Doing It As the Experts Suggest

At least it didn’t rain on Thursday although it was dull and cold for most of the day. The clouds did lift a little bit very late in the afternoon to reveal some small patches of blue sky.

Last autumn we watched the expert TV gardeners’ planting up large display pots with plants that will look good through winter planted in the top with layers of bulbs underneath to give spring colour over several weeks. We decided to gibe this a go.

Our display has been standing on the patio all winter and it’s looked pretty good but now we have a problem.

The spring bulbs under one of the heathers have started to grow and have pushed the heather completely out of the soil. I don’t remember the TV gardeners saying that this would happen. I’m planning on trying to replant the heather carefully, and hopefully avoiding any damage to the heather or bulbs that have uprooted it.

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

Too Cold and Wet for Digging

Wednesday was another very wet day with rain from first thing all the way through to teatime. Another 14.0mm of rain added to the first eight days of the month bring the total for March 2016 up to 55.2mm. That’s the wettest March in the last seven years. The previous highest March total I’ve recorded was 53.8mm in 2015.

Apart from the first day of the month it’s been on the cold side too with a couple of overnight frosts thrown in for good measure.

Photography has been confined to indoors.

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

Indoor Jobs

We’ve been busy inside over the last few days. We decided on a new carpet for the lounge, dining room and study. Once the carpet had arrived and was ready to be fitted we had the job of moving as much downstairs furniture as we could so the carpet fitter could move in. At first, everything was very ordered but by the time we’d finished moving stuff the whole of the house was in chaos. Computers unplugged and turned off. How would we remember where all those different cables plugged in?

This was my infallible method take some photos and everything would be fine. Turned out it wasn’t that infallible. The carpets are now fitted and the house is gradually returning to normal as stuff’s moved back to where it belongs.

Outside the weather’s not been too bad, in fact, Monday was a lovely sunny day even if it was a little on the cold side. It was lovely to see some sunshine. Our palm tree looked quite tropical in the bright sunshine.

Now if only it would stay dry we might be able to get on with some gardening.

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

Just a Test

I'm trying to write a post on my iPad and include some pictures that are stored in Picasa web albums.

So I've added my sparrowhawk photo as an experiment.

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

Was It the Warmest Winter on Record?

I’m guessing it depends on where you live and exactly which records you use as a comparison. If you’ve read any of my blog posts you will know that I like to use the Met Office Central England Temperature Records for comparison purposes.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/index.html

The Met Office description of this record is given below:

Hadley Centre Central England Temperature (HadCET) dataset  

The CET dataset is the longest instrumental record of temperature in the world. The mean, minimum and maximum datasets are updated monthly, with data for a month usually available by the 3rd of the next month. A provisional CET value for the current month is calculated on a daily basis. The mean daily data series begins in 1772 and the mean monthly data in 1659. Mean maximum and minimum daily and monthly data are also available, beginning in 1878. 

Brief description of the data 

These daily and monthly temperatures are representative of a roughly triangular area of the United Kingdom enclosed by Lancashire, London and Bristol. The monthly series, which begins in 1659, is the longest available instrumental record of temperature in the world. The daily mean-temperature series begins in 1772. Manley (1953, 1974) compiled most of the monthly series, covering 1659 to 1973. These data were updated to 1991 by Parker et al (1992), who also calculated the daily series. Both series are now kept up to date by the Climate Data Monitoring section of the Hadley Centre, Met Office. Since 1974 the data have been adjusted to allow for urban warming: currently a correction of -0.2 °C is applied to mean temperatures.

So I thought I’d look to see where last winter comprising December, January and February come in this temperature series. I’ve placed the coldest winters and mildest winters in the table below.

 http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/ssn_HadCET_mean_sort.txt

This covers the last 357 years with the coldest winters in the left hand column and mildest winters in the right hand column. Looking at the bottom of the right hand column this shows that the winter of 1869 was milder than 2016 pushing last winter into second place. Working out the same average for last winter using Ossett temperatures gives an average of 6.7°C.

So it was close but it wasn’t the mildest winter “ever” based on this record.

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

Snow, Rain and a Sparrowhawk

We had a bit of a covering of snow on Friday morning and it kept on falling until the middle of the morning when it turned to rain. Then the rain carried on for the remainder of the day.

It was probably just as well it fell as rain as by the end of the day we’d had 27.6mm (1.09”) moving it into sixth place in my wettest days since 2009 chart.

The rain washed any remnants of the slushy snow by late afternoon. In the first four days of March, we’ve had a total of 40.0mm (1.57”) of rain which is almost as much as we’d expect in the whole of the month. It’s not going to do much to help our allotment dry out ready for spring planting. Here’s hoping the rest of the month will be drier.

We did spot a male sparrowhawk in the garden. It was obviously looking for a meal from amongst the smaller birds on the feeders in our magnolia tree. As far as I could tell it didn’t have any luck. 

It perched in the tree for a few moments with its head hidden behind a branch making getting a decent photo a bit tricky. It didn’t help that I was messing about with my camera trying to set it up to do slow motion video as the sparrowhawk flew in. It did have one quick look down to see what I was doing before it was on its way again looking for lunch.

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

Turns Out They Were Right

The cool start March has continued with both Wednesday and Thursday turning out cold and windy. We’ve missed out on any further frosts but only just. The last week of February was dry and I was beginning to think that the allotment would at least be drying out a little bit ready for a bit of digging. We’ve had some rain on each of the first three days of March so I’ve put that thought to the back of my mind. 

Friday morning has brought some more wet snow and more snow and rain is forecast throughout the day. I’m guessing the allotment won’t be drying out all that well!

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

Spring Has Sprung?

Spring has sprung or has it? I know proper spring doesn’t start for a few weeks yet but Tuesday has got March off to a bit of a milder day than we’ve had recently. We’ve had a little rain, not much, only enough to wet everywhere and there’s been a bit of a breeze. 

The forecast isn’t very inspiring though. The possibility of snow showers and below freezing temperatures at night is not what I want to see in a spring forecast. After a mild winter it’s turned colder as a gardener’s thoughts turn to seed sowing.

The forecasts have been wrong before so I’m hoping they’ll be wrong again!

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