This picture was taken just over a month ago showing thick moss in a local north facing hedge. From July 2023 to mid April 2024 it has been like living under a waterfall. Very few days without precipitation has resulted in a lush green environment and clean air where even the white sign posts on road junctions have a hint of green.
As someone who has read the fascinating book “Agricultural Records” by J.M. Stratton that recorded the UK seasons, agricultural prices and other phenomena from 220 AD to 1968 as a child and having kept daily weather records of rainfall and maximum and minimum temperature in Treflach since 1983 you tend to take a sage view when collating data.
Compared to the conurbation of Oswestry and Morda, Treflach is several degrees cooler as it lacks the man made materials that absorb and retain the heat of the sun as opposed to the cooling of land due to evaporation and transpiration of all the vegetation. In winter the remoteness, altitude and aspect invite the cold, especially at night.
It is interesting to note that the crow always knows how high or low to build its nest in the trees early in the season as a precursor of what is to come, and the swallow has no set arrival and departure date when it migrates from and to Africa. This year they arrived on 07/04/24 which was only 1 day later than the first recorded siting in the UK this year. In 2013 they didn’t arrived until 29/04/13 as a lot of March snow took a long time to melt.
Our closest contact with the weather apart from actually being in it outside is the barometer. The mercury one being invented in 1643 and the aneroid, measuring air pressure, in 1844. Low pressure mean storms – high pressure means fine weather, with a tap on the glass showing latest movement thus the weather to come.
No wonder this subject is such a talking point as all life hangs on its balance as it always has done.