Storm Dennis Arrives
By Paul Homewood
You can always rely on the Express to go hysterical when we get a bit of bad weather!
The facts are actually much more prosaic.
When the storm peaks this afternoon, virtually all of the country is looking at wind speeds of between 20 and 30 mph, putting it into the Fresh to Strong Breeze category. (I do believe it a bit silly that the scale should go from “strong breeze” to “near gale”. Strong winds would have been a more appropriate description! But it does indicate that, when the Beaufort Scale was drawn up, people did not regard a strong wind as anything to be concerned about)
The biggest problem will actually be the rainfall. The best graphic is this one from the Met Office:
The heaviest of the rain looks set to nit N Wales, so hopefully the Calder Valley will not be too badly hit this time.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Here’s today’s funny from the Mail ” 70mph storm Dennis is classified as a ‘BOMB cyclone’ that is ‘one of the strongest EVER'”
and here’s the next form the Telegraph, ‘of the year’ we’ve only had just over a month of ‘the year’ “Britain prepares for worst floods of the year “
I’m in the South Shropshire orange rainfall area with apparently “danger to life” (sic). I must admit I was nearly battered to death by the (perfectly ordinary for the time of year) rain this morning when I put out my recycling. No wind at all to speak of. Weather forecasting has been become just another a branch of showbiz and should be thought of as such. Nonsense, as they say, on stilts.
I see WH Smith is moving the Telegraph from the News shelves to the Showbiz/Celebrity magazine shelves. Pretty much every UK newspaper belongs there because hardly any of them impart anything remotely resembling news, just lies and hysteria in their own and their readers’ echo chamber. The terrifying thing about the Express is that hundreds of thousands of people buy it and, what’s worse, believe it! I have a friend on the sub editors’ desk there, and they have great fun every night composing the most hysterical loony nonsense headlines for perfectly ordinary stories to see if anyone complains. No one ever does. Needles to say they regard their readers as morons, as do the journalists who work there. No one believes a word they write, but it’s a living, eh…
There is of course potential for flooding along rivers that drain the higher rainfall areas. The Severn and Wye and some rivers in the NE seem candidates.
I live in East Cowes, about 500 yards from the Red Funnel vehicle ferry terminal. At this time of year we regularly experience high tides which wash over the low wall on the Esplanade but do not cause problems except to the dog walkers. Most of the local wind speeds are given as gusts at the Needles which bear no resemblance to the constants..
Last week during storm Ciara vehicle ferries were cancelled for a short time not because of the conditions in the Solent but because the docking facilities are fairly ancient and the ferries couldn’t berth safely to unload cars.
The hovercraft were suspended understandably and also the hydrofoils intermittently. This is normal winter weather.
It is nearly 13.50 and the trees are swaying gently and we have light rain no sign of the weather bomb!.
Our garden fence is a bit messed up after last week’s breezy weather. I think that it is about ten years old and is made of fairly cheap fence panels which are starting to go a bit rotten so it is hardly a surprise.
OT but I have had an email asking me to confirm my subscription to this website. I haven’t opened it as I am slightly suspicious, should I be?
bin it mate, ffs certainly don’t open it!
mind you, i think you know that.
🙂
FT magazine today pg 12 to 19
Can the world kick its oil habit?
*Someone calls it out
Hmm, it’s going to get a tad windy, rain and stuff, is it not February?
So what?
Indeed yes I also very much hope that, the Pennines are spared this time, indeed the whole country will be.
A good, measured and sensible post Paul, as we expect.
I would estimate steady winds here (Swindon rural area) around 30 knots, gusting 40 – 50,, strong but not exceptional.
But to my mind a common standard for wind reporting is long overdue with different sources quoting Beaufort Scale, knots, mph and kph.
Just had a heavy rain shower in Cheshire with some gusty wind, but the sun’s coming out now. More gusty wind forecast today and in the early afternoon tomorrow. Nothing startling.
@churchofengland tweeted Feb 12i>
General Synod has set new targets for all parts of the Church to work to become carbon ‘net zero’ by 2030.
The motion calls for urgent steps to reach the new target, which is 15 years ahead of the proposed deadline
thread
Times religion page : very long article on faith and CC
from Ruth Valerio Global Advocacy and Influencing Director at Tearfund.
She is also on tour with her book
Environmentalist, social activist and theologian, Dr Ruth Valerio will talk about her new book ‘Saying Yes to Life’
The article is full of Guardian bunk
friend in African floods
.. meeting Figueres etc
As God is supposedly omniscient omnipotent and omnipresent you would have thought he would have had a heads up on global warming long ago and given us in his wisdom a nice covering of fur or something to save us burning all that coal or wood to keep us warm in winter!
Sadly the Scottish Episcopal Church is equally obsessed. Lost count of the times I’ve tried to object and almost given up. Just as well I’m not on Twitter. How do otherwise intelligent people fall for all this stuff? Bit of winter weather which once we took for granted now results in hysteria. Might help if BBC didn’t keep repeating the silly names. What will next week’s weather be called?
The names are part of it. In the past we would be told that we were experiencing a series of Atlantic Lows. In the Summer, we would get some hot weather from the Azores.
If the churches that I visit on my travels are to become carbon ‘net zero’ they will have to find a way of “offsetting” the Bottled Gas powered radiant heaters many use to keep their congregations warm…
Reporting from N Cheshire – sustained winds of 8kph and one gust of 31kph at just after 15.00. We have had rainfall of 5mm over the past 6 hours in a few showers interspersed by a bit of sunshine.
I think the Met Office might get predictions a bit better by looking out of the window.
I can report from Dorset overlooking the Stour valley that its very wet and moderately windy. The happiest creatures around are the frogs in my pond judging by the vast amounts of frog spawn, and my dog who is fast asleep in front of the fire having got his walk in before the rain came. Weather Bomb Cyclone – yeah right………………….
It does my heart good to see the frog spawn, you know that the joyous season of rebirth, spring is just around the corner.
Despite my earlier sarcasm we’ve had 12 hours of increasingly torrential rain here in Ludlow, the Teme is in super flood mode so expect flooding downstream as the Teme empties into an already swollen Severn below Worcester
Yep. Very wet hooly in mid Wales, I got my big coat to go out in.
Every news bulletin on every channel says it is “climate change”. Shukman is there with his “rising sea levels in a warming world”. These journalists are bone idle and never do any research, they simply repeat the agenda press releases that are fed to them.
When scientists do science, they find out all kinds of interesting things: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3006525/
“High-magnitude flooding across Britain since AD 1750”
Neil Macdonald and Heather Sangster
Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, Published: 20 March 2017
“The last decade has witnessed severe flooding across much of the globe, but have these floods really been exceptional? Globally, relatively few instrumental river flow series extend beyond 50 years, with short records presenting significant challenges in determining flood risk from high magnitude floods.
Here, we show how historical records from Britain have improved understanding of high-magnitude floods, by examining past spatial and temporal variability. The findings identify that whilst recent floods are notable, several comparable periods of increased flooding are identifiable historically, with periods of greater frequency (flood-rich periods).
Statistically significant relationships between the British flood index, the Atlantic Meridional Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation Index are identified. The use of historical records identifies that the largest floods often transcend single catchments affecting regions and that
the current flood-rich period is not unprecedented.
Summary
The apparent increase in flooding witnessed over the last decade appears in consideration to the long-term flood record not to be unprecedented; whilst the period since 2000 has been considered as flood-rich, the period 1970–2000 is “flood poor”, which may partly explain why recent floods are often perceived as extreme events.
The much publicised (popular media) apparent change in flood frequency since 2000 may reflect natural variability, as there appears to be no shift in long-term flood frequency (Fig. 5).
The principal findings of this work are that of the strong correlations between flood-rich/flood-poor phases and solar magnetic activity, AMO and NAOI, indicating a clear driver for flooding patterns across Britain.
Fed up with the BBC website switching from displaying sustained wind speeds to displaying meaningless max gust speeds whenever is gets a bit windy. It’s a transparent attempt to rack up alarm by displaying scary sounding gust speeds up to 60mph when the reality is 30mph sustained speeds which are nothing special for this time of year.
I’ve just had a play with the “Windy.com” website, and dragged the pointer around various parts of the UK & Irish coast. At the moment the highest (computer predicted) speed is 38kts, and for tomorrow, 45kts – and those figures are for just offshore at the most exposed locations.
Here in south Devon it’s been blowing a storm all day with heavy rain and 60 mph winds and more . We went out this morning and haven’t put a foot outside since.
A bit of a damp squib here in North Wales. Went for a lovely 10 mile walk this afternoon completed in 2 hours and a half with time for a couple of chats along the way.
View from the floodplain of the River Avon:
Got my cycle ride in yesterday 4pm, a bit windy but cloudy and dry, River actually quite low(0.7m) was higher earlier in the week. Predicted by EA to go above 2m on the gauge at Stratford that would be awful for me, but the EA prediction is based on the Met Office rainfall forecast which isn’t happening.
Update Sunday morning forecast says heavy rain but it is dry, river still lowish around 1.0m and I think I can sit and watch the ducks and geese. EA forecast revised down to 1.2m.
Over recent years Greylag geese numbers have displaced Canada geese numbers, is this a sign of climate change?.
I’m down on the south coast on Hangover Hill where last week’s gale blew off eight heavy roof tiles. Currently lashing down s tarpaulin. Everyone on the hill is a greenie who thinks the weather is all because of the one degree rise in temperature over the last hundred years. My roof didn’t lift in the 1987 hurricane but now the two neighbors have built another storey on either side. This may have something to do with it. Next project is to link up.
Very interesting reading reports around the country. For my own sins (and there are many of them) I am 40 miles north of Inverness where, currently, the sun just went in and it’s now sleeting with a gentle to moderate breeze and a grey sky. Temperature at 11 am this Sunday morning is 3.4 C. 6.5 mm of rain fell yesterday.
In Shropshire the rain just kept coming and coming and has only just stopped. Ludlow in a bad way I’m afraid, with widespread flooding.
http://andybodders.co.uk/
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