Geoffrey Lean Does Not Bother To Check Facts

By Paul Homewood

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/countryside/10539470/Flood-defences-get-wise-or-get-wet.html

 

It seems that the ludicrous Geoffrey Lean does not get any better. He claims in the Telegraph today:

 

They called it the nightmare before Christmas but – despite yesterday’s encore – it’s not over yet. Further heavy rains are due in the South-West tomorrow night, with yet more strong winds expected on Tuesday, threatening to extend one of the stormiest Yuletides into a tempestuous new year.

That would round off a month battered by six big storms, though none as destructive as the bruiser that struck on Monday, the most intense recorded for 127 years. Winds reaching 92mph brought some 200 trees crashing down on railway lines, paralysing services on one of the year’s most important days, while up to two inches of rain in 24 hours caused floods across southern England.

Some 300,000 homes suffered blackouts; 50,000 spent Christmas Day without electricity, and some were still powerless at the end of the week. Nearly 1,000 were flooded out. Six people died in even more devastating weather than the supposedly once-in-a decade St Jude’s Day gales of two months ago.

 

Apparently, Environmental Correspondents don’t have to bother with checking facts these days, so here is what the Met Office had to say about the St Jude storm.

 

 

Autumn storms of this strength are less common than in winter, but, nevertheless, the Met find that, for southern England, it was still on average a once in 4-year event.

 

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/interesting/2013-octwind

 

And Monday’s storm , that Lean describes as “even more devastating than St Jude’s Day gales”? Away from exposed headlands, the strongest gusts reached 76 mph at Langdon Bay.

In October, the same place registered 81 mph, according to Philip Eden.

Elsewhere on 23rd December, gusts approaching 75 mph were recorded, which equates to 65 knots. As the map below of the St Jude Storm shows, gusts at this speed and higher were widespread in October.

 

http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2013/12/24/wind-and-rainfall-data-23-to-24-december-2013/

 

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/interesting/2013-octwind

 

 

Geoffrey Lean makes some valid points about improving our flood defences and infrastructure. And it is certainly true that the UK has suffered from an unusual series of storms this month, because of the position of the jet stream.

It is a pity, though, that he feels he has to make such hysterical claims, without seemingly bothering to check his facts first.

 

Footnote

Lean also comments:

 

Even more violent December tempests have struck in the past. The 140-knot winds of the Great Storm of 1703 toppled the newly built Eddystone lighthouse, and washed a small boat (with a man and two boys on board) clean out of Cornwall’s Helford estuary, dumping it, 175 miles away, on the shores of the Isle of Wight. But experts say that they seem to be becoming more frequent: there was a similar spate of severe gales in December 2012. And we seem to suffer serious floods every year.

 

I am quite sure we do suffer serious floods every year, just as we always have, and exacerbated by building on flood plains. But, according to the Met Office, winter rainfall trends are , if anything, decreasing.

But, perhaps, I had better not confuse him with too many facts!

 

 

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/actualmonthly