The Helm Wind of Cross Fell

Crossfell is the highest point along the 268-mile route of the Pennine Way, at 893 metres (Figure 1). The climate of the North Pennines is temperate, with a small area classified as subarctic (Manley, 1936). The hills generally receive more precipitation, stronger winds, and colder temperatures than the surrounding areas. They are also home to the Helm, England’s only named wind

Documentary-derived chronologies of rainfall variability in Antigua, Lesser Antilles, 1770–1890

This paper presents the first extensive reconstruction of precipitation variability in the Lesser Antilles using historical documentary sources. Over 13 250 items of documentation pertaining to Antigua from the period 1769–1890 were consulted, including missionary, plantation and governmental papers as well as contemporary scholarly publications. Based on the predominant meteorological conditions observed throughout the island, each "rain-year" (December–November) was assigned one of five classifications (very wet, wet, "normal", dry and very dry). Local weather references relating to seven plantations in central-eastern Antigua were grouped according to dry (December–April) and wet seasons (May–November), each of which were also categorised in the aforementioned manner. Results comprise individual island-wide and central-eastern Antiguan chronologies of relative precipitation levels, spanning the rain-years 1769–70 to 1889–90 and 1769–70 to 1853–54 respectively. The former is compared with available instrumental data for the years 1870–1890. Significant dry phases are identified in the rain-years 1775–80, 1788–91, 1820–22, 1834–37, 1844–45, 1859–60, 1862–64, 1870–74 and 1881–82, while wet episodes were 1771–74, 1833–34, 1837–38, 1841–44, 1845–46 and 1878–81. Evidence for major wet and dry spells is presented and findings are evaluated within wider historical and palaeoclimatic contexts

Knowing weather in place: the Helm Wind of Cross Fell

The Helm Wind of Cross Fell, North Pennines, is England's only named wind. As a product of the particular landscape found at Cross Fell, the Helm is a true local wind, and a phenomenon that has come to assume great cultural as well as environmental significance in the region and beyond. In this paper we draw on material from county histories, newspaper archives, and documents relating to investigations of the Helm Wind that were conducted by the Royal Meteorological Society between 1884 and 1889, and by British climatologist Gordon Manley (1908–1980), between 1937 and 1939, to document attempts to observe, measure, understand and explain this local wind over a period of 200 years. We show how different ways of knowing the Helm relate to contemporary practices of meteorology, highlighting the shifts that took place in terms of what constituted credible meteorological observation. We also acknowledge the overlapping nature of these ways of knowing and the persistence of multiple testimonies about the Helm and its effects