claret047

God that incredible. Its about 150 feet. On you on a boat? Kind Regards Dave

Didn't have time to update my whinge earlier this morning, but the mid Essex Desert did enjoy a relief of sorts a little while after I posted. It did dry up again quickly though. My next door neighbour was none to pleased with me as he was laying a concrete base and I told him it would not rain. Luckily he had a tarpaulin at the ready before too much damage occurred, I just hope we are still on speaking terms,

Good Morning folks Our rain shield has been been broken at last. We had two minutes of large raindrops falling moderately heavily. That is probably it for the next month in the mid Essex Desert. Still storm starved. Kind Regards Dave

When I read your comments Steve I thought at first you were being insulting to the local newspaper for the area.

The storm and rain shield of the mid Essex desert continues. We have had almost unbroken sunshine all day. At last there is now a pleasant breeze, Earlier it had been terribly humid and unpleasant. What chances for storms tonight/tomorrow? The same as other times I guess zero- although Essex Live which is about as accurate as the Daily Excess has us down with a 72% chance of storms tomorrow. I certainly wouldn't bet my shirt on it happening. Up to the allotment shortly for my daily watering. Kind Regards Dave

My middle son is a "self employed" electrician which means he has to get work where he can. In the construction industry you generally do not have a choice to being self employed. That work companies do not have to pay holiday or sick pay or redundancy, although operatives often work for the same firm for years, He even has to pay £20 a week to a payroll company to process his wages from his net salary. He is currently working in a new development in Canary Wharf. The company is Chinese and the project is the construction of luxury flats. He is working on one of the top floors, the 50th I believe he told me when I saw him the other day. Due to the height of the building it is designed so that none of the upper stories windows are openable, there is much glazing and blinds/curtains have yet to be installed. Also the air conditioning is to be commissioned and therefore unavailable, I don't envy him working in such conditions, but the way things are these days he has to tell himself that he is fortunate to have a job. Kind Regards Dave

How far east? I am about 2 miles northeast of Chelmo and have seen nought. Been sunny most of the morning.

You are very lucky Paul. We have not even had one drop of rain. I raise your Sahara with my Chilean coastal desert!

We have been there a few times and indeed it is good there. @Paul1968 i said it was a light lunch- a beef burger and chips from the small outbuilding in the front garden. Adequate but hardly too challenging to get wrong. I have heard from friends though that the restaurant is expensive . On topic the wind has increased here and it is now a lot less oppressive. As soon as it cools down further I will do my nightly trip up to allotment the other side of Chelmsford to water. A right chore. Hopefully we will have some rain soon. The clay soil is hard and if it is heavy rain it will just run off and not soak in. Light rain over several hours is much more useful . Kind Regards Dave

Just got back to Chelmo from Hullbridge, The temperature higher her but as it was so humid at Hullbridge it felt just as uncomfortable. Had a very pleasant light lunch and drink at The anchor & sought a bit of shade in the nearby nature reserve. Kind Regards Dave

Hi there. you need to be very careful if your inside is boiling! Hot and cloudy here in Chelmsford. @Mark wheeler it looks very tempting to travel to somewhere cooler. Enjoy your holiday Kind Regards Dave

That is because we live in the Essex Rivera, with average annual rainfall totals less than that of Tel Aviv. With our annual rainfall are unofficial desert areas.

Yes got very hot and humid here in North Springfield. Is the station at the Writtle College? I used to have to visit on occasions of freak weather impacting on County Council buildings when I worked for ECC Property Services Department to inform reports I had to produce to submit to Committee. Did you see the beautiful sunset this evening. Truly spectacular. Kind Regards Dave

Hello Mark I trust you and family are well. Did you mean "stinking" as in sweating perspiration without using deodorant, or a terrible ecm for those liking summery weather. Or more likely did you mean "stonking" and it was a typo. Kind Regards Dave

Perhaps that was one and the same that blew our grandson's cake along with his plate onto the ground!

Hello Thunderpants. It was mostly sunny but it certainly was a tad breezy.We were using a bench in the field to stand the cake on but attempting to light the candles with 5 & 0 on them proved an impossibility. At one point after the cake was cut and 3 year old Arthur's plate was on the bench and a fierce gust blew plate and cake onto the ground. Apart from the mishaps we had a very enjoyable time. At least it will be memorable for us in the years to come. Looking at the next couple of days it would appear it will be mainly dry and that dreadful wind will die down. We could do with some overnight rain and the garden and allotment could do with rainwater rather than from the tap, The wind and sun has made everything so dry and little precipitation recently. Kind Regards Dave

Many thanks for your good wishes and information re Sunday. I will toast to you as we bask in the sun. Kind Regards Dave

Tomorrow will be our Golden Wedding Anniversary- American Independence Day- the day I lost mine, With things as they are and with my wife having a heart condition celebrations on the day are on hold as we do not fancy the risk with mixing with too many people when the big unlock-down commences tomorrow. Instead we are meeting our eldest son, middle son, his wife and 3 year old Arthur in a field a 10 minute walk from our house on Sunday. It would have been on the "big day" but our middle son is a self employed electrician working in London and needs the money for 2 reasons- he was unable to work for over 3 months with the lockdown and secondly his wife is Filipino and going through the long protracted process of obtaining British Citizenship. This requires proof that his annual income exceeds a certain figure to ensure he is able to support her. The irony is the threshold is considerably above the minimum wage. We had suggested that they came to our house and sat in the garden, but our son is concerned that in spite of the precautions he has taken travelling to an from work and in his workplace he may have picked up the virus without showing any symptoms and he could unintentionally pass it on to my wife, He is happy with the field as we can social distance far easier there. My concern is what the weather will be like here on Sunday afternoon. The BBC forecast this morning was not very helpful and didn't give any detail re the progress of the front coming in from the west. Will we be OK or should we expect a very soggy celebratory cake? Kind Regards Dave

And at Colchester too. Friends of ours that week went on holiday to Wales for a fortnight. It was very cold & they wore their coats and jumpers. We all know what happened the following days and for the rest of the summer.

Indeed Mark. We could really do with some steady rain for a few hours preferably at night. I have an allotment off Avon Road and the ground is rock hard and bone dry which means having to water it every day. It's also a frost hollow and we suffer damage to crops when other parts of Chelmo don't. Looking at next week's charts on the Model thread it looks as if we are going to have more of the same as far as no rain is concerned. Kind Regards Dave

Hello Mark. I trust you and family are well. Are you still working as I have noticed you posting on here more than usual. The weather here has been glorious today in spite of the strong breeze. I am starting to wish it would rain at night as my allotment is bone dry and the ground (heavy clay) is hard as concrete. Thursday might be the day when we get some storms. I have mixed feelings about that as one of my sons who lives with us (he has rented out his house to our middle son, wife and 2 year old temporarily) and I intend to walk along the canal between Chelmsford and Maldon (about 11 miles) but I don't fancy that in torrential rain. Keep safe Kind Regards Dave

Too true. My allotment is in a frost hollow and as I heard there might be frosts I decided to cover my potato leaves with grass cuttings held down by pieces of wood I found on a nearby disused allotment. Others didn't bother and when I went up to water the next day I noted all their potato plants leaves looked very limp and sorry for themselves. Luckily my plants were unaffected. To make sure yesterday I took some fleece up to my plot & placed this on my potatoes. Will my friends on neighbouring plots' potato plants survive their frostbite? Kind Regards Dave

Good afternoon everyone, I trust you are all well. With everyday life on hold I have taken the opportunity to catch up with reading a lot of my old magazines that I didn't have time to previously. Among my many interests is stamp collecting- after all philately gets you everywhere. Reading through the August 2019 edition of Stamp Collector I found an article that may be of interest to some of our more mature in years members of this forum. During the 1930's there was a man who devoted himself to his fascination of thunderstorms. His name was Morris Bower and was from Huddersfield but was always known by his second name Morris. He devised and had printed a postcard of which more than 10.000 in May 1933 were produced and it was part of a remarkable project involving a small array of voluntary observers totally about 1,000 in number worked for him including naval and military officers, MPs, country vicars, scientists and even shepherds. He wrote to newspapers and magazines asking for volunteers to provide a more widespread cover for reporting thunderstorms. Morris and his wife collected the returned postcards and collated the information for what became known as the Thunderstorm Census Organisation. He produced annual reports from the information he gathered. They carried on gathering data until his death in 1982 aged 80. Following his death his organisation became part of the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation in 1984. Did any posters on here send in these postcards to him? Perhaps @knocker or @johnholmes

Good Evening all I am really looking forward to the weather coming up over the next week or so if the models are anything to go by. By the early hours of tomorrow morning I am hoping to hear rain pitta patting on my roof tiles. We certainly need the rain, My allotment was like a dust bowl this afternoon and it was like trying to dig through concrete. The following couple of days thereafter look unsettled with showers, some heavy, but also with some sunny intervals. After tomorrow's very cool day it will gradually warm up and feel quite pleasant in the garden where it is sheltered. Next weekend looks like it will warm up further and early next week there is a chance of a Spanish Plume with a thundery breakdown. There will after tomorrow likely to be some great skyscapes at times as showers form so happy snapping. Kind regards Dave

Hello Rocheydub, I doubt it judging by the number of aircraft still flying. Please click onto the link below to give you an idea. Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map | Flightradar24 WWW.FLIGHTRADAR24.COM The world’s most popular flight tracker. Track planes in real-time on our flight tracker map and get up-to-date flight status & airport information. If you wish to see other areas worldwide click on an aircraft and then click on either the departure or arrival location to see the amount of traffic in that area. It is fascinating to observe the diverse destinations. Kind Regards Dave