The year kicked off with the New Year Survey of flowering plants of the Liverpool Loop Line, which didn’t yield much, but what was quite inspiring on a cold, wet, afternoon, to this relative fern novice, was the abundance of Soft Shield Fern shuttlecocks (Polystichum setiferum), in the Broad Green “dell”. I posted a...
There was measurable rain on 10 days in the first three weeks of the month – about average – after which the “Beast from the East” set in, with exceptionally cold dry easterly winds from Siberia. This unusual weather pattern was due to warm air and high pressure over Canada and Greenland, leading to a...
With 18 rain-days and the two named storms Eleanor and Georgina, January was wetter than average. This meant a welcome recovery in the dune water-table which returned to “normal” winter levels. I measured a rise of about 17cm at the Devil’s Hole blowout during the month, resulting in extensive flooding of the lower sections. This...
An unremarkable month for weather, December 2017 started and ended relatively mild with a cold snap in the middle. Many parts of the country had considerable snow-fall but, as usual, barely a flake was seen here. However, it was a little wetter than average with measureable rain on 20 days, though many of those had...