Sunday 6th July 2025, 3.10pm (day 5,064)
Taken while sheltering under the tree on our allotment. Showers like this came in every half an hour or so for most of the day. Nothing else happened, but that’s the way it was planned.
Caught in the rain
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: weather
Threatening skies
Thursday 5th June 2025, 3.20pm (day 5,033)
I’m sure birds have just as much of a developed weather sense as do humans. Why wouldn’t they? High winds, for a start, could really screw up that trip they were planning to make to, say, the local household waste centre. These guys may or may not be trying to sort some stuff out before the latest heavy shower comes rolling in, just as we might speed up our journey home from the shops in the face of a cloud like this.
Monsoon moment, Todmorden
Tuesday 3rd June 2025, 4.35pm (day 5,031)
April and most of May were very dry but the last few days, though not entirely wet (Saturday was a pleasant day, for instance), have generally exhibited the characteristics of the North European Monsoon which we are all in denial about but is a regular Weather Phenomenon round here in early June. Here, it is seen in action at Todmorden, on my way home from a stint in Manchester. Pictures like this don’t always work but I’ll give this one a go, as it is the road which is in focus, rather than the raindrops on the train window.
Shower and sun
Tuesday 25th February 2025, 1.30pm (day 4,933)
Back home, where it is, of course, raining. (It did seem to be threatening rain on one evening in Dubai but it never fell.) Then again, the sun is shining too, at this point in time. It’s this essential ambivalence that keeps us Britons who we are, I suppose.
Cloudscape/roofscape
Monday 17th February 2025, 4.50pm (day 4,925)
We’re still not seeing a great deal of sunshine, and so this one was chosen mainly to demonstrate how the evenings are getting lighter, even down here in the valley. A place I am about to leave for a week: when I get back we should have sun at the front of the house again. Should it deign to shine.
Pigeon patrol
Wednesday 5th February 2025, 9.25am (day 4,913)
My first Hebden Bridge picture in one whole month. It doesn’t seem like the pigeons have changed their behaviour much since I’ve been away: still the group callisthenics, tight circles around a carefully-chosen patch of town. They look impressive enough in black-and-white. Except for the one who’s broken formation, to the lower left.
Rollers on the wharf
Saturday 18th January 2025, 5.10pm (day 4,895)
St Helena sits in such a vast expanse of uninterrupted ocean that sea conditions can often have no direct relationship to what the weather is like locally. The atmosphere was calm today, a beautiful day of weather (in fact, all of them have been, since I came here, except for one bout of mild drizzle last Wednesday afternoon). But the sea…. that was a different story.
“Rollers” are the local name for waves driven by storms way to the north, like off Canada, or Florida, and which just roll down the ocean for thousands of miles until hitting this small lump of rock that happens to be in the way. On one day in February 1846 (see this page) the rollers were so intense that they took out half of Jamestown and about thirty moored vessels. They weren’t quite that bad this afternoon but still, it’s noticeable no one was parking their cars on the wharf.
The Tablecloth
Thursday 9th January 2025, 12:00 noon (day 4,886)
I had hoped to ascend Table Mountain whilst here, but today was my only real chance and, all day, it was draped in what is locally known as ‘The Tablecloth’ — and it’s a very accurate description of this particular cloud. Surely there are very few cities in the world with such a monumental lump of rock sat right by the downtown area.
Futility
Sunday 5th January 2025, 9.45am (day 4,882)
You thought you were leaving Hebden Bridge today? Naaah. Ain’t gonna happen, not at 9.45am, not at any other point either (though there were unsubstantiated rumours that the 13:48 may have run, probably to get some people home — that was it, though). Just as well I gave myself three days to get to Heathrow, huh. Let’s try again tomorrow.
In the Sheffield fog
Thursday 26th December 2024, 1.30pm (day 4,872)
Until about 2.30pm on Christmas Day I had not anticipated spending December 26th in Sheffield, but at that point an acquaintance told me of a spare ticket for a coach trip to go there and see the football (Sheffield United 0-2 Burnley, in case you were interested), and so it came to pass. In fact there were quite a few games in the area postponed or abandoned because of fog, which was certainly the main weather feature of the day. This is one of those shots that looks as if I’ve post-processed it and turned it monochrome, but that’s not the case: this is really what Sheffield city centre looked like at about 1.30pm.
