This week is forecast to be one of the windiest of the year, a typical beginning to autumn. Autumn is well known for its wet and windy weather stripping the colourful leaves from the trees.

One of the reasons behind the autumnal gales is at this time of year the earth is tilted so that the sun is over the equator. This means that the poles are cooling down whereas the sub tropics remain very warm, creating a massive temperature contrast over our half of the globe.

The deep areas of low pressure that you see on a weather map are caused by the differences in temperature between the cold pole to the north of the UK and the hot equator to the south. It is nature’s desire to even out these temperature differences and it is this that causes these vigorous systems to form, resulting in a lot of wind and rain.

So there is one benefit of the wet and windy week to come – without it, it would either be too hot or too cold.