When the tide is right and a certain sort of weather pattern is trapped in the basin of the North Sea, there'll be a maritime Har hovering round the harbours and the misty fingers of the Fret will climb the cliffs along the Cromer ridge and pile high into the sky.  At such times, if you are a few miles inland from the North Norfolk coast, the northerly view will be filled with ragged heaps of dark cloud topped with white peaks that could easily be mistaken for a range of distant mountains.  Personally, I have always been amused by the idea that Norfolk, reknowned for its relative flatness, should sport this Alpine apparition.

Normally, when the virtual Alps are on show, the inland areas are bathed in sunshine and when inland Norfolk is overcast and depressing, there's a fair chance that the northern coastal strip is enjoying clear blue skies and oodles of sunshine.  So the day before yesterday, when I joked about a place being south of the Norfolk Alps, I was not being merely satirical, it was an important factor in the positioning of airfields in WWII, those nearest the coast often being open when more inland ones were closed by poor visibility.

PlaneCondensation

As I couldn't find a suitable photo of the Norfolk "Alps", this friendly flyboy in his F/A-18 Hornet attempted to create one to order using the Prandtl-Glauert condensate effect.

— • —

The MARDLINGHAM Saga?   Click for - TODAY's - episode.

— • —