Batten the hatches AGAIN, and again, and again and..........

[Dave Brown]

Just seen the weather forecast, and on top of the unforecast gales on Sunday gusting up to 50mph, there is now an expectation of 60 to 70mph gusts over the next few days. Hide your nanas If it moves it will blow away, if it doesn't move, it'll break This is getting tiresome

Vid 10th Aug 2008..... 210th gale this year

10th Aug Gales.wmv

(1.05 MiB) Downloaded 904 times

[darran]

Dave, I dont know if I was lucky but the weather here was not too bad yesterday. I certainly wouldn't have said windy, just a breezy and a couple of heavy showers! There was no damage to any of the bananas, etc.

I must say though that it is forecast for heavy rain tomorrow, lets hope that they are not right and the wind also fails to materialise!

[stephenprudence]

I fine it particularly strange that the Musa basjoo snaps so easily when Japan and India are constantly getting typhoons (cyclones) across their southern areas! Yet it seems the Basjoos cant hack a meager 40mph gust

Some bananas cope well having said that but not the basjoo!

[Dave Brown]

Steve, M Basjoo is a forest banana so will be protected by the trees in it's natural habitat. Actual gust sppeds that snapped the basjoo leaf were 49.6 mph, and it seems that a sudden violent gust took the leaf out before it had shredded. M sikkimensis is more wind tolerant, but I'm hearing of more and more cases where whole tops are being snapped off of basjoo and sikkimensis..... and now Aeae The constant Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn gale force winds are a joke . I have lived here 24 years and apart from the 1987 Hurricane, and 1990 January storm, the wind has generally got stronger and stronger. Even the weather presenters are talking about one Autumnal depression after another in July and August this year.

The wind here is not just Atlantic depressions, but also when a high pressure sits over the centre of the country. We get an easterly breeze in those conditions, but as inland temperatures rise a sea breeze off the Estuary adds to it, becoming gale force and even severe gale force during the afternoon. Many of these gales die away at night as inland temperature fall and are on completely sunny/clear days, but that just adds desication to the destruction factor.

[Palmer]

Very heavy rain as just started here, the ground is already saturated so I would not be surprised if we get some localised flooding today , what a bl##dy summer .
Oh and the satellite as just gone of

[Mark]

We are getting strong gusts here at the moment. Time to move the bananas....but where ????

[Nick]

Here in Wiltshire to we are getting stong winds from out of nowhere, take last Thursday, one minuet calm then the next really stong winds then as fast as they come there gone, my poor Washingtonia Filifera x Robusta's new leafs that it has spent so long produceing this summer (I know What Summer) have been folded over, in half in fact, so now will have to look and feel sorry for her all year until she is able to put some new ones out, I do feel for everyone who suffers with wind, when there lovely specimens get damaged buy the wind.
Before I went tropical the only thing I had to worry about was the fence, but now it is everything, last night we had rain like I've never seen here before, I've seen rain in Thailand and this must have been something like it, so if the wind don't get ya, the darn rain will get whats been missed by the wind: Nick

[Sarah]

The video is far too familiar I didn't dare look at the garden on Sunday so watched the cricket instead. Today again it's blowing an absolute 'oolie, I'd expect it in March and October but it's August for goodness sake

[Nick]

Would you believe it, the Darn wind is back again today 12/08/08, wind like this breaks small branches of the willows that are outside the garden on a mini round-a-bout,
I to wish it would, just Bog off. Nick

[stephenprudence]

I know the above members will go when I say this but, increased windiness is an integral part of a warming climate. Whereas once the upper air would be relatively cool, now perhaps with the onset of increased warming in the upper air, the gradient between the two has become quite tight therefore producing higher winds. There is no other way, sadly that winds could become stronger...

The strongest winds are more often than not associated with high pressure perimeters than low pressure!

As Dave says it has been getting windier perhaps only 1.5% more than the 1970 mean windspeed but we can tell and I'm pretty sure that the trend is there, along with increased wetness.

But with increased warmth in the future we can try bananas that are often ravaged by tropical storms that perhaps arent always protected by the forest?

[Dave Brown]

Steve, I agree the actual wind speeds have risen slightly, but I think there has been a marked increase in wind turbulence. Take a look at the graph for average and max wind speed here since 1st June. The average wind speed is low compared to the max speed. This is what Nick spoke of..... calm one minute and blown away the next.

High wind speeds in autumn and winter have always occured here, but it is the violent summer winds that are new. My basjoo would start to be wrecked in September, now I don't get a single leaf without some damage, or total loss, all through the summer.

[Palmer]

Ye I’ve noticed that with the basjoos over the last 2 years so does that mean with global warming were going to get more of this?

[stephenprudence]

Seemingly so Palmer, warmth = more energy, and the low and high pressure belts are going to be squeezed more on top of the our little band so it could be fairly turbulent in the next 20 years compared to what we've been used to. It's not doom by any means, it's just a teething problem for weaker plants.

Dave thats pretty impressive, it averages around 25mph! You have interesting spikes in that data, thats where the warm spells or warm sectors have been apparent, really interesting stuff. Our average windspeed here has been around 15mph, however in winter we get pummelled by 80mph quite often. Idont know what winter holds but perhaps relatively less turbulent than now.

[Dave Brown]

Ye I’ve noticed that with the basjoos over the last 2 years so does that mean with global warming were going to get more of this?

Probably. The west coast has always been battered by sou'westers, the knew phenominom, howling summer easterlies, will obviously affect the traditionally 'sheltered' east more. Having said that the gales of the last few days have come from a westerly direction, but thermals in the air flow are causing the wind force to fluctuate wildly. A westerly breeze with a massive updraft will cause almost a calm or even an easterly in front of it, but howling westerlies behind, as air is sucked backwards in front, and sucked with the wind behind..... if that makes sense

[Palmer]

That sounds like a recipe for a tornado Dave