Combining two posts from Paul Homewood’s site into one post here.
Floods & Tornadoes in 1954
From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t John Hughes
Did climate change cause the floods in 1954?
What Caused Severe Floods In The 1950s, Sky News?
From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Sky think that climate change is making floods worse.
Maybe they might like to explain why flooding was so bad in the 1950s:
A trawl through the Met Office monthly weather reports of the time finds these references to severe floods:
- Feb 1950 – Considerable flooding in some districts.
- Nov 1951 – Severe flooding in many parts of the country
- Aug 1952 – Lynmouth floods
- Nov 1952 – Serious flooding in Sussex
- Jan 1953 – The Great North Sea floods
- May 1953 – Severe storms brought heavy rain and floods, particularly in West Scotland causing “much damage”
- June 1953 – Severe thunderstorms brought “exceptionally heavy rain” causing “severe flooding and considerable damage”
- July 1953 –Widespread thunderstorms seriously affected crops in West Midlands and Central Scotland, with local damage due to lightning and floods, with some loss of life.
- Aug 1954 – Considerable flooding in some areas
- Oct 1954 – Severe flooding in NW England, N Wales and S Scotland
- Nov 1954 – Serious floods in many parts of the country
- March 1955- Serious floods in the Midlands
- July 1955 – Record daily rainfall in Dorset led to severe flooding there. (279mm at Martinstown is still the highest daily total for any station in the UK)
- Aug 1956 – Widespread flooding
- Oct 1957 – Floods in Wales and NW England, with 12.71 inch of rain recorded at Blaenau Ffestiniog in a four-day spell.
- Nov 1957 – Torrential rain led to floods in many areas, particularly the Midlands
- Sep 1958 – Widespread flooding in Wales
These are just the major flood events. There would be many more minor ones which never got a mention in the monthly summaries.
It was the storminess of the 50s and early 60s that got me interested in weather and climate. The media blamed nuclear testing but in the end I put it down to a more equatorward and wavy jet stream bringing storm tracks across the U.K. in summer instead of between Scotland and Iceland. Looks rather like that again these days.
Any chance that you can do a chart so that we can see what it does look like? If you can get some nice big bright red patches near the word ‘Climate’, Nature would publish it (for a few $000) otherwise maybe try an article for WUWT??? Seriously, I really would like to see your jet stream hypothesis in more detail, and WUWT could be the place to air it.
It has been mentioned here and elsewhere regularly since about 2007.Anthony has already published several articles by me centred around a natural solar induced jet stream variability
Excellent work! Keep it up.
I’ve found https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/06/a-new-and-effective-climate-model/
Any more?
Why only go back to 1950? What about this one? https://www.aytonhistory.com/the-1948-flood – the East Coast Main Line was closed for months…
The intro to the film is a bit tedious so best to start at 3m 00s.
Whenever the subject of British storms arises, I always reference the biggie which was the Great Storm of 1703….
Great storm of 1703 – Wikipedia
“The great storm of 1703 was a destructive extratropical cyclone that struck central and southern England on 26 November 1703. High winds caused 2,000 chimney stacks to collapse in London and damaged the New Forest, which lost 4,000 oaks. Ships were blown hundreds of miles off-course, and over 1,000 sea men died on the Goodwin Sands alone. News bulletins of casualties and damage were sold all over England – a novelty at that time.
……
……
“Contemporary observers recorded barometric readings as low as 973 millibars (measured by William Derham in south Essex),[1] but it has been suggested that the storm deepened to 950 millibars over the Midlands.[2]“
…..
“In London alone, approximately 2,000 massive chimney stacks were blown down. The lead roofing was blown off Westminster Abbey and Queen Anne had to shelter in a cellar at St James’s Palace to avoid collapsing chimneys and part of the roof. On the Thames, some 700 ships were heaped together in the Pool of London, the section downstream from London Bridge. Huge waves on the Thames river sent water 6 feet higher than had ever been recorded in London, destroying more than 5,000 homes along the river.[4] HMS Vanguard was wrecked at Chatham. Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell‘s HMS Association was blown from Harwich to Gothenburg in Sweden before way could be made back to England.[5] Pinnacles were blown from the top of King’s College Chapel, in Cambridge.”
*************
Climate alarmists would have conniptions if the Great 1703 storm happened today.
People have zero grasp of history, they just go blank looking at anything prior to 2016. I just saw a video yesterday where some guy was saying that conditions are worse and it’s harder in the US than “in the country’s entire history”.
Absolutely clueless. And this appears to be pervasive.
Conniptions? More like orgasms.
Turbo Jets vs Turbo Fans, leaded vs unleaded gasoline, etc..
There was a night and day difference between air quality (opacity) from then to now.
I wonder how many B-52 flights alone, per day on average happened during the 60’s.
I’ve seen your previous post “November 1951–Catastrophic Floods Hit France & Italy”.
In Italy the flood of the Po Valley (alluvione dle Polesine) of november 1951 was preceeded in october by a strong flood in Sardinia that hit the village of Sicca d’Erba with 1500 mm of rainfall in 3 days (the quantiy of rain that normally falls in 3 years). The village was abandoned after this event and never settled.
More details are available here:
https://www.openstarts.units.it/server/api/core/bitstreams/c1552a52-2667-4dad-9303-cfc68d32dbc0/content
To be fair, the article says, “Storm Babet has battered areas that are more usually sheltered from storms at this time of the year.”
The areas which were most affected by Storm Babet were on the east side of the country. So to prove the statement wrong you would have to provide numerous examples of flooding on the eastern side of the country in October. Many of the examples in the WUWT article refer to western parts of the country. Others are vague (‘some districts’, ‘many parts of the country’) and might include eastern parts of the country but might not. Two refer to ‘the Midlands’. Which might include the East Midlands but could only refer to the West Midlands. Also, many examples given were not “at this time of the year”.
That doesn’t mean that Storm Babet was caused by “climate change” but this article cannot be used to disprove it.
A storm is…. weather
Actually the East Midlands didn’t exist as such in the 1950’s. It’s actually an artificial construct based on television transmitters. The BBC decided that those in the East of the region could have their own news programmes. What constitutes the East Midlands is very arbitrary. For example Derbyshire is East Midlands despite it extending further West than parts of Staffordshire,(the borough of East Staffordshire)which it meets on the West, which is considered to be West Midlands. Leicestershire is East Midlands, but extends slightly west of Warwickshire which is West Midlands.
That is not on the west of the country. Not unless the North Sea has flooded a very long way.
Of course, you are actually repeating the laughable excuse of Thérèse Coffey MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs .
She was challenged over the effects of austerity putting the flood defence building programme behind by years and her answer was that the rain came from the east, which was unexpected.
As though rivers only catch water from one side.
Only if you believe that storm fronts are linear and only ever blow from one direction.
And Rising tides Might be increasing or might not
And melting polar ice map might be increasing or might not
And Political idiocy Might be increasing or it Might be dramatically increasing
Very true!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_storm_of_1987
The October 1987 storm was predicted to bring flooding rains but just brought severe winds. It struck south and west England. Not exactly like Babet. Must be climate change.
THe following quote highlights why rare events can be described as “unprecedented”
I think that the BBC should be using this style of reporting for their weather reporting. I might start watching them again if they did.
“”What Caused Severe Floods in the 1950s””
Like everything else good weather was rationed….
Here is an interesting comment from Paul Homewood’s website:
An excellent centralised resource for extreme hydrological events is maintained by the British Hydrological Society here https://cbhe.hydrology.org.uk/ The statistical analysis of extremes – floods and droughts – was my life through most of my career at the Institute of Hydrology in Wallingford. They, like all others collated by the IPCC, fail to find any hint of a climate-driven trend in either the magnitude or the frequency of flood events (characterised respectively by the instantaneous peak river discharge and the annual number of events exceeding a fixed threshold). (my emphasis)
Go to the link given in the article above and read the rest.
I come from Burton on Trent in East Staffordshire. When I was a child in the 1960’s the Trent valley regularly flooded, reaching at times the pedestrian viaduct bridge that stretched from near where I lived to the town centre. I vaguely remember flooding in the brewery rail yards adjacent to the river.
Storm Babet hit 3 particular areas of the UK = places that are usually ‘sheltered’ and historically are very unlikely places for such events.
I took note because I am bang-dead-centre of one and have just moved away from another.
This was pointed out very vividly/clearly and recently by BBC but I can’t find the page now. sigh
Those places were/are
What Babet did was to deliver a Pineapple Express to each those 3 places.
Why did she do that: Ans: Because Hot Air Balloons are – warm water vapour balloons
Explain: It is becasue those 3 areas are extremely productive and intensively farmed areas of the UK and – Babet started to make her move way back in July.
July: Farmers harvested large areas of winter barley crops, leaving large areas of dark coloured ground behind
August: Farmers harvested even larger areas of winter wheat, leaving even greater amounts of bare, dark-coloured soil behind.
September: Because August was ‘a bit grim’ the farmers continued their wheat harvest while commencing their potato harvest. All three places.
Simultaneously, they started ploughing and tilling the wheat/barley stubble for next years crops of winter wheat/barley.
October: Potato harvesting continued then the sugar beet harvest started. Also, large areas of Maize got the chop, either for winter fodder (for cows) of to feed the ever growing number of digesters
Those actions created huuuuge ares of dark-coloured (low Albedo) ground which warmed up under what sun there was and also got wet via what rain there was (August)
Then from end-Sept to now, almost all that ground was being tilled – directly to plant winter wheat but indirectly via the harvesting of sugar-beet and potatoes
If anything, the rain in August was the killer here – it ‘loaded the gun’
That tillage of all that warm damp ground created an unimaginable bubble of warm moist air, which rose up into the sky, made clouds and caused rain.
Meanwhile, Europe had been very hot and dry all year
i.e. Europe was under the descending leg of a huge Hadley cell
Then in Sept to now, UK farmers provided 3 separate ascending legs via the ploughing and harvesting activities
The Sept tillage and Oct harvesting ‘pulled the trigger’
It was a match made in heaven, the warm moist air of UK boiled up, made clouds & rain then cooled AND THEN was given a perfect place (Europe) to come back down again
The loop became self reinforcing.
Europe started providing UK with hot dry air which picked up moisture off the farmlands, rose, rained, then returned (at 5,000+metres) to Europe.
Where upon it descended and (Foehn Effect/Lapse Rate) heated as it fell – reinforcing Europe’s heatwave which reinforced the surface flow back to UK – picking up more moisture off the Channel and North Sea and making more rain on the 3 affected places
Then in floated Babet, an otherwise feckless and sprawling feature (just like Sandy was)
The great thing about Babet was that she broke up, and sent anticyclonic sytems to both Scotland and The Midlands
(Another chunk of Babet sank into the Bay of Bicay and gave the French a deluge or two also. They named her ‘Aline’)
The truly great thing about Babet was that she ‘brought a bottle’ to the party – she introduced moist air she’d picked up off the Atlantic and also the North Sea
For the ascending legs of the Hadleys Cells, (Scotland, Midland, Anglia) this was ‘petrol on a bonfire’ – the whole system went into overdrive and the rest is history.
But you do understand what I’m saying – the coincidence of Babet and what the farmers were doing is JUST too big too ignore – likewise the really simple and basic thermodynamics.
Once you realise that your kindergarten teacher lied about how hot air balloons work.
I ingored a lot of the spelling lessons salo – I was too busy watching what the farmers were doing.
<rank the importance>
deedin oyu did
Funny how Homewood usually likes to show graphs to claim there has been no trend. But here it’s just a load of anecdotes.
Here is the annual UK rainfall. Definitely seems there is on the whole more rain recently compared to the 1950s.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-temperature-rainfall-and-sunshine-time-series
That graph shows a flat line or slight decline in extreme events.
As expected by the IPCC who see no sign of an increase in rainfall and no expectation that there will be any this century except under ludicrous RCP 8.5 scenarios.
.
See IPCC AR6 WG1 Table 12.12 on page1856 (PDF page 1873).
Well according to that graph the incidence of heavy rain has increased. Taking the incidences of heavy annual rainfall above 1250mm:
1871,1877,1882, 1903, 1954 then
1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2020
You can;t really see the number of extreme events looking at annual totals. My point was simply that there does appear to be more rain in total in recent years compared to the 1950s.
Not a very rigorous test, but I wondered how the wettest monthly totals compared. Looking at the top 10 wettest years for each month, only 4 occurred during the 1950s. By contrast 14 have occurred in the last 10 years – and that’s not including this October.
You keep quoting an organisation that lost its credibility a long time ago. I presume you value your credibility in similar fashion.
“Definitely seems there is on the whole more rain recently compared to the 1950s.”
rain is a good thing
drainage systems and wetlands can be intelligently managed to avoid problems and make use of all that nice H2O
Only if you’re obsessed with finding short duration trends where none actually exist. The UK rainfall is still well within average bounds, no extreme drought, no extreme rainfall.
Wait a minute!
I thought global warming was going to inflict unending DROUGHTS on us.
What’s this “more rain” malarkey?
Or maybe we’re getting rainier droughts?
I never thought of that before.
Wot a silly bunt . . .
I have a book called “Outrageous Waves” by Basil E Cracknell.
It chronicles storms around the coast of the UK for over a thousand years and the many dire results. If I tried to list them all it would take me hours and you would be likely to fall asleep reading it.
“What Caused Severe Floods in the 1950ss”
Rain, like every day for billions of years. Nothing to see here folks. 🙂
In the Severn valley one reason was the replacement of natural oak/ash forests with commercial pine plantations. Building new dams in the Welsh hills helped alleviate things in the 60s and beyond (Clywedog and Claerwen).
Obviously the 50s were just the warm up for the real dooming-
Alarming report that life on earth in danger | Watch (msn.com)
As you were. The internet is being shut down to avoid premature dooming. Keep calm for the sake of the kiddies with stiff upper lip and may your God walk with you when the dooming is upon you.
Oh the humanity, oh the horror! Oh look – more grant money!
Very generally: during a warm spike the atmosphere is soaking up moisture, like a sponge. it makes for relatively mild storm events. Quite stabilizing. It is on the descending, downwards part after a spike that excess moisture is squeezed out. Quite strong gradients and weather extremes are to be expected during the dip. The wringing out of the air creating also large vacuums of pressure. Absolute temperature anomalies appear irrelevant, it is the relative magnitude of variations. I suppose it’s why, generally speaking, damages are worse during las ninas.
Living on a canal in NY, I’ve been through several floods in my day. They’ve certainly given us an opportunity to pause and reflect on the things that truly mater in life.
That canal isn’t very deep.
Often it comes down to two things. First population expansion followed by flood control. Example is early part of the twentieth century, downtown Anaheim California had a flood feet deep in places. It was never noticed before as prior to that Anaheim was a farming community. To solve the problem, they placed a dam on the Santa Anna river that functioned well until the end of the Twentieth century. Then another heavy storm hit that almost topped the dam so they added some height to the dam, opened the spillways and enlarged the channel carrying water away from the dam. Getting it right isn’t easy when you deal with 100 year and 500 year events. You don’t get them often enough to know what you’re dealing with and you don’t want to invest money into something you will never use.
But this time it’s different. “Extreme” back then wasn’t as extreme as it is now, or will be in the future.