Summertime (No it's not what you think)

The summer, picnics, cold drinks, hay fever, sunburn this is what springs into the minds of many of the British population. However, in Britain it is not often sunny enough for sunburn, not dry enough for grass seeds to float around in the air, and on some years it is even too wet and too cold for picnics and cool refreshing drinks. This year so far, has been relatively warm and dry. However, many of us remember endless damp and mild summers.

We can also remember times when the met office have made optimistic predictions for the summer, but then getting it drastically wrong. The summer of 2007 for instance, the met office predicted it to be a 'Barbecue summer', instead it was the wettest summer since the rainfall series began in 1914.  They went on to say the next year for their 2008 summer prediction (Issued on April 8th 2008) that “The risk of exceptional rainfall, as seen last summer, is assessed as very low at this stage.”The summer of 2008 was a very wet summer with all three summer months seeing above average rainfall across the UK and parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland seeing double their average rainfall. There were also devastating floods in parts of ROI and the UK. 

Tewkesbury Cathedral became an island

The most well reported of the 2007 floods was Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire. Before the floods Tewkesbury was just a quiet town in situated in the rolling hills of the Cotswold's, but over a 5 day period 5 inches (130 mm) of rain fell. Both rivers which meet at Tewkesbury (The Severn and the Avon) were overwhelmed by the amount of water being fed into them. All our access roads to Tewkesbury were flooded and impassible. However, this was not the only place that was flooded in the Summer of 2007, East Yorkshire and The Midlands reported floods on the 15 June; Yorkshire, The Midlands, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire on 25 June; and Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and South Wales on 28 July. So many areas of England were affected by these floods. 2007 was most definitely not a barbecue summer, and the met office have made many other mistakes very similar to this. 

However, there have been many hot and dry British summers over the couple of decades, take 2003 and 2005 for instance. On August 10th 2003, the highest recorded UK temperature occured near Faversham, Kent, this was 38.5C. London also recorded 38.0C. The highest temperature recorded at the Sussex university weather station was 33.1C (Closest weather station to Brighton). However, many countries across Europe, these including France, Spain, The Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, and Germany were badly affected with France being most so. There were 14,082 heat-related deaths in France (mainly amongst the elderly) compared to 2,000 according to the BBC in the UK. July 2006 was also very hot and 36.5C was recorded in Wisley, Surrey. The Environment Agency also claimed that it was the most severe drought to strike the UK for 100 years after a very dry winter across much of the UK and then an extremely hot and dry summer.

Difference in average temperature (2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004) from 2003,
covering the date range of July 20 - August 20

So in this weeks post, I have covered the eventful summers that many of us have seen in the past decade. From huge floods, to high temperatures and drought, we have certainly had more than our fair share in extreme weather. But how will this summer pan out? So far we have had a very dry April (2 mm of rain recorded) an average May, and dramatic thunderstorms this week. For many areas drought was most certainly on the cards at one point, but after a couple of weeks of some rain, it looks slightly more unlikely. However, the possibility still remains. The only thing left to do, is what people did before the wonders of modern day weather forecasting, we should just let the power of nature go its way and we will see where it takes us.

Extreme Weather

At the moment, people have been asking one main question about the weather, this being why has the weather been so unusually extreme around the world over these last couple of months. Meteorologists across the globe have been looking for a plausible explanation for it.

Man is lifted to safety in China floods

So floods and tornadoes in the US, drought in the UK, and high temperatures in many locations. Closer to home Snowdon was hot enough to  "Strip" in February but last Saturday it snowed there. China had a widespread "Once-in-a-100-year" drought. However, the Chinese government sent rockets up to seed the clouds with chemicals such as silver iodide. This caused massive flooding and 30cm of rain fell in 24 hours in some places. Floods and mudslides have killed 105 people and tens of thousands of people have lost their homes. The Chinese government has evacuated 500,000 people from the south of the country. The floods are continuing and the death toll is rising.

Temperatures in excess of 50C have been recorded in Kuwait and 49.6C was recorded in Rajasthan in India. However Colombia, the Amazon basin, Peru, Cuba, Kenya, Somalia and many other countries have all registered far more or less rainfall or major heatwaves in the past few years. Bangladesh has also encountered near record-breaking high temperatures over the last few weeks. Even Canada has seen very high temperatures with Toronto sizzling at 33C.

So what scientific explanation is to blame for all this? La Nina (Period of drifting warmer seas) is one acceptable possibility, and the increase in the extreme weather is climate change exaggerating the effects of El Nino or La Nina. So extreme temperatures, more widespread flooding, deeper snowfalls and heavier rain are to become the new "Normal" because of greenhouse gases building in the atmosphere.

However, is the warming of the world behind what is to blame for more extreme weather. The answer is yes. Environmental scientists can see the correlation between the warming of our planet and the intensifying extreme weather events. This is mainly because of warming seas which are contributing to the amount of moisture in the air, and the amount of energy being delivered to the atmosphere. Warm, wet air is the fuel of thunderstorms, hurricanes and general rain. This also leads to increasingly drier conditions in other areas, because the moisture has condensed to precipitation already.

So the World Meteorological Office concludes that the weather is going to return to normal again. But I quote John Vidal of the Guardian "The trouble is, no one is too sure what normal is any more."

Sources: John Vidal of The Guardian. There was a great article on increasing extreme weather in the Guardian on Monday and that is where I retrieved most of my information. Click on the link to see his article on the guardian online