A wild night in the Wild West

[Graham Easterling]

It's been a very windy spell of weather down here. Another cliff top gale last night with gusts >60mph at Lands End, 48mph gust here in Penzance, with the wind offshore. More branches for the Council to clear off the roads.

From a personal perspective I appreciated last nights weather as I had an eye appointment at Treliske in Truro. As I'd had drops in my eyes I couldn't drive. When I came out it was 5:40, and the buses had gone on strike. As a result taxi's were like gold dust, so I walked to the rail station, the best part of 2 miles away. Luckily the wind & horizontal rain were coming from behind and I jumped straight on a Penzance train which was (fortunately) running late. 

With those lows anchored in mid Atlantic, the sea's been impressive for more than a week now. 

Graham

Penzance

[Graham Easterling]

Big & powerful sea, just as well the tides aren't that big. Even at low tide the surges associated with big wave sets (wave setup surges) were virtually covering the beach. Now it's washing up into the dunes.

10-16' according to magicseaweed, forecast to be >20' on Thursday.

Peak at 3am saw a 6.8m significant wave height (biggest waves around 50% bigger) out at Sevenstones. A really exciting swell has a SWH of >10m

Graham

Penzance

[Graham Easterling]

Sennen harbour yesterday afternoon - very pretty

I rather liked this in the Cove Diary

"It has drawn some visitors to The Cove who drive down and sit in their cars in the Harbour car park to watch the waves crest over Pedn-men-du, filling the air with salty sea spray and knocking ten percent off the value of their motors through the early onset of rust."

It must be about the most exposed lifeboat slip in the UK. 

A few years ago they put a new roof on the lifeboat house, replacing a traditional one that had lasted several decades. It was one of those that regularly peel off buildings built to modern building standards. Sure enough last February.

Best do a proper job me 'andsums.

I won't mention the jokers they got to build Cornish hedges along the new dualised A30, they've already fallen down. Quite an achievement, there are hedges > 1,000 years in west Cornwall (which incidentally has the oldest field hedges in the UK)

They should bring back proper celtic building standards.

Sorry, I'm drifting - it's been a quiet day.

Graham

Penzance