Wednesday 29th June 2016, 4.10pm (day 1,770)
Adding insult to the profound sense of incompetence hanging over England at the moment, the weather conforms to all the worst stereotypes about an English summer.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: weather
European monsoon
Monday 13th June 2016, 9.30am (day 1,754)
I’ve lived in Britain my whole 46.8 years and it amazes me that there are still people who somehow believe that our month of June is somehow high summer. There are sound climatic reasons why this is not the case, it’s called the ‘European Monsoon’ or ‘Return of the Westerlies’. Look it up. The Westerlies sure bloody returned today I can tell you.
Mini-tornado
Saturday 26th March 2016, 4.45pm (day 1,675)
I swear Hebden Bridge was hit by a mini-tornado at about 4.45pm. If it was just a ‘squall’ I’ve never seen one like that before, not in this country anyway. Wicked winds for a sudden two minutes, enough to shuffle parked cars visibly along the street and it looks like it might have caused a car crash just out of town, near the station. Clare and I were out in it; a slightly scary but also exhilarating experience in a way….
Snow day (birthday)
Friday 4th March 2016, 12 noon (day 1,653)
Today was Joe’s bithrday. Amazingly, I seem to as of today be the parent of a teenager. Yet it was a win-win situation for him, because almost the first thing that happened today was that we got the phone call telling us it was a snow day, thus a day off school. But he didn’t lie around doing nothing — I took him into Manchester instead, where it was just as revoltingly snowy.
Did I say something about spring….?
Wednesday 2nd March 2016, 9.20am (day 1,651)
Well… there’s blossom. You can see it. But that’s the bloody British weather for you. The snow was all gone by lunchtime.
Still, I am not complaining about this photographically. This is the first picture I’ve taken in ages that I really like: one where I knew as soon as I pressed the shutter that it would be today’s pick.
Rupture
Monday 22nd February 2016, 4.35pm (day 1,642)
With a whole day spent at home working online, it was left to the sky to entertain. This looks like a hole in the space-time continuum has opened up above the houses of Heptonstall Road. Or possibly just a break in the clouds near the setting sun.
Bad weather in Bergen (but not the apocalypse)
Friday 29th January 2016, 12.20pm (day 1,618)
A somewhat strange day. Apocalyptic weather forecasts led to most of Bergen shutting down at lunchtime; my day’s work at Høgskolen i Bergen was truncated as a result, and it was at the point of termination that I took this picture, which doesn’t quite capture how foul it was here, though I like the greyness of it (I knocked down the saturation a bit, but only a bit). Shortly after this KLM then cancelled my flight home, which explains why I’m still here and won’t be home until tomorrow night, 24 hours after originally scheduled.
Yet in the end the afternoon’s weather in the city, while poor, was certainly no worse than it often can be here. I originally got quite angry about this, feeling that everyone could have done with a little less panic. However, it seems that the coastal mountains may have protected the city somewhat. Apparently areas futher north today had the strongest winds ever recorded in Norway. But hey, I’m still allowed to be pissed off that I didn’t make it home (quite a few flights happily left Flesland airport), particularly on a Friday night. So another day in Norway tomorrow, then. So be it.
Heron Pike
Friday 15th January 2016, 11.40am (day 1,604)
I remain grateful for the fact that I have a job flexible enough to allow me to bring my weekend forward a day and get out on a walk on a Friday. However, I wasn’t out basking in the sunshine or anything. This was a severe-weather walk, as rough as anything I’ve ever done, as evidenced by the spindrift seen here. Heron Pike sits between the lakes of Grasmere, Rydal Water and (pictured) Windermere. More photos from this walk on my other blog when I get round to it, but that’ll be tomorrow now.
Debris
Monday 28th December 2015, 11.10am (day 1,586)
I haven’t felt like taking many pictures over these last three days. Media coverage of natural disasters encourages us to see the flood just as a spectacle, a series of dramatic images, and all these things we do on social media are part of it. Voyeuristic citizen journalism is little different from the voyeuristic corporate kind. I wish I had something else to document, though.
This to me is the saddest sight; virtually every house and business in the town centre now has these piles of stock and/or furniture outside on the pavements, waiting to be cleared.
Being 42 