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  • From: "Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Short chilly summer for Britain
  • Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 09:53:49 -0500



Autumn comes early

By Patrick Phelvin
Last Updated: 5:01pm BST 31/07/2007



a.. Holly berries are appearing in the hedgerows, conkers and apples are falling from the trees and mushrooms are springing up in the fields.



All the signs are that the briefest of brief English summers is coming to an end and autumn is already upon us. A growing number of experts believe that this year's unpredictable weather, which brought spring on early, then deluged Britain with record rainfall, has now taken us straight to autumn - bypassing summer altogether.

Fruiting holly has been spotted in Hampshire, conkers are appearing in Essex, blackberries are ripe in Devon and the nation's orchards are preparing for an early harvest. Adrian Barlow, of English Apples and Pears, said early apple varieties were already being harvested. "Autumn has definitely come earlier this year," he said. "We expect varieties like Discovery to be in the shops as soon as next week. "Later varieties, like Cameo, are already showing really good colour, which is extraordinarily early. Normally we wouldn't expect to see that until the last week of September."



Ian Johnson, of the National Farmers' Union, said many of those working in agriculture had already noticed the signs of an early autumn. "From my office in Devon I can see ripened blackberries, which I would not have usually expected to see for several weeks yet," he said. "There is concern that seasons are becoming a lot less predictable and that will clearly have an impact on British farmers."

The early onset of autumn can be explained in part by record high temperatures in spring, when average temperatures of 48F (9C) - the highest since records began in 1914 - led to plants and trees like the Hawthorn flowering early. By mid-April, fields were filled with tulips and rhododendrons were making an early appearance. Migrating birds have also been confused by this year's weather, with flocks of swifts arriving in April rather than May.

The soaring spring temperatures were followed by the wettest summer in more than 200 years. The recent downpours and relatively cool weather tricked some plants into thinking winter was on its way. The freak conditions, which saw a month's worth of rain fall in 24 hours over parts of Britain, have been blamed on a global phenomenon which brings cold, damp air from the south Atlantic to northern Europe in the channel of strong wind known as the Jet Stream.

Meteorologists say that for much of the summer the jet stream has been further south and stronger than in a typical summer. This has resulted in many depressions crossing southern and central parts of Britain, interacting with very warm and moist air to the south and generating exceptionally heavy rain storms, while other parts of Europe are experiencing drought.

A spokesman for the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Change said it was too early to say whether this year's conditions were evidence of global warming and they could be dismissed as an irregularity. "We have just had the wettest summer since 1766 so it is unsurprising that this has affected crops," he said. "There is evidence to suggest that within a warmer climate we will see wetter winters and warmer summers. Having said that, there will also be an increased likelihood of the extreme weather events like the rain we have just seen."




******Comment from Donna: though we have been unable to find any info on how the bizarre weather pattern in the US this summer is related to worldwide weather patterns, this article mentions the jet stream being down in Europe. It's been really high here, bringing heat and drought to the SE, crossing at an angle to make all our rain to fall on TX.





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