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The Moroccan Plume
As far as I'm concerned winter ends on the last day of February. I know that- officially- we're supposed to wait until the vernal equinox, but I'm impatient- and refuse to experience March as a winter month. Look, the crocus are out- and the daffodils. When there are flowers in the grass it's spring.
This year the seasonal changeover was complicated by February having ended with an utterly uncharacteristic heatwave- one of the loveliest and most exhilarating passages of weather I can remember. Heatwaves are always pleasant- unless they go on too long and everything dries up- but a winter heatwave- with temperatures exceeding 20 degrees- and deep blue skies with never a cloud in sight- is special. In fact, I'm not sure there's ever been anything quite like it before. At least not in living or recorded memory.
It was caused by what they are calling a Moroccan plume (which sounds like some kind of spectacular head-dress; I can visualise it) which was dragged up north by a vortex in the polar regions. Or something like that. It was so hot that the moors caught fire. There was even a fire in Ashdown Forest, just down the road from here.
And now the plume has moved away- and spring comes in with a spell of cold, wet weather. But not terribly cold or terribly wet. The temperature is around 10 degrees- which is sort of what you'd expect for the time of year. Back to normal, in fact...
This year the seasonal changeover was complicated by February having ended with an utterly uncharacteristic heatwave- one of the loveliest and most exhilarating passages of weather I can remember. Heatwaves are always pleasant- unless they go on too long and everything dries up- but a winter heatwave- with temperatures exceeding 20 degrees- and deep blue skies with never a cloud in sight- is special. In fact, I'm not sure there's ever been anything quite like it before. At least not in living or recorded memory.
It was caused by what they are calling a Moroccan plume (which sounds like some kind of spectacular head-dress; I can visualise it) which was dragged up north by a vortex in the polar regions. Or something like that. It was so hot that the moors caught fire. There was even a fire in Ashdown Forest, just down the road from here.
And now the plume has moved away- and spring comes in with a spell of cold, wet weather. But not terribly cold or terribly wet. The temperature is around 10 degrees- which is sort of what you'd expect for the time of year. Back to normal, in fact...
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In practice, March and April are two of our snowiest months so I do a bit of grumbling.
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We're about to have two snowstorms in three days, followed by an attack of polar vortex with overnight lows in the single digits Fahrenheit. I want spring to be here now, not in three weeks. :-p
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That sounds surreal.