The past couple of days have brought snow and a return to winter. At the start of the week I was drawing up a post as to how our preparations for spring work were going. They have now ground to a halt. The only work now being done is in the office (where it is at least warm), with the odd venture out to pull the occasional unfortunate motorist who has attempted to get up our brae without four wheel drive.
The ‘beast from the east’ has smashed a few weather station records. We have had colder days this winter, but it is the ENE wind that is the killer. The following image shows that although the actual temperature has hovered around -3.0C, the wind has made it feel a lot colder.
Unusually the wind chill has been greater than the apparent temperature. I’m not sure why this is, but think it has to do with the fact the air is quite dry at times. The relative humidity has an effect on how the temperature feels.
One thing I am glad about is that we don’t have any stock. Although we’ve not had a vast quantity of snow, it is drifting in the wind. This makes it difficult for stock farmers to feed stock in fields, and also to get the feed in to the farm. Stock kept inside are better off, but frozen water pipes are a real problem when the weather is this cold.
Before this weather arrived, neighbouring farms had started to work ground ready for vegetables, such as carrots. To get the best prices, some crops are sown as early as possible and put under plastic. This sort of weather delays things, which makes an already difficult job even harder.