Is the Weather getting worse?

[Selectamatic]

We see some pictures on here, and on the news, some of us are no doubt affected in a big way by the current weather...

More on the way, we were just told by the News at 10 Reporter.

Someone I was taking to, stood in his yard the other day said that he had never seen that particular part of his yard saturated before.

Aberystwyth, now the south coast of England has been modified by the weather.

Summer is always wet.

Winter is always wet and cold.

News reporters love standing in the middle of it telling us its bad, and we should stay indoors.

This is not a one off thing by now, every year there is flooding, snow, wind, rain, drought, much more than I can remember as a child in the 1980's.

Is the weather getting worse? Is this just weather? Whats going on?

 

[mushnt grummmble]

nah,its just winter

 

[DrWazzock]

I would say it's getting more extreme. We need to have this in the back of our minds when we plan and design.

 

[GTB]

I remember the drought of 76 and snow of 81/82 but I think you're right, there's extreme weather of all kinds every year now. It's bloody depressing.

 

[llamedos]

Just more of the country getting more of what us oop north call winter

 

[Goweresque]

Did anyone have the internet and wall to wall 24 hour rolling news services up to just a few years ago? No they didn't, and thats why now it only has to rain for few days longer than normal and suddenly everyone talking about 'extreme weather' all the time. The rainfall in December 2013 isn't anywhere near the record (its actually the 20th wettest December in Wales for example, 521mm vs 684mm in Dec 1965 - data here: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/datasets/Rainfall/ranked/Wales.txt). And of those 20 wettest Welsh Decembers, 9 fall before the wettest in 1965, and 10 fall after 1965. So no trend of wetter Decembers recently. And the same goes for England, Scotland, and the UK as a whole. There is no 'extreme weather' in the UK, its always rained a lot, sometimes the wind blows a lot too, occasionally we get lots of snow, and it can get very cold as well. Its even been known to be very hot and sunny.

The main reason we get floods more than we used to is nothing to do with rain, but development, a massive increase in areas of hard standing for rain to flow off of, people building houses where there shouldn't be houses if you want them to stay dry, and a blank refusal of the authorities to do anything about improving the drainage system by dredging arterial rivers. Put that lot together and its no surprise that given a few weeks rain someone somewhere is getting flooded out.

 

[GTB]

There is no 'extreme weather' in the UK, its always rained a lot, sometimes the wind blows a lot too, occasionally we get lots of snow, and it can get very cold as well. Its even been known to be very hot and sunny.

You should take a look at the damage at Aberystwyth. Yes it's all happened before but these 'events' are coming more and more often, I'm sure of it

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Read Simons Weather thingy , it's all bulls**t been seen 100 times before and 10 times worse

 

[rob1]

Yes its been bad, a lot of the flooding is due to building and lack of river maintenance, but also its the reporting of it that makes my blood boil, a couple of days ago a reporter in Bristol was saying it was a very wet and windy night when he was bone dry and the water behind him was perfectly still it was quite plainly not raining.

Looking at the aerial picures of the floods it is noticable how often the floods end along ditch lines those old boys who dug them wernt as stupid as some think in digging them not straight

 

[Yale]

Like they say it's the 24hr media,50 years ago it'd have been a couple of lines in a newspaper.

 

[Clive]

I know we are better informed these days but this does just seem the norm - we have had 2 months of dry soil here in the last 2.5 years

Its hardly news any longer, seems to be flooding somewhere most weeks somewhere

 

[Will Blackburn]

You should take a look at the damage at Aberystwyth. Yes it's all happened before but these 'events' are coming more and more often, I'm sure of it

Back in the time of the last big storm in Aber they had big stone sets on the sea front that would have taken a lot more shifting than the poxy pretty pretty patio flags they replaced them with.

 

[Jerry]

BBC4 this evening may be worth a watch. Couple of programs on this very subject.

 

[KMA]

Nope it's been like this many times in the past and sometimes worse, I believe 2 mini ice ages in the last 800yrs.

60s were shyte and dad's pigs got drowned out twice, 62&63 I think, and he switched from hay to silage in that decade. I'd just started school, dad cut steps onto the drifts so mum cold take me the end of the road to gets the school van, the school sent us home early without telling parents and I was eventually found halfway up the lane having sunk into a 6' drift and not in a good state. I've seen summers when the whole Nith valley looked more like the Serengeti (even the trees were brown) and winters when the temperatures were down at -27 for days. All on the same farm. So no, the net helps word get out more and the mass media report and hype everything.

Maybe the weather we're having now is a reminder to this generation that you can't control mother nature you have to work with whatever the miserable old bitch throws at you.

 

[GTB]

Back in the time of the last big storm in Aber they had big stone sets on the sea front that would have taken a lot more shifting than the poxy pretty pretty patio flags they replaced them with.

I'm told that the old sea wall in Aber was a lot closer to the houses and hotels than the present one that was built after the 1937 storms. I saw some BBC footage from 1937 where the actual buildings had been badly damaged. At least this time the damage was mainly to the sea wall. I had to laugh when the reporter from '37 said that the damage would run to a couple of thousand pounds in a very concerned tone of voice. They'll be lucky if they get away with a couple of million this time.

 

[franklin]

nah,its just winter

Winter? Back to 8 degrees outside. Dug my garden today. Have barely had a ground frost here. The charlock is loving it.

 

[franklin]

If anyone hasn't seen this yet:

 

[landslave the 2nd]

long range saying colder/snow/frost about the 18 th, got to be better than this rain

 

[Longlowdog]

How long before searches for mortgages have to declare previous history of water ingress? Fed up hearing disaster stories of new builds on flood plains and over spills. You wouldn't buy a car if it turned out you couldn't use it when it rained, why spend 30 times as much and not check your house is sound.

 

[multi power]

How long before searches for mortgages have to declare previous history of water ingress? Fed up hearing disaster stories of new builds on flood plains and over spills. You wouldn't buy a car if it turned out you couldn't use it when it rained, why spend 30 times as much and not check your house is sound.

more to the point why the feck build houses on a flood plain?