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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Nature & Wildlife
- Published: 02/27/2018
Natural Phenomena – Up our way!
In summer when there have been a series of long hot summer days with little or no air movement often large spirals of warm air begin to rise up. The spirals turn one way in the bottom of the globe and the other way round in the top half. The same as water going down the plug hole does. Then I digress.
Seagulls are particularly quick to latch onto these free lifts and ride the spiralling thermals as far up as they can go without a single flap of wings. Then as gracefully as it started the thermal peters out and the birds drift randomly away.
Smaller impish versions occur at lower level called locally ‘Will ‘o the Wisps’. These start and finish at lower levels with sudden speed. They have not enough power to support a bird but do carry plenty of loose straw and the like.
Long periods of dry weather produce a severe fire risk to the vast expanses of dry heather. This is managed by cutting fire breaks if necessary and burning away moor in advance of the flames. Access to moor fires is very difficult and no water supplies are available.
When one of the worst moor fires burnt itself out all the top 3 feet of heather and supporting peat went. Unseen boulders showed up. A burnt out wreck of an old army water tanker was the only thing left standing. It was real disaster movie stuff. Nothing else to see from horizon to horizon.
There are some dodgy bogs in places. Their top twelve or so inches a thick blanket of algae and mosses. You can, at your peril, walk across the top. But the crust can give way suddenly and drop you onto a watery hole from which there is no return. Stick to the paths.
Heavy rain and sudden thaws can produce more water than the becks can handle. Flotsam soon jams the gaps in the netting and fence posts are ripped out. The water power is too much for the banks and short lived floods occur.
The local pub had a corridor from front to back door with a piano installed. The flood water burst the front door and swept down the corridor taking piano and all away out the back door to end smashed up a couple of miles away downstream.
The upward rush of turbulent air in thunder weather turns rain drops into hailstones at high altitude coldness. These ice marbles then drop at speed varying in size from small to golf ball whoppers. The small ones rattle down the inside of chimneys to land as sooty blobs on the hearth rug. The big ones break glass, block drains and hurt.
On one occasion the thunder clouds became so dense they blocked out all the light locally. As if a total eclipse of the sun.
Hens in the farmyards went into the henhouse to roost. Dogs and cats caught outside scratched at doors to be in. Some people said a prayer thinking it was the end of the world.
Then out of the quietness came the deluge for twenty or so minutes. The claps of thunder rattled the ornaments on the shelves.
Never a dull moment with English weather.
There is a lesson to be learnt here. Winds can only blow to a certain speed then nature slows them. Waves can only get so high then they start to calm. Rough weather always eases.
Remember that if you feel really down it is self-limiting and you will always feel better with time. Guaranteed.
Natural Phenomena- Up our way!(Ossie Durrans)
Natural Phenomena – Up our way!
In summer when there have been a series of long hot summer days with little or no air movement often large spirals of warm air begin to rise up. The spirals turn one way in the bottom of the globe and the other way round in the top half. The same as water going down the plug hole does. Then I digress.
Seagulls are particularly quick to latch onto these free lifts and ride the spiralling thermals as far up as they can go without a single flap of wings. Then as gracefully as it started the thermal peters out and the birds drift randomly away.
Smaller impish versions occur at lower level called locally ‘Will ‘o the Wisps’. These start and finish at lower levels with sudden speed. They have not enough power to support a bird but do carry plenty of loose straw and the like.
Long periods of dry weather produce a severe fire risk to the vast expanses of dry heather. This is managed by cutting fire breaks if necessary and burning away moor in advance of the flames. Access to moor fires is very difficult and no water supplies are available.
When one of the worst moor fires burnt itself out all the top 3 feet of heather and supporting peat went. Unseen boulders showed up. A burnt out wreck of an old army water tanker was the only thing left standing. It was real disaster movie stuff. Nothing else to see from horizon to horizon.
There are some dodgy bogs in places. Their top twelve or so inches a thick blanket of algae and mosses. You can, at your peril, walk across the top. But the crust can give way suddenly and drop you onto a watery hole from which there is no return. Stick to the paths.
Heavy rain and sudden thaws can produce more water than the becks can handle. Flotsam soon jams the gaps in the netting and fence posts are ripped out. The water power is too much for the banks and short lived floods occur.
The local pub had a corridor from front to back door with a piano installed. The flood water burst the front door and swept down the corridor taking piano and all away out the back door to end smashed up a couple of miles away downstream.
The upward rush of turbulent air in thunder weather turns rain drops into hailstones at high altitude coldness. These ice marbles then drop at speed varying in size from small to golf ball whoppers. The small ones rattle down the inside of chimneys to land as sooty blobs on the hearth rug. The big ones break glass, block drains and hurt.
On one occasion the thunder clouds became so dense they blocked out all the light locally. As if a total eclipse of the sun.
Hens in the farmyards went into the henhouse to roost. Dogs and cats caught outside scratched at doors to be in. Some people said a prayer thinking it was the end of the world.
Then out of the quietness came the deluge for twenty or so minutes. The claps of thunder rattled the ornaments on the shelves.
Never a dull moment with English weather.
There is a lesson to be learnt here. Winds can only blow to a certain speed then nature slows them. Waves can only get so high then they start to calm. Rough weather always eases.
Remember that if you feel really down it is self-limiting and you will always feel better with time. Guaranteed.
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Kevin Hughes
08/09/2018Aloha Ossie,
Like you, my stories appear out of the "ether"- and my old Grammar Teachers (All Nuns) would be aghast at how I throw comma's around Willy Nilly. In their minds if you used one exclamation mark in a fifty thousand word tome, and then used a second one; well, you watered them both down to just meaningless pauses. LOL
I do like your stories, and the wise words did not go unnoticed either. Jd called it "sage advice" - I call it wisdom. Smiles, Kevin
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Ossie Durrans
08/10/2018Hello Kevin
Thank you for spending time to comment. Sadly for me the ether works better than sitting and thinking about it too long! (Oops there's another exclamation mark)
All the best
Ossie
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JD
08/09/2018Thanks for sharing your story about life on the English moors, and all the interesting weather phenomenon you encounter there. I like the way you used it to provide some sage advice at the end. Congratulations on being selected as the Short Story STAR of the Day, and thank you for sharing your stories on Storystar! : )
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JD
08/10/2018I'm happy to have your 'high ranking amateur' stories on Storystar, Kevin! If you went pro then we'd miss you! : )
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Kevin Hughes
08/10/2018Jd, Pro is beyond me. You have to do Social Media and have an Editor that believes in you, and doesn't change anything in your story but the punctuation, grammar and maybe...just maybe...some syntax. And then you have to sign a contract - meet deadlines, and talk to Bloggers. Yikes!
Smiles, Kevin of the High ranking Amateurs .
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