Mark Hunt’s Weather Assessment
20th April – 27th April 2010
Just a quick update, after a cracking weekend when temperatures in the South of England topped 20°C, there was a reported 23.5°C yesterday in the great smog that is London, but I think the chap was holding a cup of Costa Coffee close to the thermometer. Seriously though, it was a beautiful weekend, made all the more surreal by the lack of noise and con-trails from aircraft, it was spooky quiet (living under the East Midlands Airport descent path that is) and I even felt guilty starting the scarifier on Saturday morning!
The temperatures have dropped off a tad in a chilly North - North-East wind as suggested, but the good news is that the really cold weather that looked to be on its way at the end of this week has moved off and we could now be in for a drop of rain, sunshine and showers-type weather, from Saturday onwards, if an Atlantic low heading our way comes to pass. At present it's looking like the rain will move into Kerry on Friday evening before heading across to Wales and then England on Sunday.
If this low does turn up, then the showers will be rattled in on very brisk South Westerly to Westerly winds (which, in theory, should move all that volcanic dust away from Ireland and the U.K. and over to Russia and Finland) and mild temperatures with much warmer nights than of late.
Sunshine and showers then appear to be the order of the day for next week until we reach the end of the week. How much rain we'll all end up getting is difficult to say but, since it's an Atlantic low, these tend to track North-East across the U.K. so the South and East may not get too much.
Rain is very much in need at present (although the East of England got a drop on Monday I hear) and with the blustery winds forecast, these will dry areas out very quickly. Coupled with the fact that the rest of this week will remain dry and cool, with cold nights and mild days (depending on cloud cover), irrigation should be applied to keep the surface moist and suppress stress and the next joy of spring - Poa seedheads. Traditionally these tend to kick off in the first week of May in the U.K. and sometimes, up to two weeks earlier in Ireland, though I think it will happen a little later in the latter this year. I've had reports of Poa seeding already and I suspect this is the first of the annual Poa biotypes in the sward flicking into seedhead mode, with the dry weather of late and not the full seedhead flush that we all love so much! Once we get to the end of this week, I'll check my degree-days calculation to see how we stack up vs. previous years.
Mark Hunt
Technical Director
Headland Amenity Ltd
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