It's an ill wind....

I was up at Troutbeck post office buying a paper at the weekend. I stopped for a brief chat with the ladies who run it about Limefitt and the new development. Whilst we were talking a lady came in and pronounced "there's an elm wind out there"

"An elm wind?" I asked - "What's that? anything to do with the tree?"

"Nor - It's an ELM wind" she said "H-E-L-M"

"Ahhh" I replied "and what's that then?"

"No idea" she said "I ought to stop saying it cos people do keep asking me"

At this point one of the post office ladies pipes up. "It means a wind off the hill"

"Yes that'll "be it says the 'elm lady "it's a cruel wind that batters everything in it's path"

When I checked on wikipedia I found this :

Helm Wind

The Helm Wind is a named wind in Cumbria, England. A north-easterly wind which blows down the south-west slope of the Cross Fell escarpment, it can be so strong that it has been wrongly described as a hurricane. It is the only named wind in the British Isles. It may take its name from the helmet or cap of cloud that forms above Cross Fell, known as the Helm Bar, since a line of clouds over the fells can predict and accompany a Helm.
Valuable research into the wind was carried out by Gordon Manley in the 1930s. Manley interpreted the phenomenon in hydrodynamic terms as a "standing wave" and "rotor", a model confirmed in 1939 by glider flights.
The Helm Wind in Mallerstang: The dale at the head of the Eden Valley has its own version of the Helm Wind, which sweeps over Mallerstang Edge and affects especially the central part of the dale. This can be equally fierce and can blow for two days or more, sometimes sounding like an express train. As for its better known big brother, the coming of a Helm Wind is accompanied by the formation of a dense cap of cloud (a "Helm Bar") which, in this case, forms along Mallerstang Edge.