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Feel that sudden chill in the air?

It’s winter, heading this way. Or you’ve left the fridge door open. One of those, definitely.

According to people with the word ‘meteorologist’ somewhere in their job title, it has been the driest September since records began.

Hardly surprising, really – the wettest winter on record immediately beforehand almost certainly used up all the available rain in the sky early (Note to self: check the sciencey stuff, it doesn’t sound quite right). With just 20% of the normal rainfall of the most Septembery of months, 2014 trounced the previous record holder, good old 1959.

Whilst this may have led to less plump courgettes, and parched blue tits mugging you for your bottle of mineral water, it does have a beneficial side-effect: Your granddad will finally have to stop saying “Dry? You don’t know what dry is! When I were but a lad...”

Clearly disappointing for grandpops, especially so soon after the “Wet winter? Pah! When I were but a lad...” story had to be put out to pasture too.

Experts with long sticks have also advised that we aren’t about to head into a frightening world of standing by a water bowser, trying to get the last drops of precious fluid out before it freezes, either. And none of us should panic about submerged Cumbrian villages resurfacing in half-empty reservoirs. Everything’s fine. No, really.

But hold the front page! It’s also been unusually warm as well, with the Tropic of Cumbria basking in average temperatures up to around 14C, or ‘sweltering’ as it’s known locally, during the month just gone.

All this warm, dry, weather has been caused by a lazy high pressure weather system getting itself stuck over the UK, during the meteorological equivalent of trying to get somewhere on the M6 on a Bank Holiday weekend.

The Jet Stream did a grand job of diverting all that cooler, wet, weather away from us and straight at Iceland. I’m not sure exactly what they did to deserve that, but I never really liked the sponge on their Arctic Rolls much, so just desserts, eh?

As you read this, low pressure is heading our way, rubbing it’s chilly and wet hands in glee. For the first time in years, we actually enjoyed a pretty decent summer, and a fantastic start to autumn as well. But it’s time to pack the shorts away, dig out the ridiculous woolly hat with the fold-down ear flaps, and try to get to the bottom of exactly where the other glove has got to.

Pretty soon, the lazy, balmy, summer evenings will be a distant memory, as we stare out of the window at the rain, and try and work our why exactly is it we have to put the clocks back an hour, and make it pitch black at 5pm.

In fact, the only good thing to come out of all this is that we’ll finally be able to complain about the weather again.

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 3rd of October 2014. You can view the version published by the paper on their website here As far as I can tell, the only change was to add a "the" to the title"!

Thanks to the wonders of the much-maligned world of meteorology, I was able to write this column on Tuesday, email it to the paper on Wednesday, and be comfortable in the knowledge that it would still be on-topic on Friday. Cheers, UK Met Office!

I'm somewhat preoccupied this evening by the sad news of Jules Bianchi's injuries in today's F1 race in Japan. I may not write about F1 much any more, but I still follow it closely and admire all the drivers for their skill and courage. Bianchi may drive for one of the back-marker teams, but that doesn't mean those drivers have an easier job - they're often not only battling each other with little hope of scoring a point or being noticed, but also a car that is difficult to drive, compared to their more well-funded counterparts.

Get well soon, Jules. I wish you a speedy and full recovery.

(Accompanied tonight by XTC's "Coat Of Many Cupboards" box set.)

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