Rain in Cumbria: a rainy day read, with a wry poem at the end.
‘For the rain it raineth every day…’ Feste’s song at the end of Twelfth Night could have been written for 2023-24 – at least for parts of the UK. Where it started raining in July and doesn’t seem to have stopped for more than the very occasional day since.
It’s not just perception: a lot of rainfall records have been broken over the past nine-ten months, causing misery for man and a nightmare for farmers.
And since that report in January, we’ve had a lot more of the same. Recently, Storm Kathleen caused more damage, as well as bringing yet more rain in Cumbria (and much of the UK).
The Helm Wind
Cumbria, of course, has its own unique wind to contend with, on top of the storms.
France has le mistral. The Alps have the (German) föhn.
The Helm Wind (the only named wind in the UK) is a strong north-easterly wind hitting the southwest slopes of Cross Fell in Cumbria.
Rain in Cumbria
Whenever someone has told me they went on holiday to the Lake District, ‘but’ it rained a lot, my response is a gentle chiding.
“That’s why it’s called the Lake District. Not the Dry Holes Between Mountains District.”
Likewise, anyone wishing to visit Wales might want to remember the famous book title is ‘How Green was my Valley’. Not ‘How Brown was my Valley’.
Floods
However, climate change and other factors have meant that in the last 20 years, Cumbria has suffered several bouts of serious flooding.
The Joiner’s Arms pub, in Carlisle, has two plaques on its (outside) walls, showing the level the flood waters reached in 2005 and 2015.
Those floods took out Carr’s Biscuit Factory and Sainsbury’s. And the 2015 floods were the final nail in the coffin for the student flats at the Old Brewery, which were already run-down and in need of updating.
Meanwhile, in 2009, Cockermouth and the surrounding area suffered extensive flooding, after 31.4cm of rain fell in 24hours, on already heavily saturated ground. The volume of water was too much for the rivers Derwent and Cocker – and for existing flood defences.
(The main picture is a 2016 news bill, after the 2015 flooding).
Dry humour on a wet topic
In 1895, a visitor to the Lakes wrote in a London newspaper that ‘there is much to be said in favour of the Cumberland lakes’. Even though ‘very few Englishmen know anything about the beautiful Lake District’.
Having left behind brown fields and a ‘water famine’, the writer admired the greenness of Cumbria. And jotted down a rhyme pinned up in the billiard room of his hotel.
The Ambleside Weather Glass
When Wansfell wears cap of cloud.
The roar of Brathay will be loud;
When mists come down from Loughrigg Fell,
A drenching day greyheads foretell;
When Red Screes frowns on Ambleside,
The rain will pour both far and wide;
When Wansfell smiles and Loughrigg’s bright,
‘Twill surely rain before the night;
When breezes blow from Coniston, best a macintosh put on;
If down from Kirkstone Pass they come
You’d better not go far from home
For pouring rain and drenching wet
Is what you will most surely get.
If breezes blow from Bowness Bay,
’Tis certain to be wet all day.
But if they blow from Rydal Lake,
You’d better an umbrella take;
If winds are calm, and all is still,
The rain will pour and streams will fill.
But if no rain will fall all day,
From Keswick Town to Bowness Bay,
Upon that morning you will see
Fishes and eels on every tree.
When Rothay runs up Wansfell height,
The sun will shine from morn to night.
When sheep on Blelham Tarn shall graze,
The sun will shine with fiery rays.
When in the nets of Windermere
Twelve pickled salmon shall appear
No rain will fall upon that day
And men may safely make their hay.
When Skiddaw stands in Rydal Lake,
When whales in Longhrigg Tarn they take,
When Robinson his boat shall sail
From Windermere to Patterdale,
When every visitor shall pay
A pound hour for boats all day.
When no one at the pier has cried:
‘This is the ’bus for Ambleside,”
When all of us shall mend our ways,
The sun shall shine for seven days.