When Skies Are Grey

It’s often said that Northants is a bit, well, dull, but that does have its upside.  Generally when severe natural events hit the UK, our corner of the country is relatively unscathed. Take these floods for example. A lack of major waterways is definitely helpful when rainfall records are being broken.  My adopted home town of Malvern, close to the Severn, was actually cut off for 2 days recently, which lead to panic buying of artisan bread and olive stuffed tomatoes in the local Waitrose. Meanwhile Worcester city centre looks like the Ganges and the prospects of play at New Road are looking doubtful, though the umpires are due to inspect in September.

By contrast it would take something truly biblical for the River Ise to be a risk to life, though I suppose Wickies lake could overflow, adding an element of risk to the miniature railway that is not normally experienced at a steady 8mph. The Lady of the Lake could become The Lady in the Lake.

Then there’s hurricanes. Here they hardly hever happen. The 1987 great storm cut a swathe of destruction across southern England. However, in fairness to Michael Fish he got it right if his prediction was narrowed down a bit, to say north of Watford Gap services.  No hurricanes, but plenty of wind.  Northamptonshire is apparently England’s third gustiest county!  Now why isn’t that on the road signs?  It must be something to do with being the highest point until the Urals, a fact which is so ingrained in local folklore, we’d really hate it not to be true.  Certainly on a cold day Latimer Park feels like it’s the highest football ground until Russia. And the local wind turbines are kept busy (if you spend more time studying the ones on the Latimer skyline than watching the game, it’s a pretty good indicator of how the afternoon is going). 

So no serious floods and no hurricanes. Tornados?  You’re kidding. Even by British standards (occasional reports of a ‘tornado’ that disturbed a couple of wheelie bins somewhere) we seem to get off lightly.  There was that earth tremor a few years ago, sending underground shock waves that were felt in Kettering. I know this because it woke me up. On a Richter scale of terror, though, it measured about 0.4.  The earth shook more when Rene Howe took a dive. 

At this point you’re probably thinking, come on Patgod, even by your standards this is a bit thin, there must have been some wild and wacky weather event here. Well since you ask, in 1558 it is recorded that Northamptonshire was hit by a hailstorm in which the stones were nearly 5 inches across!!  The equivalent of being pelted by frozen coconuts, though it’s unlikely that back in 1558 people made that comparison.  Remember this was long before the first recorded fun fair.  So one freak ice shower then nothing for 450 years. Somehow this feels exactly as it should be. This is Northamptonshire.  Unusual stuff happens elsewhere.    

 

 

Still waiting for the big one to hit NN16