Storm Bella - Nothing Out of the Ordinary

Storm Bella arrived as forecast in the early hours of Saturday night and had passed through by dawn on Sunday morning. She came with some strong gusty winds and a decent amount of rain but nothing that we shouldn't expect in December. This December will be one of the least windy Decembers I've recorded.

Temperature & Rainfall Records December 2020

We're now into what looks like a coldish spell of weather with the temperatures hovering around the 0°C or 32°F mark by day and by night.

On Tuesday morning we had a light covering of wet slushy snow. 

It looks like the last week of this December could be the coldest December week I’ve recorded in eleven years although the month certainly won’t finish up as cold as 2010, which was the start of our coldest winter in 100 years. It just happens that the last week of December 2010 wasn’t particularly cold but the rest of the month was bitterly cold with temperatures well below freezing through both day and night.

Despite a temperature of only 1.7°C (35.1°F) this morning’s snowfall is thawing and the forecast suggests showery rain for the rest of the morning rather than snow.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett

Mild At The Moment - Will It Last?

Over the last week the weather has turned milder but it hasn’t resulted in any drier days. At the moment it looks like this December will follow a similar pattern to the last few Decembers and finish up with the month ending on a mild note.

Temperature & Rainfall Records 14-20 December 2020

However, that’s by no means certain judging from the weather models. They’re predicting a cold spell of weather starting around Christmas Day and lasting into the New Year. The models are also suggesting a sudden stratospheric warming event will occur, most likely early on in January, although that’s not guaranteed to give us a cold spell of weather.

One of our wood pigeons isn't content with munching its way through our fruit and vegetables and has taken a liking to sitting on the wind vane of my weather station.

It doesn't stop the wind speed measurement cups from spinning around but the wind direction remains fixed whilst it perches on the wind vane. It can be there for some considerable time.

Despite the wet weather through the week we did manage a visit to Nostell Priory with Ruby on Thursday afternoon in between bouts of rain. It meant some areas of the grounds were rather boggy and Ruby did a pretty decent job of finding them.

I don't think that there is meant to be a small lake in this field at Nostell Priory. Whilst Ruby didn't find any large puddles to run in she did seem to find plenty of muddy areas.

The first job when we got back home was to give Ruby a quick shower, something she’s not at all keen on.

 Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett

Dahlias Lifted At Last

At last, we had a decent day on Monday. Most of the week had followed a similar pattern either dull or wet and dull. It felt good to see a little bit of sunshine. It was the mildest day of the month so far as the temperature reached 10.8°C or 51.4°F.

Temperature and Rainfall Records 09-15 December 2020

Our wet days have been showery rather than really wet. The week’s rain added up to 10.6mm (0.42in) which is about what we might expect for a week in December. However, the incessantly wet, damp weather means allotment jobs are out of the question until we get some drier weather.

One job we needed to do at the plot was to lift our dahlia tubers. From past experience, we know that they don’t like to spend the winter in cold, wet soil. The tubers are now pretty large and took a bit of lifting out of the ground but the soil in this part of the allotment wasn’t too soggy.

The roots had as much excess soil removed as was possible without damaging the tubers. The tops were cut off and removed to the compost heap. The tubers were then moved into the plot greenhouse and placed upside down to allow any moisture to drain out of the cut back stems.

For the coldest spells of winter, usually January and February, the tubers will need some extra protection against the cold. My plan is to bring the tubers home and store them in the garage where unless we get some extremely cold weather they should avoid being frosted.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett

A Cold and Wet Start to December

It seemed to me that November was a wet month although the rainfall figures for the month didn’t back that up. However, December has started off cold and wet. We’ve already had 21.8mm (0.86in) of rainfall in the first week which is getting on for as much as we had in the whole of November.

At least it fell as rain rather than snow.

On Sunday morning it was cold and wet in the garden after some overnight rain but somehow one of our roses is still in bloom.

The other blooms on the same stem haven’t faired as well. There’s another bud to open but I can’t see it opening this late into the year. 

The weather forecast for the next few days is for more cold weather. Strangely, over the last few years, December has tended to warm up as the month progresses which is not what I’d expect.

December Temperature Records 2010-2020

As you can see from the chart above the daytime temperature average indicated by the red line has a gradual rise towards the end of the month. I'd expect the end of December to be colder than the beginning but that doesn't seem to be the case. The rise is even more obvious with the blue line representing the night time average temperatures.

 

I've seen some talk this year of a cold spell towards the end of December but that's a long way off yet and there's plenty of time for the weather models to come up with something different.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett

Just An Average November

Meteorological winter has begun and it's started on a rather chilly note. I'm writing this post as we get the first few snowflakes of winter. They're not settling even though the outside temperature at 10:00 on Friday morning is only 1.2°C or 34.2°F. 

Looking back on November shows that it was a pretty average November without any major weather events for us.

The temperature finished up a little bit above average and rather surprisingly it turned out to be slightly drier than normal. If anything it seemed like a wetter November than it actually was which was probably down to it raining on 22 days of the month. We didn't have any great amount of rain but enough to make it damp and miserable for many days in the month.

Autumn 2020 finished up fairly average too with the temperature very slightly below expected and rainfall below average as well.

This autumn we have made much more progress at the allotment getting beds cleared and tidied up for winter. Last autumn produced more than double this autumn's rainfall and it brought allotment activities to an abrupt end.

This year we've much more progress although I think most of the plot is now too wet to do much more work on. 

We still have to lift our dahlias which hung on producing a few flowers well into November. We'll have to make an effort to lift them the next time we visit the plot for some vegetables as leaving them in the cold wet soggy ground will probably result in us losing the tubers over winter.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett