Photograph by Alan Watts SNOW ON THE LINE By ALAN WATTS The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow And what will the robin do then poor thing? . . . Which is all very strange as most areas of Britain do not get buckets of snow when the wind is from the north. This is particularly so in that great agricultural no-man’s land which stretches to the east of Colchester towards the bleak and river-indented coastline of Essex and Suffolk where I now live. Still even without the snow the north wind is cruel here and so I have let the privet hedge grow tall to provide a wind break. It’s about 15 ft high I suppose and it does not help the double row of apple trees to bear the best of fruit but you cannot have everything. Back in January 1964 we had one of our disappointing snow-falls-that’s quite evident in the photograph-but the wind was from the north and blew over the privet and fruit-tree wind break. There it built up on the clothes lines. It is very unusual to frnd something which visually demonstrates the increase of wind in the lee of a medium-dense barrier but after the silent snowfall of the night (brought in wet on cyclonic winds from the North Sea) I was able to take the photograph and measure the thicknesses of snow along the line from where it was secured to the tree. Distance downwind from hedge in units of hedge height h The snow built up as follows: .4t # ft 8 in. diameter 2 16 ft I in. 2) 24 ft I# in. 3 32 ft If in. 34 40 ft 2& in. 4 48 ft 2+ in. 44 . . . aiter which there was no more line. 49

SNOW ON THE LINE

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Photograph by Alan Watts SNOW ON THE LINE By ALAN WATTS

The north wind doth blow, And we shall have snow And what will the robin do then poor thing? . . .

Which is all very strange as most areas of Britain do not get buckets of snow when the wind is from the north. This is particularly so in that great agricultural no-man’s land which stretches to the east of Colchester towards the bleak and river-indented coastline of Essex and Suffolk where I now live. Still even without the snow the north wind is cruel here and so I have let the privet hedge grow tall to provide a wind break. It’s about 15 f t high I suppose and it does not help the double row of apple trees to bear the best of fruit but you cannot have everything.

Back in January 1964 we had one of our disappointing snow-falls-that’s quite evident in the photograph-but the wind was from the north and blew over the privet and fruit-tree wind break. There it built up on the clothes lines.

It is very unusual to frnd something which visually demonstrates the increase of wind in the lee of a medium-dense barrier but after the silent snowfall of the night (brought in wet on cyclonic winds from the North Sea) I was able to take the photograph and measure the thicknesses of snow along the line from where it was secured to the tree.

Distance downwind from hedge in units of hedge height h

The snow built up as follows:

.4t # f t 8 in. diameter 2 16 ft I in. 2 ) 24 f t I# in. 3 32 f t I f in. 34 40 f t 2& in. 4 48 ft 2+ in. 44 . . . aiter which there was no more line.