Rainy

Such a beauty spinning around and swishing her skirts. But what's her intention? Does she send a lively baby to us to look after for the weekend and then go off for a holiday to charge her batteries? http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/gefs_cartes.php?ech=0&code=0&mode=2

Just nipped up and put on an electric heater to take chill off bedroom for a little while. First time this autumn. House is damp and cold after all these weeks of sunless wetness. A few weeks of sunny dry weather would do us a lot of good.

Sept total here so far at 10 BST today was 146.0 mm. But since then it's been a miserable day with constant heavy showers. So lots more to add tomorrow. So far this year 1204.3 mm. Annual average here since start of 1969 is 1454.8 mm. (Met office rain recording site here since Sept 1968) The swilling heavy rain forecast over the next few days is most certainly unwelcome. The pastures round here are blown up in places into huge water filled bubbles. The sward lifted a couple of feet high, where the field drains can't cope. Ditches are brim full. Often cloudy in last 4 months. TV pictures have so often shown blue skies elsewhere. Only about 10 mins sunlight here all today. But at least we did see a bit of sun for once. A relative from Peterborough came to visit us last Sunday. He was astonished at the size of the floods on the roads up here. He had watered some of his garden before setting off.

Saw swallows yesterday. Not today.

Aha .. Nadine or her offspring might yet pounce on us ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/19650773

Weather up here is atrocious. Now 3rd consecutive day of huge torrential showers At 10 BST this morning I picked up 12.4mm from the gauge. Thus rain total Sept so far is 146mm. But we've had an awful lot more since during this morning. Had about 5 mins sunlight mid morning and it felt warm briefly. But it's a cold rain. Current temp 9.7C.

Not as many apples as last year here. We had a heavy crop then. Trees exposed to the cold winds last April have no fruit on the sides facing the wind.. But the main thing I've noticed is the delayed ripening. We've had very little sunlight or warmth this summer and so far this autumn. The apples on one tree which can usually be picked from late August are still very hard and sour. Also there is rain damage to the fruit -- skin blemishes and cracks. Lucky to have anything at all really.. There are blackberries, but they too are waiting for warmth and sun to ripen.

Chilly brisk wind today with beefy showers. Max 11.2C. Now 8.9C.

What's the chances she, or her remains, might sneak towards the UK by next Monday?

Beefy shower just now. Absolutely drilled down for about 5 mins. No thunder.

Well, you know where much of the rain falls .... Picked up 30.3mm from the daily gauge this morning. Roads flooded yesterday and brooks roaring. So far this month we've had 121.2 mm. So far this year 1179.5 mm. Annual average up here over last 45 yrs is 1454.8 mm. Max 1947.4 mm (2000). Min. 1076.4 mm (1996) !1 of the last 15 years have been wetter than average.

Can't find a more suitable place to put this observation. More a sign of early winter. A skein of noisy geese or swans flew westwards over here this morning. That's very early in the season. Seen more often November and December.

Rain all day so far. Heavier from midday and for the last 2 hours it's been torrential. There will be flooding surely.. The land up here was already a quagmire before today's deluges. Farming is in a hopeless situation in these hills.

Wet all day here. Got heavier from midday and for the last couple of hours it has been utterly awful. Absolutely torrential. Very dark. Had house lights on all afternoon. There will be floods about again. Will set back farmwork for another week.

Both fly low to the ground. Depends on insect supply. In calmer warmer weather the insects fly higher and also are likley to be around trees. Supposed to be a sign of good weather if these birds are high up. Swifts scream and usuallly do long swooping flight at crazy speed.. Never perch on wires. Dislike cold wet weather. Go long distances away from nest, leaving young, and fly away from low pressure systems. Been in decline these last few years here. None this year after a brief visit in May. There's a famous and fascinating book about them .. "Swifts in a Tower" by Davifd Lack. Swallows have more zig zag flight chasing insects and a twittering call. When really excited in the early summer they have a sort of corkscrew call now and then. Commonly perch on wires or roof tops. Gather up in large numbers in Sept. Young have short tails. As I posted ealier last week, I thought "our" swallows had left. But the warm sunshine stirred the insects on Thursday and this morning. And lo -- swallows turned up, but flying very low over the fields. Young were making a racket and were being fed on the wing by parents / adults. I suspect they must be roosting somewhere else as they are not around in the evening as in past weeks..

I think our swallows have gone, at lesast from just around here. Babies were out of the nest last week and they were being fed by parents while perched on the electric wires on the 7th. . So that will be a quick exit for them. Don't blame them. We've had 55.4 mm rain drenchings since then. Very few birds about. A few goldfinches feeding on knapweed seeds and a robin with the usual sad winter-time cheep. Blackbirds and thrushes hunting for blackberries. Grain fed crows and stray pheasants from the shoots.

Weather Live! Watch !TV 4 now this afternoon. Live coverage of the Tour. Really wild on Blackpool prom where the programme is being folowed by satellite. Horizontal drilzzle here at present.

Appalling. Dreadfully wet up here.

Just picked up 5.5mm from the gauge, for the last 24hrs rain. A bleak wet ride for the Tour of Britain cyclists today through Cumbria and N Lancs. Current temp 11.9C. Outbreaks of rain. Low cloud. Brisk W wind. But some chance of improvement later Welcome to the NW everyone. Wear your gloves and waterproofs. ITV4 coverage this afternoon and this evening at 7pm. It will be interesting to see views of the wet landscapes and flooded roads. This section had to be called off last year..

Magnificent shower clouds this morning and the odd rainbow. A change from the wall to wall grey and constant rain yesterday. So dreadfully wet here. Picked up 34.2mm (and drowned slug) from the gauge at 10BST today.

Sums up the troubles in this area correctly also and I suspect most NW parts of the UK. . I've been reporting in similar vein in various threads on NetWeather for several weeks now. The last line is a grim warning. Unless we have a long warm and very dry autumn and a gentle winter, there will be real hardship. Paying the fuel and soaring food bills will be the big concern. Local authority costs must surely have risen too. So much infrastructure has been hit by water damage, especially where repairs hadn't been done effectively to roads and buildings etc since the last 2 cold winters. Our local country lanes are in a bad state. Little better than rivers in places, with mud and debris everywhere. Huge cracks and potholes too. Since starting to write this I've been out to the gauge and collected 34.2mm rain for the last 24 hrs. So that will set things back for any land work for at least a couple of weeks, even if it stays dry. The fields have been completely overwhelmed with water everywhere up here this growing season, except on stony thin soils on sloping land.

Bucketing down. Roads flooded.

OK this weekend, but today rain most of the time, with sudden short torrential sessions. Everything sodden, rotting and fungal. A thin bedraggled rain drenched cock pheasant walks around the garden. The only cheer is from Slowpoke's duck with those gorgeous eyes. Always give me a smile.. Can anyone see any hope of a dry spell this week?

Silage is normally cut when grass is green and leafy so not likely to be at risk. It's the old seed heads which have the ergot, on grain or grass. Uncut hayfields (still lots about up here) may well have ergot infestation and also any uncut field margins where grass has lingered all season (that's where we are seeing plenty). Also any land which has had to be left ungrazed this wet summer and where grass gone to seed. A big dose of ergot could cause cattle to abort.

Yet another wet day, till mid afternoon anyway. Never saw the sun. Farming still in a miserable state up here. One farmer told me he has only been able to put his dairy cattle on his pastures for 20 days this year so far. Sodden fields get trodden and spoiled, especially on heavy soils. Meanwhile stock indoors are eating winter rations or expensive purchased feed. Feed wheat prices rise every day, Soya is in short supply and expensive. The manure is accumulating and can't be got on to the land by machinery. Two sunny blowy dry days, Wed and Thurs, encouraged some to try to harvest a late crop of grass. We really need a dry fortnight at least. Passed a field today where a farmer had scraped in some silage. The land looked as though tanks had run all over it and sunk in places. A battlefield indeed. Meanwhile grass seedheads are showing a plague of ergot. There's always some about in the autumn in these damp hills. It's having an extra good time this wet year. Perhaps we'll need some hallucinations and witchcraft to get through the winter.