It’s December 12th at 3.30pm. It was wet and very blustery but very mild at 12C, here in Margate this morning. Suddenly there is s bit of blue in the sky and the wind has gone down to almost a flat calm, along with the sea state, at least on this side of the Isle of Thanet. Not sure what’s going on as the forecast was for a wind of 30mph* and heavy rain! Checked the same Dark Sky forecast again just before 4pm and it now says the wind is 5mph.. rising again from 7pm to 30 mph by 3am Friday.

Even though the Spring Tides were earlier in the week, the Thames Barrier have just Tweeted to say they have a closure alert for tomorrow (13/12/17) afternoon’s high tide, so there looks like a storm surge on the way. If this occurs, it will be the third time so far this winter that a ‘surge’ has managed to avoid the astronomical High Water Spring (HWS) tides of the month which were earlier in the week.

It is also going to be much colder tomorrow with a forecast maximum of 5C and minimum of 3C for Margate, so can’t see there being any snow for us even if inland and the high spots further north in Kent get their first proper fall of the winter. The North Downs area around Biggin Hill, Tatsfield and Chartwell (Westerham) had one of their ‘freak’ falls even last year (2016-17 winter), so might see something similar again.

More later if things get interesting..!