It's invisible, but can change our brains. It's silent, but can play instruments.
It's powerful – and can change your world. Get blown away by some of the untold stories of wind!
His surname surely fits him, because Nick Hunt has indeed gone hunting. And right now, we are lucky to have been able to hunt him down. This sunny afternoon the British author takes a coffee-break while teaching a writing course in a remote area near Devon. Leaning against a wooden wall, he has found time to talk to us – about the phenomenon he has been hunting – but which at this very moment is non-existent.
– There is not much wind right now, Nick Hunt reports.
– Does that make your life boring?
– Well, I am fascinated by the wind, he laughs.
– And it's true, wind does give more life to a place.
WIND HUNTER: “I was surprised I could only find one local wind with a given name in the UK”, says author Nick Hunt.
Winds makes people feel
Author Nick Hunt knows a lot about how the wind makes people feel. What wind can do to our brains. And how wind and architecture are closely related. During the writing of his renowned non-fiction book “Where the Wild Winds Are” (2017) he hunted for – and eventually “wind-walked” together with some of the famous winds of Europe.
– The idea was to walk with the passages of the winds, to have them in my back, but obviously wind is fickle, so often I found myself walking up and into the winds, Hunt says.
Wind can feel unpredictable. Although, one special wind in the south of France called Mistral is “like a hairdryer” going constantly from north to south.
– Like a very cold hair dryer, he says.
ALIVE: “Winds can make people feel strong, healthy and alive”, says Nick Hunt.
The only British wind with a name
The special wind-walks around the world started in England: On the highest point of the British mountain chain the Pennines – also called “the backbone of England”. There, Nick Hunt was walking together with the only named wind in the UK – a strong, quite violent wind called the Helm, knocking him around green slopes in the far north like a ragdoll.
– A wind named the Helm?
– Yes, and considering we famously talk a lot about the weather here in the UK, I was surprised I could only find one local wind with a given name. But wind is everywhere on this island, and both more complex and unpredictable compared to many other winds in Europe, where people often know exactly the time of the year when it's arriving, he says.
But also the unpredictable Helm can sometimes be revealed before the howling begins. The name of the wind comes from a long white cloud that often forms on the very top, “at the head”, of the mountain – just before the windy Helm itself is close by.
– The north-easterly wind will be coming up a very long slope on the east side, and then the special cloud forms on the top of Cross Fell before the wind tumbles down on the westside where it affects half a dozen villages, Hunt says and adds:
– So most people in Britain have not heard of the Helm, Nick says (admitting he indeed used a helmet while tackling the Helm).
– But those who I spoke to seemed to be very proud of their Helm
Winds can change your brain – and life
Certain winds can make some people go a little nuts. School teachers have reported to have a harder time controlling kids when it's very windy. Vincent Van Gogh and other painters have described how constant wind feels tormenting. Especially the wind called Fern in the Alps has an anxious effect on the people there, they told Nick as he was wind-walking with them.
– The effect was surprising to me, as I experienced it myself. It apparently has to do with positive ions in the air that negatively affect serotonin levels in the brain, he says.
But wind can also feel refreshing, cleaning the air from particles, pollution, moisture and dust and produce a wonderful golden light.
– Winds can make people feel strong, healthy and alive, Hunt says.
Wind can also be an ingredient in our electricity needs. We can harvest the wind, just like the crops. Actually, harnessing electricity from the help of wind has increased rapidly every year since 2008 in the world – and in the UK – and today, wind accounts for 28 percent of the total amount of electricity generated in The United Kingdom.
Only five other countries produce more electricity from wind than that.
– But some places do need to be free from “human economy”, even though we are talking about “green economy”, says Nick Hunt before he adds:
– So exactly how much I like the concept of producing wind energy, is a bit dependent on where they are placed.
– And I guess how big and noisy they are?
– Exactly, so anything that enables people to produce energy locally on a small scale is really good.
TRICK: Nature navigator Tristan Gooley knows how to predict the weather without an app!
How wind and architecture are linked
Often you don't really think about the wind. It's invisible, it's just there. It can be annoying, but also blow life into your humdrum days. When you first get to learn how much the wind has shaped how we live, you start to notice it everywhere. When it comes to architecture for instance.
In Cumbria, in the North-West of England for instance, few windows are facing east. Why? Because the wind comes from that direction, and if the window were facing it, the owners would have been busy picking up shattered pieces of glass all day.
But is there a way to know if wind is coming? Even without an app?
The Sherlock Holmes of wind
“How's it going? Where in the world are you, is it sunny where you are?”. Weather. A safe conversation starter, both in England and the Scandinavian countries.
– Especially here, it's a cultural thing. Every Brit is always near the coast, where four air masses from all four cardinal directions meet at all times to have a toss, so you know there is always a lot of weather here, says natural navigator Tristan Gooley with a smile via the screen.
– Although, he says. – If four people in England stand on each side of a tree, they will each experience four slightly different types of weather.
Gooley is called the “Sherlock Holmes of Nature” after his book “The Secret World of Weather” was published in 2022. He is the only living person to have both sailed and flown solo across the Atlantic – and he was just a teenager when he climbed the Kilimanjaro.
When a well-behaved wind meets an obstacle
Wind, in general, is very well behaved, Gooley explains. Their patterns and flow can indeed feel random, but they are not. There are actually three main levels of wind, he writes in his book. The upper winds where you can see candy floss clouds, the middle air winds, and the ground winds that you can feel on your cheeks.
– But behaved, though? Really?
– Yes, because it's only the second a wind touches something, an obstacle, it goes off and does its own thing, by setting off eddies, wind shadows and swirls, he says.
Almost like when certain windmills swoop the wind in order to produce energy.
– The lower we, or any obstacle, is, the more unpredictable the wind feels. But I try to make the unpredictable feel “knowable”. I call it: Getting to know the characters.
NATURE DETECTIVE: “If four people in England stand on each side of a tree, they will each experience four slightly different types of weather”, says Tristan Gooley.
How to predict the weather without an app
One of Tristan Gooleys “wind-characters” is called the katabatic winds. Picture a cold snowy mountain on a nice, clear winter night. The air at the top of the snow will definitely get very very cold, Gooley explains, and therefore very dense.
– So the air basically starts rolling down the hill. People who live next to such a mountain will therefore be able to forecast the local winds coming from the mountains, even though it might be coming from the opposite direction broadcasted by the weather channel, he says.
– How do you yourself know what weather it will be today, not looking at an app or even walking outside?
– I love clues in nature that tell us things before they happen. So what I do sometimes is to take a look at the row of resting birds sitting on a tree branch outside our windows. “Ah, you are facing west”, I could say to myself. Because the birds will most often face into the wind so their feathers wont get ruffled and it's the best way for them to take off flying when they need to. But if the birds by lunch are suddenly facing east, I know there will be a weather change, says Tristan “Holmes” Gooley.
– And the wind is on its way?
– Yes, then the wind will be right around the corner.