Hastings Forum

The Seagulls are already gearing up - trying out 'practice-mating' attempts, screaming a lot more nowadays for reasons of their own.
I have a couple of tiny Goldcrests in my back garden, flitting about, almost the size of wrens, pecking tiny grubs where they can.
My Camellia tree is beginning to burst into flower and giant snowdrops are flowering and about to be taken over by miniature daffodils.
I have planted some mixed native hedge (Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Hedging Rose - Rosa Rugosa - and Hazel). I hope they will soon begin to flower. Temperature should start to climb from now on.
Bulbs are of course the first ground plants to show their heads, although a certain type of honeysuckle in my garden has been flowering since early January.
There is also a clump of time-warped carnations which have managed to put up a few flowers, despite all the poor weather, maybe it is in a sheltered spot that just suits it.

Plus the odd white spindly composite flowering thing that I forget the name of.
Ornamental grasses have kept their manes throughout, waving in the breeze and adding texture.
Spring is just around the corner, which is something of a relief as it has been a long Winter somehow, if not the coldest in recent years.

What have I seen? Snow. Lots and lots and lots of snow. Ain't nothing coming up through that earth yet and the few birds look as cold and fed up as I am.

Couldn't resist responding to this! It's actually been a short winter, only just the end of February, and a mild one, which is often followed by reversion to a cold spell before the weather properly warms up. Last year tbere was snow at Easter, so it is unlikely there will be a big change in weather patterns for a few more weeks.

If March comes in like a Lion - goes out like a Lamb, the old adage!

Well, how much snow have you had then?
When I went up to Cheshire only a week ago there was no snow and we have only had 1.5 inches here.
Temperatures will be up again next week, into double figures and normal service will resume as soon as possible.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2647356

A little snow won't harms the bulbs / buds.

With the whole country being blanketed and largely coming to a halt, I think one can safely say that there was a heavy snowfall across the UK.

Hastings of course got off comparatively lightly - but that was still the heaviest snowfall here for five years and caused significant disruption.

As usual, the predictions that the snow would last for another week already look unsafe with everywhere thawing a little - it is impossible to forecast accurately for more than a few days ahead. It is more likely that there will be one or two more dips in the weather but tbe Seahermit forecast is that the very worst of it is past!

Hastings typically has a mild maritime climate.
Coastal weather is often unpredictable, and difficult to forecast, owing to both the local tides and their variations and the different capacities of both land and sea to hold and lose heat energy, which they do on different time-scales as a result.
Land heats up more quickly in the warmer seasons but the sea is slower to react as it has a different intrinsic capacity to hold and lose heat.
Therefore, counter-intuitively, It can be hot inland in summer in Hastings but rather cooler on the coast, owing to sea-mists produced when the cooler sea air blowing landward meets the quicker to warm land air and moisture, held quite happily in the warm land air, is suddenly cooled to the point where it is precipitated out in the form of cooling sea-mists.
The time-lag in the winter (owing to the different heat-capacity of the sea) means that the sea is still (conversley) relatively warm (the land losing heat more quickly than the sea in winter) and depending (again) on the wind direction, the coast can be warmer than you might expect to be the case and consequently mild winters will be the norm on the coast.
Glad I don't have to predict the weather, on the other hand forecasters never seem to apologise for getting it wrong.