We need to talk about the weather and the potential for extreme heat - RED WARNING issued

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

So we need to talk weather and climate.

You might have seen some lurid headlines about extreme temperatures in 10 days time. These are based on some of the ensemble members of the GFS model runs.

GFS is one weather model. It runs 4 times a day. Each run consists of several parallel versions running with slightly different starting conditions (perturbations).

For several days now some of these have been showing widespread temperatures of 41C. We've never seen temperatures modelled above 40C for the UK before. The UK record for the actual temperature is 38.7c .

A big big however though! Most of the ensemble members are showing temperatures rather lower than this - low to mid 30's c. so at the moment these extreme temperatures remain unlikely. Not impossible though.

From a climate point of view, we have, in my opinion reached a tipping point where such extremes are now theoretically possible in our local climate. This is extremely alarming. I know the world and our country are full of alarming issues, this is one of them.

I'll keep this thread updated over the next few days.

Thread title edited by MNHQ on OP's request

I've been tracking the lightning map yesterday's petered out before reaching us. Will watch again today

totally sympathise. Your and pp concerns were entirely valid. The level 4 warning was necessary. Too many people have their head in the sand and I suspect the heat has made me loose patience with most of them.

Unless we get some decent rain, and soon, there will be more fires.

And yes, lots of the tips shared helped lots of people. I shared the close windows one to my geography graduate peers who didn't know about it (?!?!?) two explicitly messaged me yesterday to say thanks, it really helped.

Coming to our outlook, generally, after today for the southern half of England and much for the Midlands, dry. Sunday could see a renewed blast of heat, but nothing as exceptional as the past couple of days and after that generally above average temperatures.

Alarmingly (this is absolutely not a forecast) for the second time ever, one of the GEFS ensemble members showed temperatures of around 40c at the end of the model run. There is absolutely no model support from any other model and this is, I stress, extremely unlikely to verify. I mention this at this point for two reasons 1) It shows that climatologically these past two days were not just a one off statistical fluke and 2) There are likely to be some alarmed/alarmist discussions around this on forums, so I wanted to put it into perspective.

Thank you so much for your wisdom and advice on these threads @OhYouBadBadKitten . You put so much time and energy into your information.
it is very much appreciated. Thank you.🌺🌺🌺🌺

@OhYouBadBadKitten what day is the end of the model run?!

The advice I learned back in the day to keep a home warm cool is irrelevant because we didn't have the insulation when the wind blew our carpets rippled our open fires flared up. To prevent draughts you put curtains over doors in the winter. In the summer you followed the sun round opening and closing windows doors. Homes were draughty

This was around for the 4th/5th August. Thankfully, an extreme outlier. You can see around 38 showing here. Not sure exactly where the 40c location was for.

Yes, it needed fixing (and I've just found this article on why some short-term fixes then needed refixing -- only New Scientist but it'll do:
www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833130-300-2020-in-review-revenge-of-the-y2k-bug-as-lazy-fix-takes-down-software/)

Exactly OYBBK. DS's secondary closed partly because the head didn't want to risk increasing pressure on travel and emergency services. Everyone who could sit tight for 48hrs helped keep our heads above water.

Can I just clarify? This extreme heat will return around the 4th /5th of August? 😳

@ihatethecold It is one model run. If other model runs and other models correlate, then yes there may be more heat around 4th/5th August. At the moment though that is not by any means certain. Looking at that chart I would say the mean temp is around 25 degrees. So maybe we will get 25-30 range.

Wait for model runs nearer the date.

No, I'm saying it almost certainly won't, but that there will be chatter on the forums about this one outlier member (out of 30 members) which has shown ridiculous temperatures again.

So I'm saying the opposite at the moment really as I know lots of people pick up their weather from various forums and it can be hard to sort out who/what needs to be listened to and what can be discarded.

But what I was also flagging is that from a weather modelling point of view, this shows we can't say that the incredible heat was a one off fluke as models can still model it. I hope that makes sense, I am flagging today!

41 houses destroyed in London alone. About 10 county's fire brigades declared major incidents. Awful, massive impact across the UK.

Major hospital in London - Guy's - had the I T back up air con fail yesterday and outpatient appointments had to be cancelled .Still difficulties today .

Don't know how many depts affected . Heat knocking out computerised systems is a real worry .I know in this case it was the back up system that failed but that wouldn't have been called upon if the heat hadn't overwhelmed the primary system...

When I say outpatients appointments I'm talking about radiology for cancer .

Thanks for clearing that up. I was worried due to an event that’s coming up that I wouldn’t want to cancel.

Another one that wants to say a big thank you to you @OhYouBadBadKitten Like PPs, I've been here yonks and especially remember that Christmas snow thread! Whenever we have storm/snow warnings etc here, DH always says "What does BadKitten say?"

I'm always grateful for your threads, and some of these posts on this (and the other) thread are from posters who have made twats of themselves for either having a sneery tone towards you, or denying/minimising the actual issue. It's not just disrespectful considering all the effort you have put in over the years, but it's also displaying their ignorance with the "oh but we've dealt with it before/oh but 1976/oh but it won't affect people who are fit and well/oh but it's two days get over it" etc.

The fires and the infrastructure issues show this isn't an issue to be minimised. On a personal level, I have normally controlled epilepsy but had a seizure yesterday due to the heat, despite all my best efforts. If it hadn't been for all the tips and advice (curtains etc) on this thread it probably would have been a lot worse. And it's the knock on effects, not just for me but it involves paramedics/hospital staff/x ray depts/hospital bed, DH having to take a day off work so there's a company missing a staff member with no notice...And I'm just one person causing all that! It's not just "it's going to be 40 degrees" it's the "it's going to be 40 degrees and there are consequences"

I only posted to say thank you but it turned into a bit of an essay

Thank you BadKitten, you are appreciated.

Had a fright today. Children were playing in the churchyard. This church is enclosed by ancient stone walls covered with ivy. On the far side is the high street lots of shops the buildings going back a few hundred years so stone and timber, many are listed.

These children had sparklers. Sparks hit the ivy and started a fire. The fire engines came and police access is a problem. They did put the fire out successfully . Made my blood run cold

That is frightening. I purposely did not take our Kelly kettle to the woods yesterday, even though it's mostly just trees and next to a stream. Too dodgy. Also not had a BbQ or firepit, as I don't want sparks igniting neighbours gardens. Amazingly, no one else in the street has, either.
Someone up the road had a garden fire (bonfire too close to their hedge) a few years ago and it was quite scary, seeing tall flames a few gardens away.

@Epilepsy I'm really sorry to hear that you had a rotten day yesterday, I hope you aren't feeling too bad today. It's really kind of you to say those lovely things. I do feel appreciated

To others, I do get that I'm just another random person on the internet with an opinion and lots of people it seems react very viscerally to opinions nowadays. They don't seem to be able to discern what might be true and what might be crap.

But, if they aren't sure, then a hint to them: if the experts like the Met Office, or the NHS or whoever are giving out official warnings or advice, then those are the ones you listen to first. Of course sometimes they may be wrong, but they are very less likely to be wrong with all their research, investment and expertise than someone who who read some stuff on the internet. Then see if other people giving out opinions chime with those or not. I do recognise the irony of that paragraph given now much I wobble on with my own opinion on weather matters.

Unfortunately, sometimes the impacts of weather can be dangerous. There is no sugar coating that or jollying it along, or pretending that it will always be fine if we are just 'sensible' and put our hats on and walk in the shade.

@justasking111 That is terrifying. Is children playing with sparklers a new 'thing' at the moment, or is it something that passed me by?

OYBBK, so true - people seem to be so willing to take as gospel some tripe spouted by an anonymous entity on the internet ( and yes, I recognise the irony writing that on an anonymous internet forum). It beggars belief that huge numbers of people will follow the drivel of QAnon and their ilk, not knowing who is behind it, what their background, intentions etc are, but ignore advice given by known people and organisations with years of proven experience, knowledge and expertise.

This is a lovely post. I lurk on this board a fair bit, but rarely post. It’s definitely been a help to me with tips here and there plus, obviously, the advance heads-up re weather.

As far as I can see, there was none of the [insert various sneery/derogatory/mocking terminology] used on the various threads. Just advice, precautions and the odd reassurance needed.

Thank you OYBBK.

Thank you so much OYBBK, I've been on here for 18 years under many different names and love your posts so very much, thank you X

The GEFS ensembles are still playing silly buggers, with one ensemble member out of 30 wanting to bring in temperatures of 40c. It needs to stop trolling us. Most of the other 29 members are behaving quite well.