Heathrow landing flightpaths over last 2 months

[belP]

For the last 2 months planes have mostly not been flying over Putney, Hammersmith, Chiswick etc on their approach to Heathrow. So they must have been landing in an Easterly direction instead of Westerly. I understand that planes need to take off and land against the wind direction, and the wind direction around Heathrow is mostly Westerly so planes usually go over Putney Chiswick etc, but this hasn't been happening for the last couple of months. Why not? I find it hard to believe that the wind direction has changed THAT much over the last couple of months, so is there something else going on?

[jno]

I've heard they usually change direction at lunchtime so that not everybody gets the noise all day long. I don't know that jumbos are that bothered by winds unless thery're fairly strong, but that's just a guess.

[belP]

No, they're not changing direction (at least not that much) at lunchtime, they're just not coming near Putney, Chiswick etc at the moment. And I've just looked at the BBC weather forecast and it says it's a Westerly wind today, so they should be landing in a westerly direction. Very strange, but VERY nice and quiet here!

[Clanad]

jno is partially correct... the use of the paralell runways is alternated at noon each day to alleviate some of the noise for those residents under the take-off or landing paths. The choice of direction of take-off or landing is, however, lways dictated by the wind diretction. Additionally, there are tail-wind component landing limitations published for each aircraft. For example the Boeing 737 is limited to 10 knots while the Boeing 777 is allowed 16 knots. I don't know of any of the aircraft I've flown that allows more than that. Has to do with a number of considerations, mostly runway length performance criteria...
I don't have an answer for the observation about predominatly used runways, however...

[belP]

Yes I see now, there's a north & a south runway which they alternate between to avoid annoying the same people all the time. When they're on the North runway they're over me, when they're on the South they're not over me. That added to the fact that we've had lots of easterly winds recently means that very few planes have gone over.
thanks to both of you.