Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Bob Ward writing on the London School of Economics website, if we don’t name climate change induced heatwaves where temperatures exceed 82F, people won’t realise how deadly they are.
Is it time to start naming deadly heatwaves?
Commentary 23 July, 2019
Bob Ward
Policy and Communications DirectorA failure by the media to convey the severity of the health risks from heatwaves, which are becoming more frequent due to climate change, could undermine efforts to save lives this week as temperatures climb to dangerous levels.
Based on the experience of the last three summers, during which more than 2500 people across England were killed by heatwave conditions, hundreds of vulnerable people could die across the country in the coming days.
Public Health England has estimated that there were 863 “excess deaths” (PDF) during three heatwave periods last summer, which was the warmest on record in England.
…
The Met Office started in 2015 to name storms that were likely to have a significant impact in order to “aid the communication of approaching severe weather”.
Although heatwaves do not receive official names, a hot spell across parts of Europe during summer 2017 was nicknamed ‘Lucifer’ (PDF).
Far more people have died in the UK from recent heatwaves than from storms, so it should be uncontroversial to start applying names to both.…
A heatwave officially occurs when a location records a period of at least three consecutive days with daily maximum temperatures meeting or exceeding the heatwave temperature threshold, which varies by UK county between 25 and 28 degrees Celsius.
By contrast, the ‘Heat-health watch’ on the Met Office’s website lists “heatwave threshold values” between 28 and 32 degrees Celsius for different regions of the UK.
The Met Office’s website does, however, point out that climate change is increasing the frequency of heatwaves in the UK.
Read more: http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/news/is-it-time-to-start-naming-deadly-heatwaves/
…
Where I live on the edge of the tropics, if the Australian MET started naming individual days or weeks when temperatures soar over 82F, they would run out of names.
While 863 or 2,500 excess heat deaths is a tragedy, Britain should probably be more worried about the massive spike in winter deaths, 50,000 excess winter deaths which occurred last year according to official figures, and the rampant British green energy fuel poverty which makes the elderly and other people with low incomes hesitate to switch on their air conditioners or heaters.
82 degrees? Fahrenheit? We used to call that “summer weather.”
Of course, they haven’t declared what names we have to use. I propose names from children’s books.
Weatherman: “Well folks, we leave behind heat wave wave Aunt Pettitoes which saw three days of 83 degree weather, but there are warnings about a new heat wave next week, Diggory Diggory Delvet.
Summer weather? Around here that’s spring and fall weather.
The low 80s is the inside temperature of my unit where I live, and that is with the AC on. Thankfully, I finally got an AC unit several years ago as it was getting tough on me to have to live with heat in the mid 90s F through the heat of summer.
80 on a cloudy windy day…and I”m cold as sh1t
FL. would love to have 82 degree days in summer. Some times in mid FL. it’s 82 degrees at dawn. 1st name Heaty McHeatface
“…more than 2500 people across England were killed by heatwave conditions,”
Nearly all of them were weak or old or both and measured their remaining life expectancy in weeks rather than years but why compromise a good Global Warming narrative with trivial details.
The Blizzard didn’t kill 86 year old George, it was all that snow shoveling.
Wherever that guy may be right now, be it hell vor purgatory, bis brain has died from dehydration long before.
And to get left of Trotsky they had to build a bridge to the 21st century using material provided by the IPCC and their paid spokesalarmist ALGORE.
Yes. Let’s name every weather “event”. Because that makes them more real and more “frightening”. It’s all about alarming people. That makes them like sheep, and more easily controlled.
There are not enough names.
Zactly.
We actually had rain flurry Zactly here earlier today, followed by sunny spell Overblowncrisis; then, after morning coffee, rain shower Positively-rounded-Al, cloudy period Abel, and another rain flurry, provisionally ‘Theresa-Mae’.
Lots more names to go, although if Croydon, some three miles [5Km] distant, gets to name its own weather, we may face a name-drought in a century or so. But, of course, we only have eleven years, seven (IIRC) months to go [per AOC], so there isn’t even a weather-feature-name-crisis.
Oh well – another glass of red!
Auto
You’re right, Bruce Cobb: We don’t start teaching our young people some resiliency pretty soon, the “developing” worlders who accept minor discomfort and inconvenience without a nervous breakdown will waltz right in and take the place over while we’re busy having hysterics over normal weather. Pretty soon the entire West will stay in bubble-wrap under their beds in the name of “health and safety.”
Exactly right. We used to name hurricanes then began naming tropical storms, aided by satellite technology that detects storm formation well out to sea. Now the alarmists love to point to the increase in “named” storms.
Let’s do it so, we can allow total burnout of the crusade and make it obvious for all about the hoax.
I love that phrase, “…burnout of the crusade…” I think CC is the last big cause for these people, the synergy CC has for all the leftists and greenies, they will not let this go, disaster is only a few years away, give us your money or the weather will get you!
Nope, they’re just honing their skills.
A few years ago I had a discussion with another enviromentalists who insisted we were all gonna die because of a shortage of oxygen.
Currently, those wonderful models are predicting we are going to lose a whopping 0.121% by 2100!
Crumbs! We are all gonna die! At least sooner or later
I live in California, the forecast out here is 92F+ for the forecast-able future. It’s called Summer and it happens every cycle around the sun. Triple-digit days are not uncommon for that matter.
82F would feel amazing to me right now.
I was just outside and the temperature was about 86F and I was thinking to myself that the weather today felt really pleasant.
I watched ABC news tonight and there are a couple of high-pressure systems building over the U.S., one in the southwest and one in the upper midwest/northeast, and ABC news is already hyping a new heatwave for the U.S. The MSM is relentless in their promotion of the CAGW fraud. They lead their newscast with weather reports. It might not be the first story but they will report on the weather in the first five minutes. They have been doing this for several years now.
Here is a nullschool link to the current jet streams over the U.S.:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic=-84.37,37.02,401/loc=-107.927,37.528
I marked the center of the high-pressure system in the southwest. You’ll have to find the one in the northeast yourself, as nullschool only allows that one mark. 🙂
As far as these being heatwaves, yes they will cause the temperatures to get warmer, just like the last short heatwave we experienced last week, and just like that heatwave, these new ones should move out about as fast as the last one, a week or ten days over any particular area, although the one in the southwest could linger a little longer in the central U.S.
In years past, we used to get a high-pressure system setting up over the central U.S. for weeks and even months at a time, which naturally caused those summers to be very hot and dry, but that pattern has changed and we haven’t been getting persistent high-pressure systems lingering over us for any length of time in the last few years. With the exception of the year 2010, which was one of the hottest summers I have every experienced. It equalled anything I can remember in severity. But then the deluge came soon thereafter and that was the end of that. Pleasant summers ever since. Like this one. :).
NorCal, just north of Sacramento.. heatwave? Nope, weather.. yes. Weather channel says 100, car says 108.. But I’ve officially named it heatwave “hotterthanballz”
What a crock of shiist !
Naming hurricanes was ridiculous enough, but to now name heatwaves??? Perhaps there should be a “special place” (asylum) for these nitwits to conduct their “work.”
“Perhaps there should be a “special place” (asylum) for these nitwits to conduct their “work.”
Yes! 🙂
whats ridiculous is that naming hurricanes wasn’t scary enough so they started naming tropical storms to pump up the numbers. A Couple of years back they named a tropical depression because they were sure it would become a tropical storm only to watch it fizzle and die a depressing death.
These deaths can probably be attributed to the lack of air conditioning due to much higher energy costs.
This of course being the result of wind, solar and anti fracking and everything that makes life better.
That was my first thought !
Yep. ”Heat related” deaths is a very obscure term. People head for the water, and sometimes they drown. That’s a heat related death. Often, there are underlying health issues too. Generally speaking, perfectly healthy individuals do not drop dead from the heat.
Whereas even healthy elderly routinely die from cold. These alarmists are thick as a whale omelette.
Whelp… Ima gonna start naming my morning “movements”, starting with colossal dump Bob, forecast for 6 a.m. local time tomorrow.
Global warming theory started with Svante Arrhenius. He thought it would be a good thing.
A bit of global warming should be a good thing.
His experiment is often quoted as proof all one needs to show CO2 drives climate change however, I have never been able to find any documentation that describes his experiment.
Looks like Bob Ward needs attention in a ward …. 😉
The temperature where I am right now, in my boat in Nanaimo BC, is 29.9C , that makes it a heatwave according to this nonsense. What should I call it? Other than Bullschist?
We already name time periods with temperatures in excess of 82F. We call it “summer”.
But of concern here is, notice how the media in U.K. has latched on to the “OMG, it’s warm! The end is nigh!” whilst totally ignoring the thousands more deaths due to cold. And, in both cases, the solution is simple: easier access to cheap fossil fuels for heating and cooling of homes. Giving weather conditions a fancy name doesn’t actually change the temperature.
I thought a heat wave was 3 consecutive days at 90 and above. Hmmm…
Over 82 degrees? We have a name for that already in North Carolina. It’s called summer. And large parts of spring and fall also. What a bunch of useless dipshits.
Does this mean that I am dead since I live in Florida, and 82 degrees is a warm winter day.
28 C a heatwave? It is only two degrees over what I have my AC set to here in Texas.
The heat and cold related deaths vary enormously with adaptation to local climate.
Back in 2001 Lomborg noted “heat-related mortality started around 17.3 C in north Finland,……. and at 25.7 C in Athens”.
In the hotter parts of Australia the start is more like 40 C !
Picking 28 C for heatwaves shows how much some people live in their own little blinkered world.
They are the ones who are unable to consider there is much better information available.
And many alternatives!
The Skeptical Environmentalist p291
I live in Canada. The second coldest country in the world. We just had a couple of days below 82F which were the first in quite a while and people were complaining about it being cold. We don’t get enough summer and we’re not happy when we get short changed on it.
About the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.
I thought that days already had names, e.g., Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday Addams, Thor’s Day, Fried Fish Day, etc.
This really does come near to making these people look like idjits, when they have to name everything, especially with ridiculous names like Bob or Bill (Bob was the coldest day, Bill was the hottest day). Whatever will they do when they run out of names???? The horror!!!
I’m not sure I want them as neighbors, or even living in the same county as I do.
I don’t want Bob Ward living in the same country as I do! (or even the same planet.)
The events and mutterings of these people have already made them look like idjits, as you describe them. They have passed the point of coming close a long time back.
Giving nice summer days in UK names is about as barking mad as it gets.
Bob spells his name with 2 o’s.
If we do start naming heat waves, I think it would only be fair if we started back in 1900. Then maybe these alarmists would begin to see that this sort of weather behavior is not so unusual, after all.
I thought the definition of a heat wave was based on being X degrees over the avg temp for a certain number of days?
No! Really????
That’s apostasy in the Religion of the Temple of What We Cannot Control, a/k/a climate vs. weather.
82F? That’s what we call a cold spell here (kidding a little, it’s only 103 at the moment).
If anyone needs any further evidence that Robert Jeremy Grantham is a fool, I would like to understand why.
On a hunch I checked the Wikipedia entry for Honolulu. Turns out that the average daily high is 82F or above for eight months of the year. It drops to 80.1 in January. Those poor people. Developed nations should take up a collection to assist the doomed inhabitants of Hawaii in moving to someplace like Inuvik or Novosibirisk where they might have some chance of survival.
😂😂😂😂😂👍🏼
Public Health England has estimated that there were 863 “excess deaths” (PDF) during three heatwave periods last summer, which was the warmest on record in England.
And on average there are 30,000 excess deaths each winter.
But of course, those 30,000 deaths don’t matter to the eco-nutter climate cult members like Ward.
The northern Gulf of Mexico just had a July norther. Apparently, I missed the name. Texas Hill County down in the 60s at night, it’s called relief.
The Australian Open tennis competition is regularly played in temperatures of 40C +, the earlier rounds on open courts – just normal summer weather. I often spend time in Malaysia – If the temperature fell below 30C, everyone would be rugging up.
A significant heat wave, from the viewpoint of most Australians, would not cut in until at least 45C max and 32C min, with the overnight temps having the most effect.
What kind of snowflake persona has problems with 28C? Duh!
In Salt Lake City, (according to the Weather Channel), the average daily maximum temperature in July over the past 30 years is 90 F, so that if we took Bob Ward’s suggestion, the entire months of July and August, and parts of June and September of every year would be named “heat waves”. Around here, we should name summer days when the temperature does not reach 82 F as Cold Front Day Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc.
Bob Ward should take Shakespeare’s advice and “Fear No More the Heat of the Sun”.
Does anyone know if they still have egg frying contests on the sidewalk in front of City Hall like they did when I lived there for a bit (censored) years ago?
Or “To be or not to be”, and choose the second.
South of them, in Phoenix, they call it Desert Living. The first clue that it’s going to be hot is that you are surrounded by desert.
We must name deadly perfect weather waves!
The last heatwave could be named AC 247 to acknowledge the cooling effect of available, reliable energy generators.
It was 90°F near Marshall, TX today and felt pretty good. A little warm in direct sun but fine in shade. Nice breeze, too.
Looney tunes Ward.
Tell him we’ll name heat waves just as soon as they reach the deadliness of the most deadly cold spells.
As in; when hades freezes over.
Fishing in the Bahamas, days in the 80s°F, nights in the 70s °F.
Imagine that; ‘that’s all folks’ Ward wants to term paradise as deadly heat waves…
If 82F for three days straight is a heatwave, then the south-central U.S. lives in a summer-long heatwave.
82F is considered mild weather around here. Of course, that’s probably because we are used to these temperatures, and that’s because we experience much higher temperatures than just 82F.
Around here a heatwave is 100F or over and lasts at least a week and more than likely several weeks.
In 1936, Tulsa Oklahoma had 60 days straight of 100F or higher temperatues with about a dozen of those 60 days at 110F or higher and four of those 60 days were 120F.
Now *that’s* a heatwave! 🙂
Think of what the Alarmists would be saying if that kind of heatwave were happening today!
“In 1936, Tulsa Oklahoma had 60 days straight of 100F or higher temperatures ”
..
Bovine excrement.
..
Notice how 26 becomes 60:
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https://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/served-up-dust-bowl-record-heat-wave/article_5e1f5742-1b21-59d3-ae6c-3813f30dccb0.html
” four of those 60 days were 120F.”
..
Additional bovine excrement.
..
“The hottest temperature ever recorded in Tulsa came during that stretch: On Aug. 10, 1936, the thermometer hit 115 degrees.”
..
(same article)
Well, I’m just going by what my local meterologist out of Tulsa said a few months ago. Perhaps he was speaking about the hottest recorded temperatures in Oklahoma that year, and not specifically Tulsa, but those were the numbers he gave, although I’m not sure if he said 60 “straight” days over 100F or not.
It appears my weatherman must have been referring to Altus, Oklahoma rather than Tulsa.
Here are a couple of good links that explain the extremes that took place in 1936 in the United States and Canada. Altus, Oklahoma and its 120F temperatures are mentioned in the article.
https://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc2006/alm06jul.htm
“August saw the center of heat slip southward over Oklahoma. Altus, Oklahoma’s highs averaged 109.8oF (43.2oC) for the month, peaking at 120oF (48.9oC) for the second time that summer on 12 August — the same day as the Texas state record high was set.”
end excerpt
https://www.almanac.com/extra/summer-heat-wave-1936
“In the vast Dust Bowl region that spread from North Dakota southward into Texas, with its heart over Kansas and Oklahoma, black-dust blizzards had been common since about 1932. The heat wave of 1936 that broke all records in 15 states during July and August was the final blow to many midwestern farmers who had fought against economic hardship and unparalleled heat and drought.”
end excerpt
The 1930’s were some of the hottest years on record. It wasn’t just 1936. There is no comparison with the mild summer weather we are experiencing today.
Even here in Northeastern Ohio with Lake Erie to help moderate temperatures, a summer with one or more weeks of 82F or above days is a common occurrence. They seem really determined to lower the threshold for Killer Heat Waves.
Sixty straight days over 100F would be a short, mild summer in places like Phoenix and Casa Grande, Arizona. Growing up in Tucson we routinely played golf once or twice a week in 100F++ weather all summer. And high school football practice began in August. You have not lived until you’ve run 1000 yards of wind sprints in full pads under the Arizona sun at 105F. Funny, I don’t remember any of my team mates dying from the heat. Of course we were young and dumb and didn’t know that 100F should melt all the little snowflakes we were. Not!
Why 82? Why not use body temp of 98.6 as the arbitrary artificial panic point for the press?
And here in Richmond the weather guessers have been celebrating the 84-86F cool down from 100 plus. I suppose it was a matter of perspective.
The average high temperature here is >81 from June-September. It’s called spring and summer.
82 isn’t a heat wave…it is a thermostat setting.
My thermostat her in the Central Valley of California is set at 80. We are expecting highs of about 104 and 108 the next 2 days. That is no heat wave. Give me a high of 105 or higher for 5 straight days, then we can start talking about a heat wave. Good grief, 82 is a pleasantly cool spring day.
It’s “above normal”, and well within the normal range. Obviously, too hot. A progressive (i.e. monotonic) condition forced by anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
If we are going to get into the business of naming weather events to help draw people’s attention to (scare) them we should in the name of fairness and balance name the cold periods likewise. That way estimated mortality statstics could be associated with each. While that should help scare people about the dangers of excessively hot periods it ought to justifiably terrify them about the dangers of cold.
To be fair, we don’t really do domestic a/c in the UK, unless it’s to help dry out our damp walls.
Names like “Beach-Time” would be handy, so people can synchonise their outdoor plans to match the warm weather. In winter we already get names such as “Beast from the East” to make sure people stay indoors.
Catastrophic Heat Waves …
Wilburforce
Gertrude
Gaylord
Prudence
Dick
Moon-Unit
Adolf
Beyonce
Barney
Ethel
Cecil
Here in the Edmonton area of AB it got up to 82 degrees F the other day for one day. I think there was one other day this year that it got that hot. Most of the rest of the time it’s been cold and wet. Our average normal temperature should be around 20 to 24 degrees C for this time of year. When it starts getting up to 82 F in the winter time around here, I might start taking the seriously.
Here in sunny Phoenix, Arizona it’s 113 F and I just got home from work 26 miles from home. And I commute every day on a motorcycle with full protective gear. And have for years. It’s nothing. In fact, the warm weather here is wonderful. I could go on; but wife is bugging me to take the dogs on a walk. 113 F. It’s just fine.
Yeah, I used to spend a lot of time in Phoenix, and I’ve noticed you’re in a cooling regime. 128 in June in 1994 as I recall. It persisted through July, although not that hot, but it did teach me not to rent a convertible again.
Assuming temps above 82 degrees was deadly (as others have noted, here in S Carolina we think 82 is gloriously cool) what would be the benefit of attaching a “name” to a “heat wave”?
Bob and his fellow alarmists already dominate the MSM when the temperatures rise above their comfort level.
“Golly Gee, Martha, here comes FRED!”
When Leftists want to start wanting to name days over 82F (28C) to scare their useful idiots cultists, you realize the CAGW Hoax is officially dead….
In a debate, whenever someone starts yelling and name calling, it means the wheels have fallen off their argument, and they lost….
Yelling, screaming, hand waving, Leftist idiots glueing themselves to government buildings, manipulating empirical raw data, prophesying human extinction in 12 years, proposing $100 trillion Green New Deals, naming days of 82F, etc., are all examples that Leftists are corrupt, delusional, foolish and have lost their collectivist minds…
CAGW is dead.
now theres a thought…what perfect weather for the ex reb mob to stick emselves to a road;-))))
bet theyre all at the beach or visint the malls or mates with fans or aircons
I think we should just give all the 82 degree and above days the same name, “Bob.”
Easy to spell. Easy for anyone to read forwards or backwards. Easy to report on. “Well, Bob is back today and will probably stick around for the next two days.”
What about Luke-warm?
I can imagine what the ‘right’s organizations will say when “Wendy is really hot” appears in the local newscast. The LGBTQ… folks will also get into the act for equal ‘rights’
I used to drive one of those – great little sports car, the MGBGT
82 is jacket weather here in Arizona.
82 degrees (or 28 for the rest of the world) is not a heatwave; it is a paradise! I would die happy if every single day was 82 degrees. No, a heatwave is when the temperature exceeds 97F and when the winds are still and the humidity high. Anything less than that is not so bad. The last so-called heatwave we had I kept saying to everyone it was not so bad. There were fairweather clouds, no haze, and a steady breeze all day. Yeah, it got to 98 degrees. Still didn’t stop me from cutting the grass in the hottest part of the day, and I wasn’t using a riding mower either.
You want a heatwave … about 30 years ago (I forgot when) we had 5 straight days over 100F. Under 10 years ago but over 5 years ago (I forgot when) we had more days than that at about 105F each day. And there was no wind and no clouds but the sky was murky from the haze. That was the year my AC went bad from old age and my circumstances didn’t allow me to replace it until the next year. And, of course, because DuPont Chemical’s greed, Freon was banned. Never you mind that the gas is too heavy to make it to the ozone hole and thus unable to destroy the ozone layer like DuPont claimed. I’m sure it was not a coincidence that the patent for Freon was expiring but DuPont’s patent for “Puron” was brand new. But I digress …
We were in England last year during May. The weather was lovely several days got over 80°. The Britishers were suffering mightily and com[paling about the heat. We said bah, this is a lovely day in May. We will tell you when it gets hot.
However, I think some of their problems with warm weather are self inflicted. They simply do not have enough ice around with which to make cold drinks. And, what is worse, warm beer.
Nothing wrong with relatively warm beer. And most people here don’t complain about the heat when it’s 80f
If you don’t understand what is wrong with warm beer, you will never understand how to cope with warm weather.
Well, we named Florida Florida already so they can’t use that one.
My god, the number of people who die down here every year from the temperature being over 82°F is insane!
Or maybe I’m dividing by zero on that one.
If you really want to scare people, you have to use numbers. BIG numbers.
Forget Celsius. That lowers the figures and aint scary enouhg.
How about this:
82F = 300.0278K
Run about shouting: “It’s over three hundred! We’re all gonna die!”
That should do it…
….it first reaches 82 degrees here around February and doesn’t start regularly dipping below that until November. I guess we’re all dead!
Can we call the first one Idiot’s Delight?
82 F most summers we don’t see it that low for almost four months running, present it 103 F it expected to get down to 87 tonight. If you listen to that idiot they would be no one alive here in the Phoenix metro area. PS we have a large homeless population, the heat kills less of them than the swimming pools kill children down here.
I like it when it is room temperature outside.
🙂
What about the title of the television programme “It ain’t ‘alf ‘ot mum”
The summer of 1976 here in the U.K. would have exhausted three alphabets of names, and we didn’t have rain for the same period. We called it a hot summer, even though it was a heatwave (3 days of temperatures more than a certain threshold, which varies centred round London, 25 degrees Celsius for most counties including Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, 26 degrees for a few counties eg Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, 27 degrees e.g. Leicestershire and 28 degrees for London https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/temperature/heatwave).
And now in this heatwave temps are TEN DEGREES CELSIUS HIGHER than 1976.
You obviously weren’t there. At the beginning of that summer I stopped off in Monkton Wyld on the way home. Had an afternoon sleep because it was so hot. The thermometer showed 110F.
Not true,
The highest temperature recorded in June 1976 was 35.6 C (96.08 F) in Southampton on the 28th.
Whilst 35.9 C, (96.6 F) recorded in Cheltenham, was the highest July temperature that year.
For 15 consecutive days, from June 23 to July 7 in 1976, temperatures reached 32.2 °C (90 °F) somewhere in England.
Therefore recent temperature high was 38.7c in Cambridge (2.8C, not 10C higher), but back then the heat didn’t come from North Africa in a windy southerly flow.
You do of course remember that there was an accompanying drought in the UK. I repeatedly, say that the Minister fro Drought, Mr Lim Howells, said for things tochange it would have to rain between now (Sept?) & November? Well guess what that ghastly creature Mother Nature do to us poor Brits? Yep, it rained almost every day as “demanded” by the Minister for Drought! Iworked at the time as a young draughtsman (draftsman for Colonials), & remember watching the official preview of the film made by the Thames Water Authority as it as then known, showing “gangers” at Locks & Weirs wearing thick Donkey jackets & Wellington boots scarbbling about in the squleching mud, with the narrator saying things like, “& the heat & drought continued”, etc. It was all rather amusing for everyone subjected to the spectacle! 😉 That’s the trouble with making a documentary about a weather event months after it ended! AtB
1976 summer followed a dry 1975 and a winter with low rainfall.
Following the appointment of a Minister for Drought the heavens opened and it kept raining through the following Autumn and Winter. Farmers had a problem cultivating their fields to sow winter wheat.
A similar wet period occurred in Winter/Spring 1983 when it was so wet farmers were unable to turn their cattle out until late June and grass dilate was cut two months late with a resulting low quality.
This had a spin-off effect with milk quotas introduced in 1984 being based on 1983 milk production, which was much reduced due to the poor quality feed in 1983.
During the heatwave in 1976 the old timers were all saying that 1926 was much hotter and drier.
@John Collis No. The Met Office is not a reliable source.
A British heatwave was when the max temperature was above 30 degC, as indicated by the newspaper headline “Phew, what a scorcher!”
32° ? I use to live in Thailand in wintertime, theres a steady heatwave from 30 to 36 °C all the time :))
How about calling them B000001, B000002 etc. B for bollocks and numbering ad infinitum.
Well lets see: this week saw western Europe’s second heatwave of the summer…
New high temp records in Netherlands and Germany (twice… new higher record on a second day), Belgium and provisionally the UK… new record for Paris.
We are talking 38C in the UK rather than a more usual 25C… 30C would definitely be a UK heatwave.
this is way beyond any definition of normal.
What in hell is your point, if you have one? Other parts of the world are very cool this summer, e.g. Alberta, home of “dirty oil.” Should we draw a correlation between increased use of wind power and hotter summers?
Suck it up, princess! Adapt, move, or die!
What you and everyone in the alarmist camp have failed to understand (because you’ve been *instructed* to fail) is that there is no such thing as normal and never has been. “Normal“ is a construct of warmist doctrine, period, end of story.
Honestly, try to do some thinking of your own.
@Griff Bullshit.
Only one area in SE England reached 37c or more and the last time it reached 38c was back in August 2003. Western Europe’s two heatwaves have only just breached the threshold in duration for being classed as an heatwave. In a period of 16 years the record has been beaten by 0.2c, not scary at all really or unexpected.
The definition of normal for the UK is usually the average mixture of Atlantic driven weather and continental type weather with high pressure. Either of these are normal, but an average temperature of these isn’t and hot air direct from North Africa is rare indeed. With it occurring rarely some places were always at the risk of record temperatures. The year 2003 was also the last time in summer the heat had moved north from North Africa, although back then it took longer (about 5 days) to reach the UK. A difference being it moved slowly less North over the UK and mainly hit the SE for a time while Atlantic systems were approaching from the west giving much cooler weather for others.
The source of where the heat come from was not beyond definition of normal as it regularly has temperatures very high there at this time of year.
The Brits I worked with in Oman would leave 28 degC heat wave conditions in England and land in +50 degC in Oman and, would you believe it, they all lived. We never had a heat induced lost time injury. The dumb$hits at the Met need to get out more. 28 degC heatwaves- spare us the drama
I find the medicine worse than the malady.
John Fletcher
“which are becoming more frequent due to climate change”
Repeat, repeat, repeat and repeat ad infinitum until it is firmly fixed in the public psyche.
Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth
You just know the lunatics have taken over the asylum when one of them proposes naming nice summer days that allow ice cream sales to take place in the UK.
Today in the UK we are back in long trousers (unless you are a postman/woman) because the very pleasant summer weather over the past week, has come to its normal end.
Summer 1976 was the warmest summer for England since 1910, and was during a cold AMO phase. It occurred on the same type of configuration of the inner three gas giants as the 1934, 1949, 2003, and 2017 heatwaves.
Warmist? You mean hottest. I was a student that year and the summer holiday was extraordinary. I swam in the sea everyday, sometimes twice; helped where possible fire beating as large forest fires raged through the New Forest almost daily; only wore shorts for about a month; slept with sheet only (or not) for about a month; A friend recalled how his shoes melted into the pavement on Westminster Bridge; the Thames almost dried up.
The more people spend time indoors and not interacting with the outside world the less they understand it. In addition the ability to quantify danger gets worse and less reliable.
I was also a student then in Farnborough Hampshire, and remember the huge fires on Surrey Heath very well.
1st July 1913: Men cover their heads with newspapers to protect them from the summer sun. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/07/26/englands-record-heatwave-in-1911/
“When New England was experiencing arguably its worst heatwave on record in July 1911, Old England was having an equally remarkable one of its own. Official figures show it was the second hottest summer on record, beaten only by the even more exceptional summer of 1976.”
100F was recorded at Greenwich
In Australia we already have names for weather events over 28C, in the southern states we call them January, February and March. In the northern states they are called October, November, December, January, February, March and April.
For humans, 40 degrees C is a nice temperature if you are naked and out of the sun. 20 degrees C in the shade will kill you if you are naked.
Absolutely correct, humans evolved on the open plains of sub Saharan Africa where 40C is typical. I have spent a lot of time working in north western Australia where everyday is 37-40C and after you acclimatise it is comfortable and feels natural. You have to drink a lot and protecting yourself from the sun is sensible but not as urgent a it is in the cooler south where the atmosphere is thinner.
It’s official. Climate science is trying to destroy humanity, making them into whiney wimps incapable of dealing with life. 82F???? I am heat sensitive and can still play outside at that temperature. How terribly idiotic can they get?
Naming heat waves is as useless as naming winter storms. Really, I can’t tell you what name was given to one winter storm since they started. I can sometimes remember hurricanes. Why don’t we name tornados? Sure, they are short-lived, but they are violent. How about floods??? They can last a long time. Name the floods. And droughts. Let’s just go completely insane with this. It’s obvious those climate people and journalists honestly think any of us know or care about their name on a byline and believe names have magical powers. What an arrogant uneducated out-of-touch group of humans we are dealing with here. They are far more of a threat to our future than any heat wave, climate change, etc.
82F… sounds like a nice day for a barbecue.
Heat waves are caused by weather and not climate. There are some places where greater than 82 degrees F heat waves occur most of the year. Maybe in naming every time the temperature gets to be 82 degrees F they should name every time the temperature drops below 62 as a cold spell. They should also name every precipitation event and every event where there is no precipitation for at least 7 days as drought events. They should probably give all of these events numbers. They should also name wind events, lack of wind events, Fog events, overcast events, and lack of overcast events as well.
I agree with giving heatwave names, and so I suggest we name the first one as Bob Ward 1, and the second one as Bob Ward 2, and the third one as Bob Ward 3, and the forth one as Bob Ward 4, and the fifth one as Bob Ward 5, and the sixth one as Bob Ward 6, and the seventh one as Bob Ward 7, and the eighth one as Bob Ward 8, and the ninth one as Bob Ward 9, and the tenth one as Bob Ward 10, and the eleventh one as Bob Ward 11, and the twelfth one as Bob Ward 12, and the thirteenth one as Bob Ward 13, and the fourteenth one as Bob Ward 14, and the fifteenth one as Bob Ward 15, an the sixteenth one as Bob Ward 16, and the seventeenth one as Bob Ward 17, and the eighteenth one as Bob Ward 18, and the nineteenth one as Bob Ward 19, and the twentieth one as Bob Ward 20, and the twenty-first one as Bob Ward 21, and the twenty-second one as Bob Ward 22, and the twenty-third one as Bob Ward 23, and the twenty-forth one as Bob Ward 24, and twenty-fifth one as Bob Ward 25, and the twenty-sixth one as Bob Ward 26, and the twenty-seventh one as Bob Ward 27, and the twenty-eighth one as Bob Ward 28, and the twenty-ninth one as Bob Ward 29, and the thirtieth one as Bob Ward 30, and the thirty-first one … … … … …
Where I live, we’ll get up to Bob Ward 101 this summer alone. We only get a week or two worth of 100 degree days at most, but a high temp of 82 sounds like nirvana to me.
There’s however average temperature.
So naturally, nature too is working on temperatures below, and on temperatures above average.
The respective names are
– coldspell and
– heatwave.
What am I missing.
Just for the sake of honesty, we did have a highly unusual high pressure area settle over south central Alaska in May and June, and in the stagnant air and very long days temperatures climbed to the high 80s for several days. I didn’t like it one bit. I found a couple of people that last remembered something like this happening in 1969. Everyone I spoke to took it in stride, suffered through it, and was very happy when the temps finally went back down to the 50s in July. One professor at the University of Alaska immediately blamed the heat on climate change of course, and was widely quoted by the press, but I didn’t find one normal person who actually shared that viewpoint. Having said that, I will be very happy if I don’t see such heat again for a few decades.