Glimmer of Indian summer (but hold on to your hats)
Joe Shute
I returned to Telegraph Towers for this first time since March this week and did so to find a great pile of letters written by you, the readers of this column, lying on my desk.
Apologies, first of all, for the delay in acknowledgement and also for the odd grammatical or meteorological slip which you never fail to point out. All criticisms gratefully received, I should stress, it stops Weather Watch from letting standards drop like the mercury on a cold autumn evening.
Among the various questions asked was someone writing back in July to inquire why it had been so windy this year. That month a period of low pressure was driving gusts as fast as 44mph through the centre of London – and, as my correspondent pointed out, all that wind was playing havoc with the flower beds.
It is certainly true that things have felt very windy at times this summer. Storm Francis at the end of August triggered an amber wind warning with gusts of up to 70mph across parts of England and Wales. In fact during the storm the Met Office said a number of areas were hit by record-high wind speeds for August.
This topsy turvy summer is to blame. The balance between high and low pressure is what causes wind flow by something known as the pressure gradient force. This summer we have oscillated between the two extremes, meaning the greater the difference between the pressures, the stronger the wind.
This weekend in Scotland (where I am heading for a week’s holiday) low pressure will be driving heavy rainfall and strong winds but expect a largely fine and dry weekend elsewhere.
Come Monday things are looking positively on the brink of an Indian summer although beyond the middle of the week the picture becomes a lot more uncertain. Of course eventually what comes up, must come down. So hold on to your hats, there will be more windy days to come.