Photo by By Martin Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12503487
A series following the 72 British mini-seasons of Nature’s Calendar by Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines and Rebecca Warren.
Dear Readers, on February 5th 2026 it’s another blustery day, much beloved of Winnie the Pooh and also by the crows, who seem to love to throw themselves into the wind and let it carry them along. It’s much the same as in 2024, when I wrote the piece below. But for a moment I wanted to talk about the phenomenon of named winds, such as the Foehn wind of the Alps, or the Mistral in the south of France. Those of you with long memories might remember that I reviewed a book by Nick Hunt, called ‘Where The Wild Winds Are’, in which Hunt travels across Europe in search of the named winds, meeting with all kinds of adventures on the way. You can read my review here – I heartily recommend the book. Hunt has a real ear and eye for an unusual story.
One of the more unusual winds that he looks for is the Helm: this is the UK’s only named wind, which blows over Cross Fell in the Pennines. This is a very coquettish wind, requiring perfect conditions and even then sometimes refusing to show up. Hunt visits Cross Fell several times. Does he find the Helm? You’ll have to read his book to find out :-).
Incidentally, author Sarah Hall has recently published a novel called Helm, which is a kind of imagined biography of the wind – has anyone read it? She also wrote a wonderful book called ‘The Wolf Border‘, about an imagined re-introduction of wolves to the UK. ‘Helm’ is definitely on my list.
Anyhoo, let’s pop back to 2024 to see what was going on with the wind then….
Dear Readers, it’s one of those days when the wind is whistling over the top of the chimney like someone blowing over the top of a milk bottle. Outside, the pond is full of ripples and waves, and I’m continually mistaking the turbulence for an early frog (wishful thinking if ever there was!)
On East Finchley High Road, Tony’s Continental has taken down its awning, which is always a sign that it’s going to be a gusty day. I just hope that the oranges don’t go skittering down the road. And they have a lovely new sign, but this is an old photograph.
Tony’s Continental – no awning today!
One of the effects of global warming has been an increase in extreme weather events, and for us in the UK, the way that rising temperatures have affected the Arctic is particularly relevant. In her piece in ‘Nature’s Calendar’, Rowan Jaines describes how climate modellers are predicting that the warming to the north of the UK is likely to drag the polar jet stream north, meaning that more storm systems will be drawn behind it, and that they are likely to stay for longer. At the moment it feels as if there is barely a gap between storms, with Storm Henk following Storm Gerrit within a few days, and then Storm Isha being followed up by Storm Jocelyn. The next storm is Kathleen, so let’s see when she arrives. In a normal year we would have six or seven named storms, but this year we’ve already had ten and it’s only early February.
Still, the UK has likely always had its fair share of windy weather, and I find myself fascinated with local vernacular names for breezy, gusty conditions. When I was in Scotland (Dundee to be precise) it was often described as ‘blowing a hoolie’, ‘Blirtie’ means a day of sudden blasts of wind or rain. ‘Fissle’ is the sound of the wind as it rustles through leaves. A ‘gouling day’ is a windy, stormy day. When the wind begins to ‘kittle’, it means that it’s starting to increase.
In Yorkshire, ‘brissling’ describes a brisk wind, while a ‘faffle’ is a light intermittent wind. ‘Peerching’ (surely from ‘piercing’) describes a bitterly cold, biting wind. A ‘waft’ is the slightest puff of wind, barely a breeze.
Once, every region would have had its own words for its own very specific geographical and meteorological features, and these were intrinsic to a feeling of belonging and connection. Robert MacFarlane writes about this extensively in his book ‘Landmarks‘. He describes the need for a ‘Counter-Desecration Phrasebook’ which would preserve these place names, with all their specificity and detail, and argues that they make us look more closely, pay more attention. Take, for example, ‘fizmer’ – ‘the rustling noise produced in grass by petty agitations of the wind’ (East Anglia), or a phrase collected by author Nan Shepherd from the Cairngorms – ‘roarie-bummler’, meaning ‘fast-moving storm clouds’. What different conditions these two words/phrases describe, and what pictures they conjure up in the mind! And how much more precise they are than ‘breezy’ or ‘windy’.
There is something about windy weather that is both agitating and exciting – the cat is restless when the chimney is singing, even though she’s deaf, and the birds on the feeders seem to have a restlessness about them. The wind has its own voice, after all. Let’s close with Jaine’s thought-provoking conclusion to her piece for this micro-season.
“With this shift in the weather, our UK winters will begin to sing different or more intense songs from those we have been accustomed to. The howling winds of this microseason perhaps mark a shift in the auditory texture of winters to come. This opens up a space of unknowing. What if we heard the movement of high winds as anarchic Nature reclaiming, momentarily, the streets of the cities? As it tears through the urban fabric, setting off car alarms, throwing rubbish around and playing alleys like flutes, might we hear a song of rebellion? In this space of unknowing, what might our ears tell us that our eyes, in the dead of night, cannot perceive?” (Rowan Jaines pg 38)
