Bel's Wood

Last year we experienced a number of significant storms. Storm Arwen in November 2021 was the greatest in terms of a weather event but then we had a series of three storms in February 2022 - Eunice, Dudley and Francis. Storm Arwen and Storm Francis led to over a dozen trees in Bel's Wood tumbling to a horizontal position. As spring has arrived I have checked on their wellbeing and all but one of the deciduous trees have come into leaf and blossom. There is a holly tree which is hanging on but doesn't look healthy. I have gone over old photographs to see if I can show the trees before the storm, immediately after and now as they are in leaf.  This cherry looked dead when I first got to know the wood in January 2021 so had fellen over long before the recent storms. With that large white fungus working its magic, dissolving the lignin, I had thought it was dead wood slowly rotting into the land.    But as last year, it has produce...

Between 18th & 21st February 2022 the UK was hit by three storms. A high level of media coverage was given to Eunice & Dudley while Franklin had a greater impact locally.  This photo was taken just as Eunice was whipping up some real energy - not at my wood but a neighbouring valley (Longsleddale).  There is a useful blog from the Met Office (link below) which shows that Franklin gave a more sustained level of very high speed gusts than the other two storms, although the data was collected off the South Coast of the UK. Eunice showed faster gusts setting a new record for the UK of 122mph at The Needles but for a less sustained period than Franklin. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/weather/learn-about/uk-past-events/interesting/2022/2022_02_storms_dudley_eunice_franklin.pdf Storm damage was experienced at Bel’s Wood during Storm Arwen. That was highly unusual with the wind coming from the north. Some well established trees fell a...