Category: Weather
A white Easter?
19th March 2008 From the various weather forecasts that I have been perusing, it looks as if the weather for this Easter will be a wintry affair. One thing that does seem strange is that 2008 might get a white Easter, while 2007 was bereft of a white Christmas. The fact that Easter is early this year, near enough the end of March, might have something to do with it as well.
If we do get the predicted weather, it will be a marked contrast to last year when I enjoyed several trots along the Pennine Way: a clag-bound affair on Holy Thursday, a windswept one in the sunshine on Easter Sunday and a dampened one on the day after. The previous year saw me experience a number of seasons while on the way up and down Goatfell on Arran; the nearest I came to winter conditions was a hail showered as I neared the summit and snow underfoot thereabouts too.
While the idea of wintry showers might not appeal to fair weather types and I can vouch for the fact that they can irritate even if you are equipped to deal with them, the prospect of a sunlit landscape coated in white more than makes up for any annoyance. From a walking perspective, snow isn't so bad, so long as visibility doesn't deteriorate to a level where your ability to navigate is compromised. Frozen water can be seen to be "drier" water, an impression seared into my memory by a trek up and over Ribblesdale's Whernside one Saturday in February a few years ago.
All in all, I could be tempted outside by the forecast, and I do seem to detect a spot more intelligence with the Met Office's weather warnings. While I won't be doing anything silly, painting the place red at the least hint of problematical weather is daft too. No concrete plans exist yet, so it'll be a case of seeing what happens...
Hibernation is tempting…
11th December 2007 Thoughts of torrential downpours like those that we got last week are enough to send all but the most dedicated (insane?) outdoors types huddling indoors in the comfort of their own homes. The sound of the rain being blown against my bedroom window on Saturday did anything but entice me from my nice warm bed. Couple that with a wetting on the way home from work on Friday night and a consummate power hosing while on the same journey the previous evening, you'd begin to consider using your best hillwalking waterproofs for a five minute dash to and from the bus. Thankfully, such grottiness has now departed us and I now hope to get in a pre-Christmas excursion into hill country after seeing the delights of today pouring through the windows at work. It's amazing how a spot of sunshine changes the mood.
In fact, the foul weather episode got me thinking about why it's so easy to go into walking hibernation. For one thing, the shorter days are a challenge, particularly when it comes to day trips. Staying local, going away for a few days and planning for some walking after dark are all ways around this. I must admit to having done a little of the last of these but I did ensure that navigation was straight forward so that I'd make my way home as planned.
Speaking of winter skills, thoughts of going out in snow and ice soon bring forth visions of crampons and ice axes and the need to able to use them. In these days of global warming, it may be that snow is encountered less and less, making going on a course at the likes of Plas y Brenin or Glenmore Lodge a very good idea. I once popped up to Fort William for a weekend in January only to see little or no snow while pottering about in Glen Nevis. It was later in the same year when I finally encountered the white stuff and it was very crisp and crunchy underfoot as I wandered about on local hills between Macclesfield and Buxton. So snow need not be that threatening, so long as you keep your wits about you. Having said that, I'll be mindful of the need for winter skills when plotting trips to the higher places of Scotland, Wales and England, particularly when potential encounters with snow and ice are forecast.
It would be a shame to let thoughts of inclement weather and shorter days put you off; there's a spot of very special magic be sampled at this time of year. After all, you can getting torrential downpours at any time of year and I spent a soggy sojourn in Fort William on one July visit that rather proves the point. It can be very memorable to see how the way that light plays upon the landscape does enliven the views on those cold, crisp, clear sunny days. Intriguingly, mixing sun and cloud can make those views even better as I found out while on an excursion around Harlech last year, and you may find that you have the whole experience to yourself. I must get back to plotting that escape...
The July that’s nearly gone…
31st July 2007 Doubtless, few in Gloucestershire will want to recall the July that we have just had; I hope that they are beginning to get back on their feet again. Amazingly, those heavy rains didn't affect Cheshire to anything like the same extent, and I did manage to make two visits to the Cumbrian fells.
However, we shouldn't forget that July weather can be very much a hit-and-miss affair; I can think of loads of occasions where July has been very grey. Maybe, that's down to my experiencing loads of Irish and Scottish summers.
Good weather in July is dependent upon the jet stream moving to the north and that can take a painful amount of time, like it has done this year, or it may hardly happen at all. 2004 is etched in my memory for the latter reason, though I did not fare too badly in August of that year. It helped that I had some slack at work that allowed me to make a break for it when a weather window partially offered a chance.
It was late in doing so again in 2003, an otherwise fabulous year, and I made the mistake of spending a soggy week in Scotland's Western Highlands at the end of July, only to be greeted with a heatwave the very next week! After various efforts to distract myself from my disappointment with a number of weekends spent around Keswick, Skiddaw and Derwentwater, it was only a weekend visit to Lochaber that more than made good.
The fabulous weather meant that I won't easily forget the walks between Kinlochleven and Fort William over the Lairig Mor and around Loch Lochy at all easily; the conditions could not have been better. It was nearly worth getting sodden for the motivation to return to sights like these.
So here's to August 2007. Let's see what it brings. Whatever happens, we have to take what we are given.
It’s all coming on wonderfully…
26th April 2007 While May is my favourite month, I always enjoy the first half of the year more than the second. That is not to say that autumn does not have its appeal, but seeing the leaves coming out on the trees at the end of April is always an uplifting experience. Though the weather is a spot mixed for now, bluebells are spreading their blue hue across woodland floors and flowering cherry trees are spicing up the landscape. And the shade of green that abounds in new growth everywhere is a near magical sight. Now, I hope that we get the weather for enjoying all this.
ForecastFox
11th November 2006 While taking a look around the new Accuweather UK and Ireland website, I spotted a mention of this useful Firefox plug-in (or add-on). Having had Firefox since the first betas and now using it as my main browser, I decided to investigate further. While not an Accuweather development, ForecastFox does take Accuweather local forecast data and show it in the Firefox interface wherever you decide; personally, I keep in the browser status bar. Apparently, it started out life as WeatherFox, using Weather.com data, before the plug-in's developers found the conditions placed by that provider to restrictive and looked elsewhere, finding Accuweather to be an welcoming partner. Intriguingly, Weather.com offers its own weather toolbar, for Internet Explorer!
To return to ForecastFox, a really feature is that you can set up multiple profiles and have a weather from different location on display in each profile, great for planning a weekend walking expedition. Nevertheless, this does have the disadvantage that settings are associated with the profiles and you cannot cascade things from a global setting. For instance, if you want to see 7 days weather (although I suspect that 15 is the limit, you can have as many days as your screen allows) for any location, you have to go into each profile and change its display settings as appropriate. Having the ability to have a single profile and change the locations would be a bonus. Also, you cannot have temperature in Celsius and wind speed in miles per hour: you have to have metres per second instead and my comprehension of Fahrenheit (with which you do get mph) is ropey to say the least. These may be areas for improvement but ForecastFox remains a very useful gizmo.
