October 28th, 2026
Hi All,
In my previous life, (full-time work) I spent many hours driving early doors and occasionally I was treated to beautiful vistas of mist sitting in river valleys, cloaking the landscape. I regret that I never stopped to capture one of those events as I was seemingly chasing my tail most of the time. I mention this because it is the type of weather we are heading into after a week of high winds and rainfall.
Not long ago (late August) The Met Office suggested that our autumn and early winter weather would be stormy, wet and windy followed by the chance of a cold snap as we venture into The New Year.
Well it isn't panning out that way, which shows to me that we don't really know what the short or medium-term weather forecast holds. A.I capability or no A.I capability, it isn't helping us here (yet).
October for some (South West, Central South, West and North West typically) has given 100mm+ of rainfall for the month, but move east into The Midlands, The South East, East Anglia and The North East and 65-75mm is more typical. Last week I wrote that we need each month to give us 100-120mm of rainfall from now to the end of the year just to get to the same place we were in 2025. Well, it isn't happening and that is a source of continual worry (alongside A.I, Putin, Trump, A National Emergency, Methane emissions if we all have to eat Tinned Baked Beans for any length of time, delete where applicable)
It isn't panning out as The Met Office predicted because of the behaviour of our old friend, the jet stream. Last week it was super strong and pushed the first two Atlantic storms across the U.K & Ireland. This week the projection is for it to slow down and buckle with high pressure taking charge going into early November. There is talk of an early Sudden Stratospheric Warming event, which could ('could') encourage this tendency to form a blocking event and allow colder, easterly air to make an early Winter appearance.
I can't help thinking that the record heat in the oceans vs. the warming Poles is the culprit. Less heat differential, less energy imparted into the jet stream, more peak and trough events and less Atlantic airflow. I wonder if our climate is actually broken given the heating oceans, the slowing AMOC and the behaviour of the jet stream (staying more northerly as predicted in a warming world) and we just don't know.
Lots of talk about a cold snap this winter and when I look at the signs from nature, I would concur. Redwings and Fieldfares have began arriving I would say earlier than usual and the first Waxwings (see above) have also begun arriving.
Moving to a new house, one of the biggest losses was my resident Hedgehog population back in Market Harborough. Living now in Wing, Rutland, I tentatively placed my Ark Wildlife Hedgehog food and Wildlife Camera outside and after a few nights, a lump of a Hedgehog appeared. A few nights later, it reappeared with a baby and the food consumption rate increased. Now I reckon I have 4 or 5 different individuals visiting and boy are they eating a lot of food. I would expect these Hedgepiglets to go into hibernation mid-November, so we will see. These are country stock, so it is a learning process for me. Lovely to see them though.
Coming back to the weather, with high pressure in situ, the outlook is for colder, foggy / misty weather, light winds and long dew events, with sunny days once the mist / fog is cleared.
Long dew events means of course a higher pressure from Microdochium so for me I think applying a dew control would be highly beneficial. Bear in mind now that day length is shortening appreciably and so dew duration at night is lengthening. Last night we measured just under 8 hours of dew at our default location and that is what a dew control will help to reduce vs. manual removal in the morning. With this run of weather, the nights will be cooler (last night's average temp was 7.9°C vs. 15.2°C the night before!) so that will slow fungal growth a little but we now Microdochium is adapted to commence growing from 0°C, so it'll still be pathogenic at 7-8°C overnight)
Yesterday, a notification from LinkedIn highlighted the launch of a new fungicide from Syngenta, Vertenzo (Read about it here) featuring a new (for turf) DMI (Demethylation Inhibitor) active, Prothioconazole. Although this active has been around in agriculture for awhile now, the turf trials have shown good efficacy vs. both Microdochium and Dollar Spot, so that's encouraging and in addition, the label usage areas are wider than a lot of products we have currently. Now of course I am not here to do Syngenta's work, rather to just highlight that we have a new active coming into the market and being a DMI, it means resistance build up is likely to be slower than single site A.I''s in other families. Interesting and encouraging that we have another tool in the IPM toolbox if that floats your boat.
Back to the weather and that persistent high pressure blocking event in the forecast.....
How long is it likely to last ?
Well, I would say till the end of the first week of November, for me, ideally after the 6th because I am doing the Rutland 10K Night Run and boy that wind blows down the arms at Rutland Water. With my ageing and problematic legs, I don't need a head wind to complicate life :). So cool, dry (some rain for the north of course) and settled for the foreseeable.
OK, that's it for now, time to crack on with a million and one new house stuff.....
All the best,
Mark Hunt
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