Why would the "wind blowing in the East" be considered a bad thing?

I've been recently working through the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' Bleak House, and enjoying it very much. However, there's a particular motif that's bothering me, whose logic I haven't been able to figure out from context; that would be Mr. Jandyce's constant referring to events or moods that bother him by muttering something like,

the wind's blowing in the East.

One easily divines from context that's it's not a positive thing, because Jandyce only says it when someone dear to him is in trouble or some misfortune has befallen them, but I can't figure out why the east wind blowing would necessarily be a bad thing. Is there some sort of logic to this phrase, that can be explained by looking at its etymology?

In England, the most common wind direction is from the southwest, which coming from further south in the Atlantic is often warm.

By comparison an easterly wind in England usually comes from the Baltic or Arctic and so is sometimes cold and bitter, and is unusual enough to be notable. Highly suitable for Bleak House.

I'm a bit thrown by "in" the East, but in Europe, at least in the colder seasons, when the wind is blowing "from" the East, it means the weather will be turning sharply colder. I don't have any sources to cite, just my own experience of ~40 years of living there. Easterly winds meant cold weather, which could mean hardship for some people in Dickens' time.