Stormy Weather

[mangerton]

I see Anna's comments about Murrayfield weather. Here, 60 miles north, there's been no rain - there was even sunshine earlier this afternoon - but the barometer is extremely low (960mb). No sign of rain at M'field atm.

And yes, the pitch looks disgraceful!

[Petrushka]

It's turned a good deal nastier since this morning. The rain is now coming down but it's accompanied by some very powerful gusts, enough to stop you in your tracks and take the feet from under you. Won't be venturing outside any further today.

[BBMmk2]

Very gusty winds and raining too. Yes, has become nastier down here too! :(

[Anna]

By half-three I was outside, cold, wet, nearly being blown off my feet, in my second-best waterproof, trying to clear up storm damage - a totally wrecked fence. Could have been worse of course, like tiles off the roof. (Still, it saved me from watching the second-half of the humiliation laughingly called a rugby match but it gave me splinters in my fingers) Now, lights are flickering just as I think about cooking something!
Grrr!

[amateur51]

By half-three I was outside, cold, wet, nearly being blown off my feet, in my second-best waterproof, trying to clear up storm damage - a totally wrecked fence. Could have been worse of course, like tiles off the roof. (Still, it saved me from watching the second-half of the humiliation laughingly called a rugby match but it gave me splinters in my fingers) Now, lights are flickering just as I think about cooking something!
Grrr!

Hope you don't get cut off Anna - things are bad enough with the rugby without that

Keep warm, keep dry and keep your eye on the lodger, as me mam used to say!

[EdgeleyRob]

It's been a day of 3 halves here.
Lovely morning,crap afternoon,now calmed down quite a bit and stopped raining.
Hope everything's ok with our Anna.

[DracoM]

Got wilder as the day went on, and great squalls of heavy rain lashing in on strengthening wind - here in Ultima Thule.

[Serial_Apologist]

The gig (Mike Westbrook's settings of William Blake) went OK and we've been remarkably fortunate today in London - one thunderstorm this morning followed by a few light showers interspersed with lots of unexpected sunshine, and winds rarely touching gale force. Didn't get a chance to ask the Westbrooks how they coped with getting here from Dawlish; there was a long queue for the one toilet at the church at the end, and they were in it. I slipped furtively into the pub a few doors down the street!

The tube is crazy last thing on a Saturday night nowadays in the W End - people could hardly get onto the platform at Leicester Sq!

[mangerton]

Still, it saved me from watching the second-half of the humiliation laughingly called a rugby match.

Yes. We had one of those, too. Sorry to hear about your troubles. I hope all is well, and that you got something hot to eat.

[Serial_Apologist]

By half-three I was outside, cold, wet, nearly being blown off my feet, in my second-best waterproof, trying to clear up storm damage - a totally wrecked fence. Could have been worse of course, like tiles off the roof. (Still, it saved me from watching the second-half of the humiliation laughingly called a rugby match but it gave me splinters in my fingers) Now, lights are flickering just as I think about cooking something!
Grrr!

Anna - sorry to hear of your problems! Our perimeter fence is now leaning at a precarious angle, only held in position by three trees on the neighbour's side!

[Anna]

Thsnks for best wishes. It was on-off short outages, not prolonged power cuts and I was just cooking a fairly quick pasta dish, but oh! the constant noise of the wind howling and buffeting outside (so I watched some silly Belgian police drame to drown it out!) The Met Office's chief scientist, ahead of a conference, says this unprecedented rainfall/wave surges, etc., is due to climate change http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26084625 due to humans. Well, I don't know what else I can do to become greener than I already am.
Then I started to watch Brummie Simon's latest but when he got to the part about Wednesday and next weekend being a repeat of this weekend I had to switch off. So far this year we've had 259.3mm (over 10") which I suppose doesn't sound that much but bears out February Full Dyke prophecies I mentioned somewhere upthread. I think I'll move East where the weather is always balmy. Ontopic: it's still chucking it down as I speak.
S_A, you keep mentioning these perfect anvils you see, any chance of posting some pics?
Mangerton, the rugby. what can I say?

[BBMmk2]

A mixed bag today, Been lovely but cold, with very gusty winds though. Had a great night up the social club last night, on our complex, a rock music covers band. Unfortunately, the vocalist tried to do an Ian Gillan vocal pyrotechnic display, which he should've left alone!!

[Petrushka]

The Met Office's chief scientist, ahead of a conference, says this unprecedented rainfall/wave surges, etc., is due to climate change http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26084625 due to humans.

I'm not sure that this is what they are saying. Take this for example:

"We have records going back to 1766 and we have nothing like this," she said. "We have seen some exceptional weather. We can't say it is unprecedented but it is exceptional."

The report links the recent extreme weather in Europe and North America to "perturbations" in the North Atlantic and Pacific jet streams, partly emanating from changing weather patterns in South East Asia and "associated with higher than normal ocean temperatures in that region".

"The attribution of these changes to anthropogenic [caused by humans] global warming requires climate models of sufficient resolution to capture storms and their associated rainfall".

If anyone can make any sense whatever out of the closing paragraph I'd be grateful for a translation into plain English.

Be that as it may, records going back to 1766 isn't anything like far enough to make any assumptions, being a mere tiny speck in the history of the globe. I remain unconvinced that 'climate change' is anything to do with human activity and is no more than a normal cyclical change. Attributing the current crop of storms, the tiniest of tiny specks in terms of historic time, to 'climate change' is something that cannot be proved beyond any doubt and this report is actually saying as much in muddled and confusing language which is classic bureaucratic fence-sitting.

[Serial_Apologist]

S_A, you keep mentioning these perfect anvils you see, any chance of posting some pics?

I can't, Anna; I'm afraid my photo taking days were numbered some years back.

[jayne lee wilson]

Petrushka - surely, given the benefit to the atmosphere and the oceans of carbon emissions reduction, it would in any case be a very good idea to promote that? And then if it did indeed help to cool the planet over a century or two...

If you say that climate change via human or other agency "cannot be proved beyond any doubt", then what, for you, would be that proof?
Science doesn't really work like that, it just says, "well, this is the best explanation we have now, let's test it again and get others to test it". Most of the world's scientists do now think that human agency is a significant part of the cause. So shouldn't we do what we can?

If large reductions in polar icecaps, or the melting of the permafrost in Alaska and Siberia, (never mind all the UK rainfall in the last 10 years), isn't enough to provoke serious thought and action, what is?