PEMBREY’S Cefn Sidan beach stars in the Wild Weatherman Richard Hammond’s close encounters with the most dangerous natural phenomenon known to man-the weather.
The first of the three-part documentary series Wild Weather was broadcast on BBC1 on Monday and continues for the next two weeks with Cefn Sidan’s vast expanses and forestry backcloth used to explain the effects of the sea, land, and forest on wind and rain generation.
On his ‘secret’ scientific visits to Pembrey in July Hammond picked the calmest of days belying his exploits chasing tornadoes, ice storms and even creating firewhirls elsewhere in the world.
He said when relaxing riding out on a SegWay from Stephanie Thomas’s Sidan Cafe at Pembrey Country Park: “This is quite idyllic compared with chasing Texas Twisters and Tornadoes creating firewhirls in Australia and being flattened by Mount Washington winds.
He explained his series was split into three parts on wind, water and temperature.
He said: “Cefn Sidan beach contributes to all three because meteriologists tell us it is one of the windiest areas in the UK with south westerlies sweeping in from the Atlantic-it is why the land yachters love it so.
“Water is the shapeshifter and there is no better example of the landscape being sculpted by the sea than at Cefn Sidan. Just look at how the dunes were sheared by last winter’s storms last winter’s storms and then smoothed out by caressing tides.
“Our whole world is shaped by weather but most of us do not understand how it works and I hope this programme, with Cefn Sidan’s help, will explain that.
“Cefn Sidan is a wonderous place. It is vast. It seems to go on for ever.”
It is not the Top Gear presenter turned scientist’s first visit to Cefn Sidan. With Jeremy Clarkson and James May, he was chased up the beach by Apache helicopter’s after a strafing raid on RAF Pembrey Sands Bombing Range in 2006.
For his most recent visit he flew his own helicopter into Pembrey Airfield from his Gloucester mansion home. In Monday’s episode Hammond was seen sitting in a car at Pembrey Airfield receiving live information from the heart of a hurricane of his Mouth Washington team.
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