PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB l6l 



din"erent it all is ! You go outside the front door and 

 hear a S.E. wind drawing down through the trees on the 

 edge of the hill, and you hardly need to look at the haro- 

 meter to know that it is falling for the passage of a 

 cyclonic depression. You may see from the windows the 

 ■' badgers brewing in the wood," a local expression refer- 

 ring to an indication, which requires some explanation. 

 At certain states of the distribution of pressures a warm, 

 or comparatively warm, and saturated current comes over 

 from the south and east and condenses on the colder 

 banks of the Witcombe valley, which faces N., and parts 

 of which never get any warm sun, presenting the appear- 

 ance of a continuous formation of cloud which seems to 

 rise out of the hill side, and which is similar to that, to com- 

 pare small things with great, observed to advantage on such 

 places as, for instance, the peak of the Matterhorn, or 

 Noss Head, Shetlands, when a /warm and moist wind 

 passing a cold headland forms a continuous stream of 

 cloud. When, therefore, the " badgers are brewing," rain 

 is not far off; these floating clouds are visible until a 

 large amount of rain has fallen, but when the balance of 

 temperature is restored " the brewing is done." 



With the advance of the depression the regular succes- 

 sion of weather may be watched — from halo, gloom, 

 muggy weather, drizzly rain S.E. to S., driving rain, 

 passage of trough S. to S.W. Squall or showers W. to 

 N.W., when the sky clears with cumulus clouds and blue 

 sky, and the Forest Hills, the Black Mountains, and Brecon 

 Beacons become visible. This is a clearness of distant 

 \iews not forecasting rain. 



At another time the rain storms may be seen on the 

 Forest side working up the valley, obscuring, and again 

 leaving clear, the Forest Hills. May Hill, more distant 

 hills in Herefordshire, and the range of the Malverns, and 

 sometimes, though only to a partial extent, striking across 

 the Severn Valley. 



