The Helm Wind

By Claude E. Benson.

We know, that is to say Science tells us, that the cyclones, typhoons, hurricanes, tornadoes and such-like atmospheric commotions are but the faint reproductions of’ gales of a scale and velocity unimaginably greater in the upper air. When one considers that the diameter of some of our comparatively innocent cyclones is a thousand miles and that the estimated velocity of a tornado is something like a thousand miles an hour, it seems almost ridiculous to turn to a trifling little draught, whose birth, existence and death are confined within the limits of some forty miles long by twenty broad of space and of from three to nine days of time.

A draught, however, is never to be trifled with. There is the insidious stream of air that finds its way into your study, plays imperceptibly round your head and gives you a stiff neck; there is the searching current that invades the over-ventilated railway carriage, chases you round, dodge you never so wildly, and brings you down with neuralgia; and there is the malignant draught that sets up pneumonia and carries off the strongest man in a few hours.

Now Cumberland possesses a draught of its own, which combines all the vileness of the common or household draught, something of the velocity of a cyclone and certain peculiarities resembling those of a switchback railway – a mad, boisterous, headlong, bullying wind that comes plunging down on to you from the sky, parches you at once to that condition popularly known as ” goose-skin,” chills you to the marrow, crams your hat over your eyes, blows your umbrella not inside out but down on the stick, and ends up by bashing you down with inconsiderate violence upon Mother Earth, in my case represented by a metalled road, and then, in my case again, throwing a chunk of stone wall at you, hitting you, in fact, when you are down, which is un-English. Such is the Helm Wind- I have heard it called by another title strangely resembling the above in sound, and did not feel that I could justifiably rebuke the speaker for unreasoning profanity.

Nevertheless, in the warmth and cosiness of my sanctum, I can contemplate the abomination of the Helm Wind with equanimity and interest- and even pleasure, inasmuch as the study transports me back to the bonnie North Country, and, above all, to glorious Lakeland, three hundred miles away from this detestable acreage of bricks and mortar.

Let us, myself and some kindly fellow Rambler, carry ourselves back to our “salad days, when we were green,” &c. Let us imagine that we have stood on the summit of Helvellyn on a clear day in late spring, or early summer, our Baddeley in our hand, picking out with unerring inaccuracy the wrong peaks and rechristening them as is the wont of tourists. To the north, however, there is not much room for mistake. Due north is Saddleback, with Skiddaw in all its glory on the left of it, and on the right the smiling Eden valley, backed by the somewhat wearisome-looking ridge of the Pennine Chain, in which Crossfell may be described as ‘the best of a bad lot.’ ” Poor old Baddeley! I wonder if my old friend ever discovered, by closer acquaintance, that the Pennines are an exceedingly fine lot, as we of the Ramblers know.

Then, however, we were in unblest ignorance. “What should they know of England, who not even England know?” Forthwith we propose to remedy our ignorance by a week-end’s peak-bagging in the Northern Pennines, and naturally mark down for our first quarry the biggest, Crossfell, a fine mountain, only about 180 feet lower than Helvellyn himself. We notice without concern that clouds are gathering round his head. Only mountain mists, we assume, and descend Helvellyn en route for Penrith so as to make as early a start as possible; for Crossfell is a most ungetatable mountain, and we shall have to tramp all the way, unless we forfeit our manhood and take a carriage.

” Fair laughs the morn and soft the zephyr blows ” – a cloudless sky, with gentle, westerly airs fanning the foliage. As soon as Crossfell is sighted we notice with some annoyance that the evening mists we had seen playing around its summit have thickened into heavy, cumulus-like masses of vapour, which crown its weather-beaten head with a helmet of clouds. Never mind! To the keen Rambler the exploration of an unknown fell in a mist is not without its compensations. Skill and caution are required and there is just that element of danger we pretend to find so attractive; so on we stride. All at once the westerly airs cease. There is something uncanny about this sudden cessation of the breeze. It does not resemble an ordinary lull. The wind is cut off, so to speak, and seems to have vanished into thin air, which by the way is literally true. The stillness of the atmosphere is remarkable. The flame of a match burns upwards unwaveringly. At the same time, as we approach Crossfell, we are conscious of a sound as of a tempest that increases in distinctness with every step. Overhead the sky presents an appearance most unusual. Westwards from Crossfell it extends, a clear, unbroken vault of azure, save that, just above us, and on a level with the summit of the fells, is a thick, motionless bar of vapour. Motionless! A second look shows that it is all alive throughout with tumultuous motion, writhing, swaying, turning over on itself, yet never shifting from its position. Between it and the Pennines the sky is of a peculiar clearness, except that every now and then small shreds of cloud break away from the eastward, but, before they have travelled far, are, as it were, seized upon and dissipated. Meantime the volume of sound keeps augmenting until as we draw close to the foot of the fells, the “clangour and anger of elements” are round us, though we ourselves are in perfect calm.

On the mountain side we can discern groups of sheep huddled together under rocks and in hollows, and every now and again puffs and clouds of dust come flying momentarily downwards and are dispersed. A few paces further and we are struck by a blast of a vehemence and virulence such as we have never before experienced. No man can ascend in the teeth of such a wind, and no man can, as we find out shortly through assault and battery by the gale, stand against it. Disconsolately we realize that our expedition must be abandoned, and turn our faces westwards.

On our return journey we undergo precisely the same experiences, with a difference. On quitting the tempest zone, we come first to an absolutely windless space and then to light, westerly zephyrs. As we near Pooley Bridge, rejoicing in the prospect of a quiet steamer trip up beautiful Ullswater, we are suddenly undeceived and disheartened. A furious blast, of the same character as that which drove us back from Crossfell, but seemingly more violent, and certainly more penetrating, attacks us from above with extreme suddenness and brutality. We step out for Pooley Bridge, shivering in our inadequate summer clothing under the stress of the wintry weather, till we reach the steamboat pier. We do not require to be told, or rather to have it yelled in our ear, by a cowering official, that the steamer will not run. One glance at the surface of the lake suffices.

The writer of the delightful “Highways and Byways in the Lake District” gives a most vivid picture of the plunging effect of the Helm Wind on Rydal Water, with which most of us are familiar,^[1] and mutatis mutandis, making allowances for the fact that Rydal is the smallest of the lakes and Ullswater the largest but one, we have in that description a graphic representation of the glittering expanse of tormented waters before us. So wild and beautiful is the spectacle that for a few minutes we forget our discomfort, lost in wonder and admiration. Then the beastly Helm Wind reasserts itself unmistakably, and we turn our backs on the lake and cut to the nearest possible cover. The Sun Inn is full up, so there is nothing for it but Penrith and thitherward we set our faces. As we push on, in the teeth of the easterly gale, we try to cheer our depressed bodies and spirits by encouraging shouts of the hot grog we will have at the “George’ when all at once we find ourselves, on the open road, out of the wind and wrapped in the soft, warm, westerly airs that had accompanied us on our morning walk.

This is by no means an exaggerated description of the Helm Wind in full blast. I may conceivably have over-localized its operations with regard to its appearance between Penrith and Ullswater, because one might quite possibly find it at Penrith, but I have done so advisedly for the purpose of illustration.

Now I want to call attention to the following features incidental to the Helm Wind:- (1) The cap of clouds on the Crossfell Range, (2) The violent storm rushing down the western slopes of Crossfell and its sudden cessation, (3) The ever-moving, never-shifting bar of clouds a short distance west of and opposite the cap of clouds, (4) The reappearance of the Helm Wind several miles further west, plunging downwards with seemingly undiminished intensity, (5) The presence of light, westerly airs, succeeded by a zone of perfect calm between Crossfell and the district where the wind reappears, (6) The clearness of the atmosphere between the bar of clouds and the cloud-cap.

I think, too, a rough idea of the contour of England from east to west, in what I may call the Helm Wind district, may help to explain what happens. From the Durham coast the ground rises gradually in long stretches of moorland till it reaches its culminating point to the west in Crossfell. On that side, Crossfell descends with great steepness to the rich Eden valley, which, in warm weather, becomes a regular hothouse. The Lake District, again, is well known for the general mildness of its summer temperature, but the main features I wish to emphasize are the long, gradual rise of the land over bleak moors and its sudden drop of two thousand feet to the warm Eden valley.

(1) In the spring the winds, blowing landwards from the North Sea, strike the Durham and Northumberland coasts, and pass westwards over the moorlands, growing cooler and cooler as they go. Naturally mist is generated in the process, and when they reach the lofty, chill summit of Crossfell, the moisture they contain condenses and a thick cap, or helmet, of cloud is formed. From this formation the Helm (Helmet) Wind takes its name.

(2) Two thousand feet below lies the hot valley. Obeying the law of Nature, the cold air flows into the warm space, but in this case the flowing is done at headlong speed; the east wind literally precipitates itself down the western slope of the mountain. Here we have the storm rushing down Crossfell. Now, such is its velocity that, on striking the earth, it is flung back, shrieking, high into the air, by the mere violence of its impact. Thus the sudden cessation of the gale is accounted for.

(3) After its upspring has carried it a certain height, it encounters a colder stratum of air, and the moisture which it has pilfered from the surrounding atmosphere (of which more anon) immediately condenses, forming a thick bar of cloud- the Helm Bar. This bar the uprushing Helm Wind is constantly renewing with moisture, and at the same time, as it forms an obstacle to its upward progress, constantly trying to blow away. Here we have the explanation of the immobility and agitation of the Helm Bar.

(4) The Helm Bar, however, until the atmospheric conditions become normal, constitutes an impassable barrier to the wind which, thus deflected, pursues a westward course through the upper atmosphere till it comes plunging down on the warm, attractive Lake District. As to the seemingly undiminished intensity, I wish I could speak with certainty. A series of measurements of the relative velocity of the wind on the slopes of Crossfell and at various points in the Lake District, taken simultaneously several times during the period of visitation, would be most interesting, but, so far as I can ascertain, no such statistics are available.

(5) Before the coming of the Helm Wind, and on either side of its course whilst it is in being, westerly airs prevail. These are only interrupted in the Lake District by the easterly gale, and, as soon as they are beyond its zone, they resume till they approach the foot of the Crossfell Range. Now, so violent is the draught caused by the uprush of the Helm Wind in its rebound after striking the earth, that it catches hold of the light airs and drags them up with it, thus leaving an absolutely windless space, a breathless triangle, whose base is the earth and apex the Helm Bar.

(6) On the other side of the uprush, between it and the downrush on the slopes of Crossfell, is a similar but more acute triangle, inverted, an atmospheric V. This, between the two currents, is absolutely desiccated of moisture by the descending and ascending air streams. The sky may be overcast – it often is when the Helm Wind blows – but in this space clouds cannot exist. Some do try to form, but, I as I have pointed out, they are almost immediately caught and dissipated. Of course the wind does not confine its pilfering operations to this inverted triangle alone: it picks up every scrap of moisture within reach, thereby continually reinforcing the resisting power of the Helm Bar.

I have already suggested the resemblance of the Helm Wind to a switchback railway. There is the gentle shove-off on the eastern fells, the sudden “terrific descent,” then up we go again to the Helm Bar, and then down again to the end of the course in the Lake District. But the switchback is a popular holiday amusement: the Helm Wind emphatically is not.