A glimpse of sunshine raises hopes of spring amid the cold winds in this crazy world of disappearing seasons. The other day, I set off for a five-mile stroll in Epping Forest, from Leytonstone to Connaught Water in Chingford. It was a boggy experience, so I was glad of the stout hiking boots.
Hollow Pond was full to the brim – suggesting plenty of ground water from the recent snow-melt as well as from last year’s deluge. What a year! Drought, followed by a warm March – followed by the coolest, dullest, wettest April-July spell for decades. Poor crops rotted in sodden fields. What’s up with the weather? Who stole the late spring and early summer? And where did the early spring go this year? If March comes in like a lion, it’s meant to go out like a lamb. But many of the spring lambs have just perished in the blizzards and biting Siberian gales.
Not much sign of spring was evident on my forest walk. Beside the old boating lake near Highams Park, the trees of this pleasant woodland were largely barren, with stunted buds. Many of the paths along the way were quagmires. It was heavy going. Boots? I should have taken wellies!
Returning home from Connaught Water in the frosty fading light, via Queen Elizabeth’s hunting lodge and Chingford railway station, I thought of the challenges that lie ahead for everyone concerned about the climate threat and the need for positive action. Those long weeks of black easterly winds that chill the soul and dull the spirit are consistent with the meteorologists’ observations of more high-latitude high pressures – linked to the receding Arctic ice – that drag in cold air from continental Russia in winter and disrupt the jet stream, blocking the Atlantic troughs.
The winds of climate change are blowing. As John Vidal wrote in the Guardian in late March: “The weather is behaving just as the climatologists predicted it would as the planet warmed – with extremes of weather.” The Met Office has issued a warning on similar lines – advising the government to be prepared. Better keep those boots handy.
Comments