UK Meteorologists “Baffled” As Scotland “Returns To Winter”; Alta Surpasses 900 Inches (23 Meters); + More
UK Meteorologists “Baffled” As Scotland “Returns To Winter
Monday will see the onset of May, yet winter-like lows and heavy snows are besetting the Northern UK, particularly Scotland, leaving mainstream meteorologists frantically flicking through their AGW Party handbook for answers.
“Weather not climate” is a copout: The anthropogenic global warming theory called for “no more snow”, yet here we are in late-April with the UK Met Office, king of the warm-mongers, admitting, “It feels like the return of winter. It’s hard to believe four months ago it was Christmas and now we’re seeing festive scenes on the hills and mountains.”
The Met Office says temperatures in urban areas should hold above freezing–barely–but that any rural spots away from the coast could see readings as low as -8C (17.6C) or colder; temperatures that will rival/best the lowest readings ever logged in the UK for the time of year.
For reference, the all-time lows for April 27 and 28 currently stand as -6.1C (21F) and -7.8C (18F), respectively, set at Glenlivet in 1956.
These unseasonable and record-breaking lows will plague the UK until at least the May Bank Holiday weekend, state official forecasts, as brutal air from the Arctic rides anomalously-far south on the back of a low solar activity-induced ‘meridional’ jet stream flow — and more than a month after British Summer Time began, no less.
“We are going to see very low overnight temperatures for much of the week, with morning frosts just about everywhere,” said Met Office forecaster Alex Burkill. “There will also be snow and almost anywhere in Scotland could see some.”
Gardeners are also being advised that new plants will not survive the impending drop in temperatures.
“Garden centers and supermarkets are offering a wide range of outdoor plants right now,” said George Anderson of the Beechgrove Garden, “But my advice to anyone thinking of planting them now is ‘Don’t’. If you buy shrubs or plants from a garden center just now and place them outside, you will just have to go back next month and buy more……because they will be killed.”
The crop-wrecking freeze isn’t just confined to the UK, of course, the majority of mainland Europe is also being infected by those descending ‘blues’ and ‘purples’. And looking further ahead, yet another polar outbreak is set to hit, commencing May 2…
…cold that will also deliver close to a meter of fresh snowfall over the Alps and pockets of Scandinavia:
Alta Surpasses 900 Inches (23 Meters)
Despite Mother Nature continuing to deliver mind-blowing snow totals, many U.S. ski resorts are having to close heir slopes. This is because staff members are largely seasonal workers and so need to be released to work their summer jobs.
With another 7 inches reported at the ski area Tuesday morning, Alta hit 903 inches –or 23 meters– of snow for the season, which shatters the resort’s previous record of 748 inches set in 1981-82.
Unprecedented snow has brought with it unprecedented challenges, so says Alta Ski Area marketing director Brandon Ott: “There were no big, high-pressure periods. It just snowed and snowed and snowed.”
Ott continued: “In 2022, we threw around that word unprecedented quite frequently and it’s fair to say that this winter has absolutely been unprecedented. We’re no stranger to snow. Yet, we have had to shovel rooftops and buildings two, three, four times. That’s unheard of.”
Many Utah resorts received historic totals this season.
In Solitude Mountain Resort, in nearby Big Cottonwood Canyon, 800 inches was surpassed for the very first time on Tuesday morning with an additional foot of snow settling in just 24hrs. Travis Holland, spokesman at Solitude Resort, said the record snow means the resort is staying open longer than ever before, until May 21, meaning it will have been operational for 193 days.
Elsewhere, Snowbasin Resort in Weber County recently surpassed 600 inches for the first time ever, besting its previous record of 475 inches set, as with Alta, during the 1981-82 season: “What an incredible season,” Snowbasin resort officials wrote in a season recap on Monday. “We had an awesome time soaring past some long-standing records, riding countless powder days and still managing to squeeze in a few days of spring skiing during our final weeks of operation.”
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Apologies, but I’m going to leave it there for today. I have a lot going on on the land — putting posts in, fencing up, and then moving the herd of goats into their new, larger enclosure.
My corn in the field is finally starting to germinate. I got the timing right with the temperatures but hit a long period without rain — April has been incredibly dry here on the Iberian Peninsula. Likewise, the sorghum is also beginning to sprout. I’m feeling better about all that.
I’ll be back with a new article tomorrow.
In the meantime, I’ve linked some further reading below…
Dear @Cap,
add Amaranth to your and your chickens´ diet! Amaranth is drought resistant, high in protein and the dried(!!!) leaves and the boiled(!!!) seeds are perfect chickken feed.
I have a little amaranth on the go, but have a 1/3-acre plot of quinoa (intended for the chickens) — what are your thoughts on quinoa?
Amaranth is safer for chickens. You can feed them Amaranth up to 40% of their total feed. And the yield is up to 500 grams of seeds per plant. Quinoa contains lots of bitter saponins, which is not too good for poultry in general. I wouldn´t feed them more than 10% of boiled Quinoa.
Thanks for all you do Cap.
Some growing advice from an old farmer: If you need rain to germinate your seed, most likely you made a mistake. You overdried the soil with tillage or planted too shallow. If you tilled, packing the soil with a roller will help. Notill keeps the ground much wetter and the surface mulch keeps it moist after planting. It shines in a dry year, not so much in a really wet one.
I’m certain I made mistakes, this being my first year growing corn in the field. One unhelpful ‘natural’ element, however, has been the lack of rain: just 11% of the norm has fallen since the turn of the year. Any tips for dealing with that? Patience…? (BTW, I did very limited tilling, and believe I planted deep enough).
Patience won´t do the magic! Only lots of hard work! I would plant some clover between the corn. It fixes nitrogen, shades and mulches the soil. Next year you could try “Three Sister Planting´´ (corn, pumpkins and beans) to shade and fertilize the soil. No dig! Don´t disturb your soil. Build humus by adding loads and loads of mulch and organic matter on your fields and vegetable beds. Use hay and straw and everything your property offers you for free for mulching. This will attract earthworms and compost worms and they will moisturize your plants from underneath ( yes. they pee!). If you have olive trees, chip the prunings, chip the branches from pine trees (no oak, no eucalyptus) and put the chips between your vegetable beds as a pathway to protect the soil underneath. In addition, the wood chips decompose and build great soil. If you have slopes on your property, dig swales or a pond to hold the water on your land and install gutters with IBC tanks attached. If you have an open well and an irrigation tank, direct rainwater into them by using a metal sheet. Hope that helps before the big heat arrives!
To deal with low rain input………….
https://cals.ncsu.edu/crop-and-soil-sciences/news/fungi-fertilize-the-future/
” Mycorrhizal fungi surround and physically invade plant roots – establishing colony networks around and through the roots to cooperatively barter scavenged nutrients for a plant-supplied carbon reward”
They provide up to the equivalent of 11 times the current root water scavenging area of the plant. One cotton farmer in dry West Texas did very well while his neighbor’s dried up!
https://fungi.com/collections/mycogrow/products/mycogrow_soluble
1 Oz makes 12 gallons of mix to apply. Economical
Dallas
Great tip — I’m digging into this.
That´s why I recommended to add wood chips to the pathways where your mycorrhiza then will grow naturally and will create a sponge while decomposing. Hügelkultur (Huegelculture), where you burry wood logs or whole stems before planting on it is another method to hold water on your land and to imptove your soil. Wood is a substrate for growing fungi and at some point you might even be able to harvest mushrooms from these pathways between your vegetable beds! The most successful farmers know that they don´t grow food! They grow soil!