17th November - Today's News: Massive Storm Hits SE Queensland.
Massive storm hits southeast Queensland - the superstorm hits Australia's east coast with 4,000 lightning strikes in one hour in Brisbane. That's more than we've had in Evesham in the past 1,000 years I think!
There was goose carnage as fog engulfs Germany - as hundreds landed on roads and autobahns around Berlin, where inevitably they were hit by traffic unable to see them
Tornado strikes southern Portugal with video footage here
There's a 90 percent chance 2012 will be the warmest ever of U.S. with the latest NOAA data also showing October to have been the 5th warmest on record. Interestingly, Britain is highlighted in their report for our below average temps in October! NASA data puts October as the 2nd warmest.
And, um, here in Britain ..... snow predicted for three months. Which is true. In so far as snow is predicted to fall in some parts of Britain (mainly Scottish hills) on many occasions throughout the next three months. As has happened every winter here for at least the past few thousand years*...... It's actually James Madden at 'Exacta Weather' making this prediction - he's been charging £6 for anyone to read the full forecast on his website. And he's neither a scientist nor an expert. But I doubt he'll be any more accurate than he was last year (remember all that snow and bitter cold in Oct and Nov 2011? No, neither does anyone else!) Meanwhile, a bit more in the Express where they assure us the coldest winter in 100 years on way. Yeah, right. £1,000 it isn't. They even have (mis?)quoted "Leon Brown, meteorologist for The Weather Channel, said snow could
arrive as early as next weekend, with temperatures falling to minus 5C
in the North" - obviously there's already been snow in Scotland and even in Wiltshire already this autumn, not to say plenty of nights when the temp has fallen below -5c in a few spots. So rather a silly thing to say. As reported in the Met Office blog (somewhat sarcastically) last week: "we’re heading into winter and we expect winter to be colder than the rest of the year". They've responded further today adding that "it is perfectly possible that we will see the whole range of weather
that we get in winter at some point over the coming months, including
snow and freezing temperatures, but also heavy rain, windy weather and
mild conditions too". Which is rather more accurate than anything you'll ever find reported in the Express! It's a shame though that they have to make these comments. If only journalists stuck to reporting factual news instead of fantasy ......
* it's possible snowfall, even on the Scottish hills, was less common in winter during the 'Atlantic Period' around 6-8,000 years ago, when the climate generally was milder than today.
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