A change in the weather – New moths

Things have been fairly quiet on the moth front recently. Numbers have been avergae but the same old species were showing up all the time.

Last saw a change in the weather however, with much warmer overnight temperatures – the minimum was 11ºC, light winds and some rain. This led to some new species in the trap. The catch was:

• 3x Early Thorn
• 8x Hebrew Character
• 2x Small Quaker
• 1x Twenty-plume Moth*
• 2x Water Carpet*
• 1x Red Chestnut
• 1x Garden Carpet*
• 4x Common Quaker
• 2x Shoulder Stripe
• 1x Dark Sword Grass (first this year)
• 1x Double-striped pug
• 1x Brindled Pug
• 1 As yet unidentified Micro*

*= New Garden Record

Stats:

The stats so far are.

2010

Number of species: 30

Moths: 320

All time

Number of species: 51

Moths: 515

It’s just not fair. Since buying my speed kit, there just hasn’t been any suitable wind to use it.

This week looked promising with NE’s forecast all week, but as the days have gone by there just hasn’t been enough. It has got close from time to time with the odd gust but never filled in properly.

Today, Anna had planned to have the car all day so I wouldn’t have been able to get to the estuary with my kit even if the wind did arrive. As we were getting ready for school and work this morning, the wind seemed to be gradually increasing and just before Anna left it had over the course of an hour increased steadily from around 5 knots to 15 knots and was still building.

I quickly changed the plans and decided to give them a lift into work and school (which means driving in again later to collect them) so that I could have the car. I got back here at around 9 am to find the wind was now at about 20 knots with gusts in the estuary of 25 knots. Just enough so it was time to at last give my new kit a go.

I got back home and was about to load up the car when within the course of 10 minutes the wind dropped back down to 10 knots. What have I done to deserve that?

24 hour wind trace - 10am to 10am

The forecast was for a lovely sunny day with lots of wind yesterday (Easter Monday). Steve had planned to come to Borth and we were expecting to windsurf all day.

Steve turned up around 9am, we had a coffee and it wasn’t looking particularly sunny or windy but we headed over to the beach anyway. There was a little bit of wind so we decided to give it a go despite the fact that it didn’t look great out there. That was the plan afterall and hopefully it would fill in.

I loaded up the wheel-barrow and headed to the beach, rigged my biggest board – a Starboard S-Type 104 – and biggest sail – A Gun Jam 6.7m and got out on the water. There was just about enough wind to get going and up on the plane but with only a 28cm fin staying upwind wasn’t really an option so all we could do was a few runs followed by a walk back up the beach. We tried again, but the wind was dropping if anything so we called it a day and headed back for a hot chocolate and to watch windsurf videos instead. Not a great session, but better than doing nothing.

GPS Track from windsurf session

We walked back across to the beach a few times during the afternoon to check the wind and will it to fill in and at about 3.30 pm it did. With the wind now averaging closer to 20 knots we headed back across. I didn’t even take the bigger sail this time, just my 5.6m, 5m and two boards. It still wasn’t howling so I rigged my 5.6m and the S-Type to start with but once on the water, with the gusts now hitting 30 knots this was a little too much, especially as the waves had increased in size quite a bit as well. I had a couple of runs on this kit and then changed down to my Naish Hybrid Freewave board for a while. It was nice to be out on the smaller board again, but there was the odd lull in which it wasn’t quite enough and with the waves threatening to flatten me now and then I changed back up to the bigger board. It’s better to have too much power in such conditions than not enough.

The wind continued to build though and we had a good session blasting about amongst the now quite large waves. In the end Steve got munched by a big one and destroyed his sail (all in a days sailing), so we called it a day, suitably tired and glad to have got some wind in the end.

Once back at the house and changed dinner of salmon, roasted vegetables and new potatoes was waiting for us.. Not bad!

It was a good way to round off the Easter holidays. I still haven’t had chance to try out any of my new speed kit yet, but the NE’s have to arrive soon.

After the best surf Ynyslas can muster on Saturday and some sunshine I was keen to get back in the water again. Darren (Badexcuseforasailor from Forces-of-Nature) was here for the weekend and we had arranged to either windsurf if there was wind or go for a bike ride, but windsurfing was the preferred activity.

After checking my moth trap (just a few due to the cold temperatures) and watching some of the Grand Prix, the wind started picking up so we got ourselves together and headed over to the beach.

Despite appearances with blue skies and whitecaps all over the water there wasn’t actually that much wind so I rigged my very rarely used biggest sail. A 6.7m Gun Jam. I don’t usually go out unless it is windy enough for my 5.6m sail so this big kit rarely sees the light of day. Once on the water it was a little difficult to get going but once up and planing it was actually quite nice to sail on the bigger kit. It’s nowhere near as hectic as smaller kit and everything happens at a slightly slower, more relaxed pace allowing you time to enjoy your surroundings rather than simply hanging on for the adrenalin rush.

A little bit more wind would have been nice, but I’m now looking forward to summer and will try to get out on the water a little more, even if it means getting the bigger kit out.

If you haven’t noticed the weather this week has been atrocious and I can only think it must have been our fault.

We were off on a family caravan holiday in Porthcawl. As I started loading the car on Monday, the heavens opened and I got soaked. It then continued to rain pretty much non-stop all week. Actually, that’s a lie. it did stop for a while while it was sleeting. The temperature dropped quite a bit too and the wind was blowing making it particularly unpleasant out there.

We did manage to do a few things, swimming, windsurfing, museums, Techniquest, crazy golf etc.  which I shall post about later. We were going to go to Dan yr Ogof caves and dinosaur park today but thought better of it thanks to the weather and just headed home instead.

I then got soaked again unloading the car and guess what? As soon as we were unloaded, the rain stopped and now that we are home the sun is shining and there is barely a cloud in the sky!

So, I can only apologise for the recent weather. We won’t be going on holiday for a while though so expect a heatwave anytime soon!

Typical isn’t it, I get a load of new windsurfing kit in my quest to hit 40 knots before I’m 40 and then there’s a conmplete lack of wind forecast.

I’ve just taken a look at the forecast on Windguru for the next week and there isn’t a single star showing. Oh well, I’ll just have to hope that Ivor out katabatic wind can do something about that!

Wind Forecast for the week ahead

Speed Season is here!!!

I’ve just got back from a windsurf session the estuary here at Ynyslas. Ivor, our local katabatic wind was up to his tricks so the wind was ballistic at over 40 knots. The water was a seething mass of white and simply getting out of your car on the beach led to an instant sand blasting.

My new speed kit isn’t here yet so I was forced to go out on wholly inappropriate kit. My board was far too big as was my fin and my sail was far too old. In fact, I didn’t notice this until I was at the water edge but the entire top panel was missing – not ideal. However, with temperatures at just above freezing it wasn’t really a day for messing around on the beach rigging different kit so I went out with the broken sail anyway.

It was hard work hanging on and keeping the board on the water was tough too. Not really perfect conditions for getting a top speed, but I stayed on the water for about an hour and had a few fast, but not very comfortable runs. My top speed was 32.85 knots. Way off my 40 knot target so I’m hoping my new kit will be easier to use as well as faster.

The tracks from my GPS drew some pretty lines though and you can see the speed channel I was ailing in pretty well from this.

My GPS Tracks from todays Speed Session

Windsurfing in the estuary at Ynyslas

I’ve just got back from a nice little windsurf session in the estuary here at Ynyslas. Ivor, our local katabatic wind was up to his usual tricks with a decent NE wind funbelling down through the valley at up to 25 knots. And this was  despite the fact that the forecast was for winds of 5-6 knots. Lovely.

The wind wasn’t quite up to its usual strength, but it is still pretty early in the year so I think Ovir was just warming up. Hopefully we’ll get some really good winds in the spring.

With the sun shining it was pretty warm out there as well. I had my 5/3mm wetsuit on and boots and a hood but if anything I was a little too hot whilst on the water.

There was something going on at the visitor centre car park though. Four police cras were in attendance and the car park was closed off with ‘Crime Scene’ tape all around it and a police officer at either end preventing anyone from entering it. Anyone know what’s happened?

Snowy Road

I like the snow, and I even, to a certain extent, like the disruption it causes here in the UK. It may be a little convenient for a while, but things soon get back to normal and it’s good to know that the Forces-of-Nature can best us now and then.

Lots of people complain about the disruption and the fact that local councils aren’t prepared. They always go on about the fact that it isn’t like this in Finland or Slovenia or Canada and that they cope with much heavier snowfalls without any problems. But there’s a good reason for that. Yes, plenty of other countries get much more snow than us and cope without any issues, but they are used to it, they expect it and therefore they spend time and money preparing for it.

The snow we’ve had this year in the UK is unusual. It isn’t unprecedented and we do get heavy snowfalls every now and then, but being ready for unusual conditions would be a complete waste of money most years. Buying and storing grit costs money, buying, maintaining and storing machinery such as gritters and snow ploughs costs lots of money too and I’m sure such things need replacing fairly regularly. The money to pay for such things comes from the taxes we pay and I for one wouldn’t want to think that my taxes were being spent on machinery that only gets used in earnest for a few days once every ten years or so.

In my opinion it would be much better to spend that money on something that is used all the time such as schools and hospitals and occasionally put up with a little disruption due to the snow. Even the snow we’ve just had didn’t last that long and within a week or so it will all be forgotten and things will be back to normal.

Stop moaning and trying to find someone to blame. It’s not anyone’s fault, its just the weather. It looks nice out there, so enjoy the scenery while you can and endure the inconvenience it causes.

The temperatures here by the coast are nothing as extreme as those experienced inland. The sea has a moderating effect keeping us cooler in the summer months and much warmer in the winter. So, the temperatures we’re getting at the coast seem almost tropical compared to those recorded inland here in Wales.

However, the Borth and Ynyslas weather station that I run has just recorded a new record low temperature this morning of -6.5ºC. The previous coldest day was January 9th 2009 with a low temperature of -6.2ºC. It may drop lower yet before the sun comes up properly, so I may have to update this later today. But for now, it’s a new record of -6.5ºC here in Ynyslas since records began in December 2005.