Has anyone ever heard of Hartley Coleridge? No? I suspected not. Neither had I until I stumbled on a little ditty that he wrote about November. "The mellow year is hasting to its close," says Hartley, as he sets the scene: The little birds have almost sung their last, Their small notes twitter in the dreary blast.
Hartley, it seems, was somewhat overshadowed by his famous dad, the poet Samuel T., and is dismissed by literati as "an unworldly man, who inherited many of his father's gifts, including verbal eloquence, but achieved very little in his life. He lost his Oxford fellowship for being intemperate, and was a total failure as a schoolmaster." Poor Hartley! But he had a point about November.
November is the executioner who delivers a coup de grace to dying autumn. It is dull and grey, with a mere two hours of daily sunshine as the norm in contrast to the six or seven typical of the average day in June.
And it tends to be a foggy month; fog becomes frequent because the atmosphere is still warm enough to hold a fair amount of moisture, and when conditions otherwise are right, the long cold nights allow time for the temperature of the air near the ground to fall frequently below its condensation point. Often, too, the morning sun lacks the energy needed to disperse the fog, and so it stays all day. The maximum temperature on a typical November day is about 10 or 11 C. Only once that we know of has the November air temperature touched 20 degrees in Ireland, in Dublin on the 4th in 1946.
At the other extreme, the temperature in inland areas drops below zero, on average, on six or eight days during the month, and the temperature at grass level is below zero on over a third of November mornings.
Snow is unusual, but not unknown; parts of Ulster experience a light fall of snow on about three days of the average November, and further south a little comes along about once every 10 years or so. Although not the windiest month - that doubtful honour goes to January and December - November is not far behind in this respect.
November's only saving grace, says Hartley Coleridge, is an occasional reminder of a better time:
The patient beauty of a scented rose, Oft with the morn's hoar crystal quaintly glassed,
Hangs, a pale mourner for the summer past, And makes a little summer where it grows.