Weather report

Yesterday I started to say how tedious this weather is becoming.  The boffins at Oxford University have announced that England is currently experiencing the wettest winter for at least 250 years.  I'm unsure quite how they know that as although there are some pretty elderly dons at Oxford, I rather doubt any of them can remember that far back.  The BBC's science correspondent told us the other evening that the storms that have been battering England and Wales (and other parts of western Europe) are the result of a heavy rainstorm that caused flooding in Indonesia.  That caused the Pacific jet stream to change its course, thereby causing the polar vortex that has hit Canada and the USA.  This in turn affected the course of the Atlantic jet stream, resulting in our storms.  So the flooding of the Somerset levels, Worcester, Gloucester, the Thames valley et al is an indirect result of flooding on the other side of the world.  Knowing that will, I am sure, be of no consolation to those poor folk who have been forced out of their homes - or the farmers who will probably be unable to grow crops this year.

While I do feel for those folk, we must remember that our flooding is as nothing compared to the floods which seem to hit Pakistan and similar places with almost monotonous regularity.  What does surprise me is the fact that our weather, or the result of it, is being broadcast and published in so many other countries.

I am fortunate in that I live relatively high up almost at the top of a hill.  If my house were to be flooded there would be no hope for England.  Having said that, we do get the wind, especially as it funnels down the drive between our house and our neighbour's.  Even so, I doubt it has reached the 108 mph recorded on the Lleyn peninsula of north Wales or the speeds seen on the Lancashire coast and inland as far as Manchester, where people were blown off their feet this week.

We have been very grateful for the occasional bursts of sunshine that we have had.  This picture was taken from my bedroom yesterday afternoon, not all that long after a heavy hail storm.