I think it's safe to say that we've had our windiest spell of March weather in the last 10 years. We did manage a visit to the plot during a calmer spell of weather to do some harvesting and check to see if any damage had been done.
We'd escaped any serious damage, although someone had lost an empty dalek composting bin which had ended up trapped between our weigela bush and water tap. I'm assuming the owner will recover it. We've now had 10 days in a row where I’ve recorded a wind gust speed in excess of 20mph. They are highlighted in red in the table below. The previous March record was 8 days in a row, set in 2014.
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| March Wind Gust Speeds 2010 - 2019 |
Now I know that compared to the gust speeds quoted in the media, which are usually above 60 or more miles an hour, my record gusts above 20mph sound a bit odd so I'll explain. Ideally my anemometer should be set around 10m (33ft) above ground level but mine is set no more than 3m above ground level. When I set up my weather station my idea was that it would tell me how the weather was at ground level where all my gardening activities take place and how it might affect plants growing in the garden. My intention never was to produce weather data to match that recorded by professional meteorologists. We also live in an urban area, only 3 miles outside Wakefield City centre, and are surrounded by other houses. Usually those high wind speeds are recorded in exposed locations and have little relevance to our more sheltered location.
However, once the wind speeds exceed 20mph the plants begin to be battered about a bit in the garden which is why I keep a note of wind speeds above 20mph.
Between the showers, and in a little bit of sunshine on Friday afternoon, we visited a local garden centre. The results of the gale force winds were easy to spot.
Not only has it been windy, it's been wet too, with 71.0mm (2.8in) of rainfall so far this month, or about a month and a half's worth to date.
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| Temperature & Rainfall Records for March 2019 |
Everywhere is now rather soggy and we'll need some dry days to allow the ground to dry out a little bit. So far we haven't had a rain free day in March.
It's a good job we didn't have a wet January and February.
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