sprouts due to the mild winter so far. Bearing this in mind I’ve decided to take a bit of a risk and to put the potatoes in the greenhouse, set out in boxes, which will allow them to chit by forming tiny sprouts before planting which will be early April.
The potatoes are now set out in old supermarket boxes on the greenhouse shelving with the varieties each carefully labelled. The boxes are into their second recycling life as they were used to store last summer’s potato harvest in the garage. They’ll probably make their way down to the plot in April when the potatoes are planted and once emptied chopped up and placed in one of our compost bins for their final recycle.
To finish off each box of potatoes has been covered with a couple of layers of fleece just for a little bit of frost protection. I think if some really severe cold weather is forecast I might have to move the boxes into the garage to give them a little extra protection from the cold. I’ll need to keep an eye on the forecast as until the end of February we can expect especially frosty nights which may damage our seed potatoes.
Our potatoes have started off our “sowing” record for 2012 which can be found here.
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Apple Muffins
Tuesday was pretty wet and miserable and not a day for venturing outdoors unless absolutely necessary. It rained on and off for most of the day with the rain coming from an unusual direction as it doesn’t often fall on the web cam window.
As I didn’t want to go outside I decided to do a little baking. As Sue posted in her blog we still have some apples left that have been stored in the fridge. We’re now using the last of these apples and we have unsurprising only the smallest apples left.
I found a recipe for apple muffins on the Internet and decided to give it a go. The only difficult bit was deciding how many tiny apples constitute two large apples.
I must have judged it about right as the muffins turned out OK. There were eight to start with but that was soon reduced to six after a couple of tasters disappeared to check the quality. I might just try a hint of cinnamon in the next batch.
I grabbed this screen shot on Thursday morning and it’s definitely going for the cold option at the moment. The temperatures are in °F where anything in red is indicating 28°F down to 14°F. This particular forecast is for 06:00 on the 2nd February. This winter it’s been rather unusual to have any red on the chart and we’ve maintained blues and purples for most of winter.
The chart below is the forecast for midday on Thursday 26th which is more typical of the forecasts for this winter with virtually the whole of the UK swathed in blues.
As I said at first there are two scenarios and it’s possible that the mild and unsettled weather will continue into February but on the other hand..............
Thursday, 26 January 2012
A First Sighting
Thursday was another not too bad sort of a day for winter, some sunshine during the day dried up the rain which had fallen in the early hours of the morning.
I’m taking winter as a time to sort out my 2011 video. I like to make sure that the most important clips are backed up and that any unwanted stuff is deleted from my computer. I was a little surprised when I came across some clips from RSPB Old Moor taken last April which had been left on the clipping room floor. This was the first and only time we had spotted a Reed Bunting so I didn’t want to loose this bit of video.
I’ve uploaded the best of the video to Youtube. It was taken on a visit last April so it’s good to know that in a few weeks time Spring will hopefully be arriving.
Friday, 27 January 2012
Shallots arrive
Friday was sunshine and showers, with the showers a little too frequent to make any use of the sunshine in between them. Temperatures were around expected with a high of 6.5°C. After a dry 2011, January has got 2012 off to wet start and we’ve had around a third more rainfall this month than we might expect.
It’s the time of year when onions and shallots start arriving from the suppliers. Marshalls have sent our shallots which arrived today.
Last year we started our shallots in pots in the greenhouse and it worked well. There is no way that ground on the plot will be in a fit state for planting. I’ll have to do a bit of tidying up in the greenhouse first though.
Saturday, 28 January 2012
RSPB Bird Count Saturday
Saturday was a cold crisp sunny day. It did cloud over in the late afternoon but otherwise it was a beautiful day for counting birds.
For once it seemed our feathered friends didn’t completely desert us for a couple of days as they usually do for the RSPB bird count weekend. These starlings found the temptation of a new fat filled coconut too much to resist.
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Muffin Trials
Sunday was so different, not a hint of sunshine and cold with a high of just 3.1°C and the daily average coming in at 1.3°C. This weather may be with us a while, through into the second week of February if the forecasts are correct.
Last week I made some apple muffins which turned out well. I thought some may be nice with a little of our frozen fruit used in them. The apple recipe only made 8 muffins and I wanted to make a dozen sufficient to fill the muffin tray. There’s thousands of muffin recipes on the web so it was a matter of deciding which one. I settled for a blueberry muffin recipe except I intended to use some redcurrants to replace the blueberries. I added the equivalent amount of de-frosted redcurrants as a first attempt to see if the muffins would turn out OK.
The ingredients:
2 eggs, 240ml milk, 120ml vegetable oil, 200gms sugar added to a bowl and mixed together.
375gms plain flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder and 1 teaspoon salt mixed together.
The 2 sets of ingredients are added together and given a good mixing and then I added 175 gms of de-frosted redcurrants.
The mixed contents were shared between the 12 muffin cases and cooked for 25 minutes at 200°C gas mark 6
Next time I might try with 200gms of redcurrants especially as we still have plenty in the freezer.
Monday, 30 January 2012
Chickened Out!
Monday was cold with just a little sunshine in the afternoon but it didn’t do a lot for the temperature.
The forecast is for the cold weather to continue, certainly for the rest of this week, with night time temperatures plummeting very low over the next few nights to maybe the coldest of the winter so far. With this in mind I’ve moved my chitting potatoes out of the greenhouse and into the garage for a little extra warmth or should that be less cold.
As daytime temperatures even in the greenhouse are reaching only 5°C there wont be much chitting going on and I’d rather be safe than sorry at keeping the tubers frost free. On long cold winter nights my greenhouse doesn’t provide much frost protection.
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Out in the cold
Tuesday saw the end of January and it ended on a cold grey sunless day. The breeze was out of the east and had a bitterly cold feel to it.
The wind direction chart for the month clearly shows that when the wind blows from the east then certainly in winter we get a cold spell of weather.
After all the hype about the mild January it’s turned out just a smidgeon lower than average as after a mild first couple of weeks the temperatures have varied more dramatically over the remainder of the month. Two cold spells, one in the middle of the month and the current one have offset the mild start.
Rainfall wise after lots of below average rainfall months last year, January has got 2012 off to a wet start with one third more rainfall than average 59.8mm against 43.8mm.
All our monthly data has been updated on our 2012 weather pages.