Ebac Weatherwatch

 

To discover the relative humidity forecast in your area please click the link below:         

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather

 

Ebac Weekly article

30th October 2006

by John Kettley

 

It is often the contrasting airmasses across Britain that fuel the most intense weather systems, thereby causing the severest conditions and the greatest hardship. Last Thursday Lerwick was cold and stormy at just 6C with severe northeasterly gales; on the other hand the weather in southeast England was abnormally warm with Margate seeing temperatures reach 20C. The same intense low pressure system brought around four inches of rain to northern Scotland with widespread flooding, landslides and travel disruption.

 

It is widely believed that global warming will bring more frequent and catastrophic weather events to this country, and it is difficult to argue with that. However the truth is that extreme weather events have always occurred across our islands and climate change was unknown in the times of the East Coast flooding of 1952 or the severe winter of 1963!

 

You may be surprised to learn that as recently as 1975 some leading climatologists claimed that we were heading for the next Ice Age. A documentary programme was made for BBC television highlighting some of the dire implications for the world if politicians didn’t act! The ozone layer several miles above the ground was also being destroyed, in part by chloroflurocarbons from sprays and refrigerators - at least they have now been discarded.

 

Whatever the scenario we face in the next century – warmer, cooler, drier or wetter – the weather we face weekly or monthly will continue to contrast from one area to another and one day to the next. There will forever be periods of rain and wind, snow or ice, and of course heatwaves.

 

Back