Kentish Express Ashford & District
Stormy, but not worse
The weather this spring has been incredibly mixed. On Thursday last week one of our gang spent ages de-icing his car windows early in the morning after a particularly sharp frost, very irritating when you consider that day was April 28. Normally in April putting on the central heating is the exception rather than the norm yet this year it’s probably been the other way round.
And, is it our imagination or is it always windy these days? It seems the average week now always contains at least one day when wind speeds reach 20mph, or more. And weather warnings... don’t get us started on weather warnings.
Ever since BBC weatherman Michael Fish famously said back in 1987 there would NOT be a hurricane and there was, forecasters seem to fall over themselves to cover their own backs and warn us against every possible eventuality, no matter how minute the likelihood of it happening is.
So now it’s common to get a weather warning when we’re going to get a few hours of rain and, likewise, a flooding alert or travel disruption prediction if prolonged rain is forecast.
Yet maybe our question about the wind isn’t really that relevant because despite several storms this winter which saw parts of Kent battered by winds of up to 60mph we didn’t get the frequent mega winds that hit northern parts of the country and Scotland. And we certainly didn’t experience anything like the highest wind gusts ever recorded in the UK – 142mph in 1989 in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire. Ouch!