Stormy Weather

[BBMmk2]

Better Marston's than the Marsden!

Down these parts, it's between Harvey's of Lewes or Dark Star.(Partridge Green- a village near Horsham).

Just the wet stuff at the moment.

[Serial_Apologist]

Down these parts, it's between Harvey's of Lewes or Dark Star.(Partridge Green- a village near Horsham).

Just the wet stuff at the moment.

Down a couple more degrees, and it'll be blobs of the white stuff descending amid the rain still falling heavily here. And I'm slightly in trouble - my central heating, supposedly repaired just before Christmas, is only responding to its own inclinations rather than the thermostat, so that I am sitting here, overcoated, in a temperature of 13 degrees C. Luckily I am in possession of an old, rusty, but serviceable two-bar electric fire my parents must have bought way back in the 1950s - the one consolation for the extra electricity being burned being the few times the gas boiler decides to come on!

[vinteuil]

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... the barograph has been plummeting since this morning : heavy rain all day, looking as if it's about to turn to snow, the temperature stuck at one degree celsius, and quite a wind from the north too. At the best of times I much prefer staying in : in this ghastly weather I find I have to go out, a do at the Reform Club. I'll even have to wear a tie, something I've not done in peace-time this last twenty years, barring weddings and funerals. Wretched.

[Serial_Apologist]

.

... the barograph has been plummeting since this morning : heavy rain all day, looking as if it's about to turn to snow, the temperature stuck at one degree celsius, and quite a wind from the north too. At the best of times I much prefer staying in : in this ghastly weather I find I have to go out, a do at the Reform Club. I'll even have to wear a tie, something I've not done in peace-time this last twenty years, barring weddings and funerals. Wretched.

Phew! - steady moderate snow falling here now, about an inch on the ground, temperature having fallen 4 degrees in the past hour. Had to scoop the stuff from my outside thermometer to get the reading!

[Serial_Apologist]

Here today the temperature has not yet managed to reach freezing point. It looks likely to start warming up, everywhere, from tomorrow - which, in mid-winter, can only mean one thing: rain. But that may be just what some parts are in desperate need of: one learns that some reservoirs in the SW are really low, following the unusually dry second half of last summer and its continuance through the autumn.

Today is the 27th aniversary of the Burns Night storm, (posters on the website featuring this are at pains to emphasise no apostrophe!) which brought 100 + mph winds to Wales and large areas of the south. I well remember hearing the winds howling between the roof gulleys of the factory where I was then working; the bus home almost keeling over under the sideways strenth of the westerlies; of having to wait several minutes between gusts to cross the main road at the end of my street, and trying to help an elderly lady cross by firmly grasping her hand; and seeing the damage in succeeding days: a notice at the entrance to a local park mounted on two sturdy steel uprights bent back at 45 degrees; tall lamp posts at various angles; a whole stand of sycamores along a railway bank lying felled like battle victims, and another of lime trees in the nearby park. The end one of those limes was only partly uprooted: council workers subsequently sawed most of the main part of the trunk into two parts, removing the canopy branches, leaving them in situ as sculptural features for children to clamber over. Two years later the remaining stump sprouted multiple stems to form a sizeable bush, a strong symbol of hope to me at a very sad time in my life, and I sometimes wonder if one of the stronger uprights has been encouraged to become a new main trunk by pruning off the rest.

Below is a youtube assembled sequence of news reports from that day, 27 years ago. People will recall that time when men wore jackets capacious enough to be overcoats:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcHbLu0SgC4

[Guest]

Opp 'ere, clinging just about to the western flanks of the Pennines, the temperature dropped alarmingly after about midday despite unblemished winter sun. Winds have notably increased, thus making the chill factor on and around the fells very high. Suspect we are in for a very cold night indeed.

[BBMmk2]

Yes, down here: FREEZING!!!! Minus at one point this morning!

[Nick Armstrong]

Yes, down here: FREEZING!!!! Minus at one point this morning!

Up here too!! Ventured out on the bike at lunchtime, it made my skull ache - scarpered back indoors sharpish!


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Braces self for commentary from the Yorkshire Chapter and antongould about use of the phrase 'up here'... ...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Braces self for commentary from the Yorkshire Chapter and antongould about use of the phrase 'up here'... ...

Too ruddy cold up here to type e-Mails!

Minus one, "feeling like minus 5" all day today - I spent the morning in Haworth, and the air just cut through all the layers of clothing. If there's been a shop selling balaclavas, they'd've made a lifetime's profit just today. More of the same forecast for the next couple of days - then back up to +6; and rain early next week!

[eighthobstruction]

....t'was nasty nasty....frozen gluey knees, while tripping up [not LSD] up a secret valley in Wharfedale....

[verismissimo]

Too ruddy cold up here to type e-Mails!

Minus one, "feeling like minus 5" all day today - I spent the morning in Haworth, and the air just cut through all the layers of clothing. If there's been a shop selling balaclavas, they'd've made a lifetime's profit just today. More of the same forecast for the next couple of days - then back up to +6; and rain early next week!

Brrrr. (Northants/Oxon border)

[Petrushka]

Too ruddy cold up here to type e-Mails!

Minus one, "feeling like minus 5" all day today - I spent the morning in Haworth, and the air just cut through all the layers of clothing. If there's been a shop selling balaclavas, they'd've made a lifetime's profit just today. More of the same forecast for the next couple of days - then back up to +6; and rain early next week!

Just about sums up today here as well. Thank goodness the cutting wind eased off in the afternoon. Walking from railway station to office this morning that wind was in my face all the way for the 15 minutes it takes to get there.

[teamsaint]

Up here too!! Ventured out on the bike at lunchtime, it made my skull ache - scarpered back indoors sharpish!


.

Braces self for commentary from the Yorkshire Chapter and antongould about use of the phrase 'up here'... ...

I was up there yesterday, walked 9 miles in the bracing smog.
A decent days business, and I found a quite excellent Falafel shop on Clerkenwell Road, " The Falafel King". Highly recommended, £3.95 for a very substantial lebanese falafel wrap, with all the trimmings.

Anyway, perishing cold down here tonight.
Sibelius weather.

[BBMmk2]

I was up there yesterday, walked 9 miles in the bracing smog.
A decent days business, and I found a quite excellent Falafel shop on Clerkenwell Road, " The Falafel King". Highly recommended, £3.95 for a very substantial lebanese falafel wrap, with all the trimmings.

Anyway, perishing cold down here tonight.
Sibelius weather.

Very much Sibelian weather! heating on most of the time!!

[Guest]

Splendid sunrise oop 'ere.