Netweather.tv illustration from the Telegraph (UK)
Robert Browning wouldn't be very happy with this week's April weather forecast for much of Britain. A "polar plume" is expected to arrive, bringing sub-freezing temperatures to Scotland and northern England, and near-freezing elsewhere.
The onslaught is expected to be at its worst on Monday and Tuesday, but will last through the week, with heavy rains and flash-flooding in the south and sleet and snow in the north. All this comes after an especially pleasant week, with some areas having temperatures as high as the 80s.
So...if you are traveling to Britain this week...make sure you have warm clothing. If you live there, button up, or think Ibiza! Or, take a moment to read Browning's 1845 Home Thoughts from Abroad
- OH, to be in England
- Now that April 's there,
- And whoever wakes in England
- Sees, some morning, unaware,
- That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
- Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
- While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
- In England—now!
- And after April, when May follows,
- And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
- Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
- Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
- Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
- That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
- Lest you should think he never could recapture
- The first fine careless rapture!
- And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
- All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
- The buttercups, the little children's dower
- —Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
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