Storm Henk
By Paul Homewood
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Storm Henk brought the usual lot of apocalyptic headlines:
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But let’s examine the data rather than than the hype.
First of all, winds.
As many in the media have done, the Mirror lazily labelled 94 mph winds “pummelling” the UK, even though that those winds only occurred on the Needles. Once again, the Met Office stand accused of deliberately and deceitfully misleading the public, by continuing to include this totally unsuitable site in its press releases:
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Elsewhere winds were no stronger than many other storms which hit Britain every winter.
In Orpington, for instance, where the tree fell on that woman, average winds were only 27 mph:
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As for rainfall, the highest daily total was 39.8mm in Hampshire. The worst affected area appears to have been the Southwest and Midlands.
According to the England & Wales Precipitation Series, 23mm fell in the Southwest on the 1st, and a further 17mm on the 2nd. In the Midlands, the numbers were 13mm and 18mm. None of these daily totals were in any way unusual, as KNMI show:
https://climexp.knmi.nl/selectdailyindex.cgi?id=someone@somewhere
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Of course, two successive days have a cumulative effect, but many storms linger for more than just one day. Rainfall totals for the 3rd, by the way, were negligible.
To be fair, the ground everywhere was very wet, following a wet December. But that had not been an unusually wet month, with 145 mm. The December rainfall data also gives the lie to ITV’s claim that it is all to do with climate change:
Henk is the eighth named storm to have hit the country this winter and the pattern is likely to continue due to the effects of climate change.
"This is climate change and the impacts we are seeing," Mr Paggett added. "We are seeing these increasingly wet and blustery winters. We are seeing storm upon storm which is exacerbating the issues."
Quite what relevance the “eighth named storm” has to do with anything is a mystery. Even the Met Office has warned against reading any significance into these numbers, because the way they name them has changed over the years.
And the data shows that we often get Decembers as wet as last month:
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Latest footage shows the usual flooded fields and swollen rivers, which we commonly see most winters. The EA estimate 1000 properties flooded, but again this is a small number in overall terms of the numbers affected each year.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/environment-agency-more-1-000-114840221.html
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I have to admit that shifting from Global Warming to Climate Change was a masterstroke, now whatever the weather, hot, cold, wet, dry, windy, cloudy, becalmed, stormy, it can be attributed to Climate Change.
I have been through the laughing, irritated, indignant stages and now it is just extremely tiresome.
” I have been through the laughing, irritated, indignant stages and now it is just extremely tiresome. ”
Many people (in the UK) are going through the expensive stage; which shows no sign of ending.
What the henk….
I am familiar with old large trees. Mine are Black Cottonwood (a poplar), {Populus trichocarpa}. Numerous of those have reached their maximum height and occasionally shed limbs. Eventually they can shed most limbs and bark, leaving just a main trunk and a few stubs. While working on a fence near one such, it made a cracking sound (I ran) and it fell over. I should mention there was no wind at the time.
Any tall trees near my house have been removed, and after a couple of years used as firewood.
Lesson: Be respectful of big trees – regardless of wind and rain – but more so during storms.
Henk is the eighth named storm to have hit the country this winter
Including 2 in one day last month, according to the official list…
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/warnings-and-advice/uk-storm-centre/index
Pushing it a bit?
Sorry to bore people if you have already read this on another thread but it is more relevant on this one.
BBC Midlands Today, Jan3rd. David Gregory-Kumar, science and environmental correspondent, shows a graph of river levels in Worcester from 2013 to 2023. Graph shows flooding in 13, 14, then no flooding in 15,16,17,18 19, flooding again in 20, 21, 22, and 23. Claims that last 4 years show flooding trend caused by climate change!
I seem to recall that Worcester racecourse flooded regularly 30/40 years ago as did Worcestershire CC ground. Nothing to see here ….
The really bizarre thing to my mind is the new housing estates to the South (outside the A4440 ring road) built on the Severn flood plain. They’re also building on the flood plain in the outskirts of Gloucester.
The BBC weather forecasters have repeatedly blamed Storm Henk on climate change. It is presumably part of their contract to blame climate change for any weather event. Ben Rich and Luoise Lear were the main perpetrators today, but Chris Fawkes and that woman with the double-barreled name have also been repeating the propaganda ad nauseam.
In my part of the South-Wes, we have only just got over the drought and hose-pipe ban. We have had enough rain in the last few weeks to make sure the ground is currently saturated, but my river has not risen by much and I have seen the level considerably higher many times over the last 20 years.
I don’t recall there being any named storms last winter – but the media kept silent about that!
It is always disappointing to see the media making wild claims about factors such as floods. All along the Thames, mostly at locks, there are marks designating historical flood levels, March, 1883, 1949, 1961 and January 1953 being typical. Similar marks can be found at Upton on Severn, on the church steeple, even behind the bar of the local pub. Yet these are never mentioned by the usual hysterics. I suppose they have papers to sell and they won’t do that by staying rational !
If anyone would like to visit Worcester and go to the Cathedral, there is a set of steps leading down to the river walkway. Incised on the wall are a set of marks showing the different flood levels dating back ,if I remember correctly, to the 1700s.
I was at Worcester sometime in the early 50s and stood on the path on the opposite bank having to gradually back towards the bridge as the river level rose. We knew it was going to happen as there had been heavy rain in the welsh hills two days before.
If you take a trip down river from Bridgnorth you will see than the houses built in the river valley are all set well back on the valley sides.
Tewkesbury Abbey was built on a mound to prevent any danger of flooding ven though the town does. Not daft those old monks.
In December 2022 if was in the ICU at Carlisle in the next bay to a lady who had been crushed by a falling tree during a named storm. The tree only came down because the wind came from a different direction than the prevailing wind direction, not because of the strength of the wind although the wind was strong and the ground was sodden. Nothing new, it has always happened.
The local East Midlands news has made a big play about the village of Gunthorpe and floods. It’s only during the piece does it become clear that the two roads in and out are closed and not the village. Just shows how much more sensible people were in the past by choosing an area of high ground to build their houses.
Also a lot of aerial footage showing the Trent floods in the area. Makes any sensible person wonder why you’d build close to the river, within a mile, unless you had to or had some high ground.
At the end of last year there were floods in the centre of Derby. I asked my councillor if this was due to wipers, lack of maintenance or Severn-Trent Water not controlling levels. Nothing to do with the council, naturally, and they couldn’t speak for S-T Water. I checked Derwent Valley reservoir levels for the weeks before and after the floods and none were 100% full before or after the event. They are all at 100% now
In my dismal experience over the last 30+ years, most organisations who are responsible for flood management in the UK are incompetent, several of these organisations are institutionally corrupt.
The usual list of neglected works projects and seeming lack of cooperation between agencies. Readers may share my experience of being unable to induce a council to pollard their street trees which loom over our houses, quite unnecessarily and regularly shed their detritus hither and yon even in light zephyrs. If you want an indictment for the fate of that poor woman look no further than the blind eye of authority. If the figures look slewed towards modern times an examination of our trees reveals previous pollarding activity, when these specimens were much smaller. The human congestion here is a pictorial representation of Angels on a pin head, a case of many hands not making light work.
It’s always intrigued me that when we were an allegedly a much poorer nation we could maintain and repair sea defences, river banks and rivers, drains and roads, public buildings and infrastructure in general. Now we neglect everything until the worst happens when minimal work is done a huge expense (Derby spent £90million on flood defences after the last lot 20 years ago but still had the worst floods in living memory last autumn), if things are in too bad a state then nature is allowed to take it’s course or it becomes a Rewilding project.
^^ Capability, competence and confidence.
Also recognising that “build better” is more than just a political phrase.
The BBC Horizon programme on ‘Global Weirding’
Horizon : “Something weird seems to be happening to our weather – it appears to be getting more extreme.”
The BBC reports:
Dame Julia Slingo, Met Office Chief Scientist, said the variable UK climate meant there was “no definitive answer” to what caused the storms. “But all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change,” she added. “There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events.”
“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.”
‘Dame Julia Slingo, Met Office Chief Scientist, said the variable UK climate meant there was “no definitive answer” to what caused the storms.’
The ignorance is gobsmacking. Climate isn’t variable. It’s what makes it useful. Weather is variable.
‘“But all the evidence suggests there is a link to climate change,” she added.’
You don’t have any evidence, you liar.
‘“There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events.”’
Argumentum ad ignorantiam. The Met Office Chief Scientist is juvenile. An embarrassment.
Search images for field flood for sale and see the results. I hope no one bought a house here and why were they given planning permission.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/environment/2023/10/23/TELEMMGLPICT000354127869_16980871553410_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=960
The Mail featured an ex-pub near the Severn owned by an engineer who has built a 7 foot concrete block wall around it to successfully keep the water at bay. Can’t really miss two large units at the end of the house. Heat pumps. I wonder how they would fair with being submerged?