STORMY WEATHER

We British moan and groan about our changeable climate especially at this time of the year when “mists and mellow fruitfulness” give way to grey clouds, cold blasts from the West wind, rather persistent rain and flurries of frost and snow. The blessed intervals of reinvigorating sunshine are few and far between while the glories of Spring and Summer are long forgotten. Yet in our gloom we hardly realise how lucky we are.

An all-American Tornado

Other countries suffer much worse. Only a day or two ago tornadoes in Illinois killed 6 and flattened a township. Destructive tornadoes in the American mid-West are an annual occurrence – remember Dorothy (and Toto) rushing to the Kansas storm-shelter in The Wizard of Oz? – and the US has had appalling hurricanes ranging from the Great Galveston Hurricane in 1900 (8,000 dead), the category 5 Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 in the Gulf of Mexico, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 battering New Orleans which so damaged the reputation of President George W Bush.

Although parts of the US have severe extremes of weather, the worst storms are in Asia, notably at monsoon time in the Bay of Bengal. Modern Bangladesh has suffered particularly badly from 1737, when records started, onwards. Casualty figures would have been very high had a reliable count been made. In recent memory, the calamity of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 resulted in a horrifying 230,000 dead; this tsunami was triggered by an earthquake as was the East Japan Tsunami in 2011 which killed 16,000 and alarmed the world by the imminent meltdown of 3 nuclear reactors at Fukushima.

The Japanese Tsunami strikes

 

Predictably, galvanised by the dreadful category 5 Haiyan Typhoon this month in the Philippines, the global warming industry has claimed these storms are all our fault and we must intensify our suicidal policy of reducing carbon emissions and rely ever more on inefficient windmills, tidal barriers and the warmth from blazing copies of The Guardian. We Europeans have long experience of burning coal, the world has developed a highly effective nuclear power industry and there is still plenty of oil. Yet somehow the zealots are winning the argument – despite centuries of evidence that hurricanes and so on blow about in both hot and cold times. Global warming is pseudo-scientific eyewash and its espousal could be our ruin.

18th century Frost Fair on the Thames

Britain has had its difficult days but in a global context they are not remarkable – but give Britons plenty to complain about. Going back a bit, winter 1684 was the coldest ever recorded; the Thames at London froze over with 11 inches of ice. The Great Storm of 1703 blew the lead roof off Westminster Abbey and caused two stone columns to fall at Wells Cathedral killing the unfortunate Bishop; many naval ships foundered on the Goodwin Sands and the death-toll was at least 8,000 The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 triggered a 10 foot tsunami which hit Cornwall. The winter of 1939/40 gave London 39 days of snow while even I can remember the severe 1946/47 winter, when the fuel supply chain broke down.

The Spring Tide surge in 1953 combined with strong gales to bring floods and wide-spread tree-falls (307 dead) while 1963, The Great Freeze, was the coldest English winter since 1740. The hurricane which BBC forecaster Michael Fish famously poo-pooed in 1987, devastated the woods of Southern England and blew down cherished plane trees all over London It coincided with Black Monday, a record sell-off in the London Stock Market – a Divine judgment perhaps? The much-heralded St Jude’s Day storm of 2013 disappointed the doom-mongers and was no more than a filthy day.

I will be in London until the end of December and I prepare for winter as prudent Britons have always done. I will enjoy brief walks in the rain especially as the clouds scamper across the skies. On dry moments I will take deep breaths of now-clean London air.   I will sink a convivial pint or three of bitter with friends at a local pub. Most of all, I will crowd round a snug fire with my lovely wife, keep on warm woollies, watch lots of undemanding TV and fortify myself with rich fruit-cake and regular slugs of Whisky Mac (50% blended whisky, 50% ginger wine). Christmas will be a joyous family feast and the West wind can blow as much as it likes – I will be inside, warm and highly contented. Cheers!

SMD

18.11.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013