All change – summer ends and peace returns

The 1st October marks the end of summer with two events;

• Dogs are again allowed the full run of the beach having been banned through the summer from the central section, marked by the limits of the Seawall Promenade.
  

• The town’s single yellow line parking restrictions fall dormant – meaning I can again park outside my house rather than join holiday makers and day trippers in the summer long game of “find a parking space", a motorised version of musical chairs played to your own choice of music.

As the days shorten and the weather decays into winter winds and rain the whole town moves towards a state of semi-hibernation. Shop and public house trading hours shorten, the promenade rides and crazy golf close and shutter and the footfall changes from families with buckets and spades to mature couples and dog walkers wrapped against the elements or (occasionally) basking in the autumn sun

The migratory birds move on towards warmer climates, the geese arrive from the cooling north and the puffins and other sea birds are departed to sea. The resident gulls start to hunker down on the chimney pots and adjust to the changes in their food sources – inland refuge sites gain attraction as the fried fish supply drops away

The seasons change also heralds the increasing possibility of storms impacting the bay. In reality the bay is well protected against the seas rages – the dominant waves affecting this coastline are from the north and northeast and, with a fetch of over1,500km, they carry serious wave energy that drives significant longshore drift carrying sediment and erosion down the length of the Yorkshire coastline. However, against these North and North Easterlies Filey Brigg provides the bay effective shelter - it takes an easterly storm to deliver a direct impact and when this comes to pass the power of nature can be clear to see as the waves and tides rearrange and relocate the bay's sand.

The bay is some 5 miles long, at low tide the beach is over a quarter of a mile wide. Come the right storm and tide the whole bay in front of the town can see its sand level drop by several centimetres as nature moves it south towards Reighton Gap and Flamborough.

The power nature puts on display in doing this is epic – wet sand weighs around 1.5 tons per cubic meter, the distance from the Brigg to Reighton Gap is around 3 miles and at low tide the visible beach across this reach approaches a quarter of a mile in depth – so every top centimetre of sand displaced from the visible beach represents something like 27,000 tons of sand picked up by the waves and moved south by the tides.

As a measure this sunk into the beach

A view before a storm

and then after..

Total tonnage moved? Do the maths…

Equally incredible is natures ability to restore the status quo and return what it has taken away; for as the tides within the bay return to their normal ways once the storm subsides, so the sand reappears.

Next stop – winter