27th January - Today's News: Lightning and Winds Cause Damage Across England & Wales

A squall line came down across the country on Saturday afternoon producing some dramatic weather (although not in Evesham .... ) as West Bromwich church and houses hit by lightning in storm, in Warks, Galley Common families assess damage after 'mini tornado' whilst in Surrey, Clobham 'mini-tornado lifted cats in air'.   A lucky escape as walkers burned in lightning strike in Snowdonia   and in the Daily Mail, the usual pictures of ice, snow and rain...      Worth noting that there is no confirmation of any tornadoes as yet, many people these days assume any damage caused by sudden winds is tornadic, very often that's not the case.

 

Overnight, the first snow of winter hits south of England - although it was barely noticeable (and of course missed Evesham).  The pictures are from the North York Moors.

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Meanwhile, according to Christopher Booker: Somerset flooding: there's nothing 'natural' about this man-made flooding - er, well actually, there is.  Dredging rivers isn't natural, nor is draining marshland that normally floods in winter, leaving a few scattered islands like the 'big island' Muchelney.

After a rather mild, benign, winter thus far, bad weather closes down highways, national roads in Romania with reports of up to half a meter of snow in places

17 die from cold over weekend in Poland, doubling ths number this year, whilst man freezes to death, temperatures hit -20c in Germany

And from Norway, video of mysterious rotating ice floe

Queensland's first cyclone of the year predicted to form in Coral Sea this week while schools forced to close in catastrophic fire threat as South Australia set to be hit by second heatwave

In Argentina, 12 confirmed dead after Catamarca storm, some of missing located

Research shows that sensitivity of carbon cycle to tropical temperature variations has doubled

But picture of how our climate is affected by greenhouse gases is a 'cloudy' one

And a new study suggests part of the Grand Canyon 'formed recently' also some sections date back some 70 million years