THE outrageous heat of recent days arrived just as Cowes sailing week got under way. On Saturday, races were delayed and courses cut back as the boats wallowed in the water with hardly a gasp of wind.
It was all thanks to a solid block of high pressure sitting over Britain, which brought the sunny skies and sweltering temperatures of recent days.
Conditions took a turn for the better on Monday. A low-pressure system skulking off the western coast of the Irish Republic helped to suck in air from the high-pressure system, sweeping winds down the Channel.
A high-pressure system occurs where air is falling down through the atmosphere, and a low-pressure system where the air is rising. Where a high and low sit next to each other the air flows across to the low, a phenomenon called a “pressure gradient”; the steeper this gradient, the faster the wind. You could imagine it rather like water flowing down a hill into a valley: the steeper the slope, the faster the water flows.
Added to that pressure gradient, a freshening sea breeze kicked in late in the morning as the land heated up and sucked in cooler air off the sea.