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

That must have been a terrribly panicky feeling @AwlAtSea

The World Weather Attribution group have performed a rapid analysis of the likelihood of the intensity of the heatwave being attributable to climate change. They concluded that climate change made the event at least ten times more likely and that at at two out of the three of the stations they analysed, in a 1.2c cooler world, those temperatures would have been statistically impossible.

www.worldweatherattribution.org/without-human-caused-climate-change-temperatures-of-40c-in-the-uk-would-have-been-extremely-unlikely/

Looking ahead, I'm keeping an eye on the week of the 8th where GFS currently shows temperatures into the low to mid 30s across a wide part of the south and midlands. A reasonable number of the GEFS ensemble members support this scenario.

Ventusky agrees. The lack of decent rain is worrying

On a different note, there's an article about the trolling of forecasters, meterologists and climate scientists that went on around the time of the extreme heat.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62323048

Of course we saw that on mn too.

I think weather people in the media should stick to reporting the weather forecast and not runinate on climate change. It's not the place to explain

Weather people? Who do you mean by weather people? When and why shouldn't they talk about it? What if they are asked a question about why the heat was so extreme are they allowed to say?

OYBBK that BBC report is just depressing. What is wrong with people?

DON'T LOOK UP!!!

Everywhere is the place to explain – CBeebies, Viz, TikTok, I don’t care who or where but we should all be talking about this, but particularly “weather people”. Weather isn’t climate, but they have friends in common.

I think weather people in the media should stick to reporting the weather forecast and not runinate on climate change. It's not the place to explain

Personally I can't think of better place or people to explain - ie meteorologists the experts in the field of climate, climate changes and how it impacts weather patterns over short and long term explaining to the public why it's happening, how long it could go on for and how longer term this is likely to much more common allowing people to think how to adapt to it.

I think that runs the risk of being that impartiality thing which we seem obsessed with.

For example BBC Bitesize recently got into trouble after they planned some materials on the 'for and against' of climate change! It did get pulled. For and against slavery is another favourite...

Just coming on to say this. We had a massive outbreak of the 1976s/just summer posters.

Presumably some people do not want to acknowledge climate change as they may have to do something or change their lifestyle or are scared or feel guilty.

Some are trolling deliberately to wind people up,

some are trolling for political reasons as seen with other subjects to create political instability and divided nations.

Some trolling for economic reasons.

I'm hoping that justasking can explain their reasons as to why 'weather people' shouldn't mention climate change. I can't think of any at all. The only people who don't want to talk about it or at least have it talked about, as far as I'm aware, are people who don't believe climate change exists, or believe it doesn't matter. I guess there are some who it suits financially to deny its existence.

Cross post @BlackeyedSusan and your response was much clearer and comprehensive than mine.

1976 was different, one of the big issues was we didn't just have a hot 1976 we also had a hot 1975 (which seems to be forgotten) and both were dry so the drought was significant causing hosepipe bans, standpipes in the streets and reports of subsidence from all over the country. I think the hosepipe bans started right at the start of July. I had a toddler and pre schooler at the time and no running water was a real pain.

My big memories are being on holiday at the end of May, the Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday it rained and many people packed up and went home. The sun came out on the Tuesday and it seemed non stop until the start of September after the Minister of Drought was appointed and a friend of mine got married on the first day of heavy rain and it was torrential. I can't remember the minister's name but I do remember the IRA tried to blow him up but it wasn't drought/heat related as it was earlier than that. Of course other parts of the country might have been different to some extent.

So from my memory we have had hotter days in 2022 but in 1976 I think we did have longer stretches of uninterrupted hot weather and the drought was serious well before this stage of July.

So yes 2022 has had hotter days but overall I think 1976 was drier. I must go and look it up as memory isn't always reliable, although I definitely know the standpipes were real. Both were/are much too hot for me and I hate to think of more of this to come.

are you the person that also tells Marcus Rashford to stick to football, Ricky Gervais to stick to comedy? 🙄

Well, the first hosepipe bans are coming in - Isle of Man, Isle of Wight and Hampshire

It's all very well saying 1976 was drier for longer, but it rather misses the point that we don't (and can't) know how long it will stay dry until the dry spell is over. In July 1976, we didn't know at this stage that it was going to last until September

No I don't have a crystal ball so can't say what August will be like. I did go and have a look at the stats and the first six months of 2022 we had 30% more rain than in 1976 so when people dismiss the summer of 1976 as we have had hotter days in 2022 they also have to allow that the drought was worse at this time in 1976 than it is today.

We'd also had almost a month of hosepipe ban at this point in 1976 but the standpipes were the killer for me, I wanted water in the house not in the garden.

My point is the two years are different and it isn't as simple as saying we hit a record temperature on a couple of days in 2022 or we had a worse drought in 1976. I think the pattern is more complicated than that and I think climate change had already started in 1976.

Well there's a first time for everything!

Why are we talking about 1976 again? It was drier than this year and it certainly followed a dry 1975. I'm not sure that water storage is yet the main story of this year. However, in the south plants do look very heat stressed, grass looks scorched and leaves are dropping.

But if you compare the heat anomaly maps for June of both years, you can see how in 1976 the UK stood out as a hot spot, but this June, almost everywhere was abnormally hot. It will be interesting to see how that map evolves when July is analysed.

Im not a climatologist so I can't make any judgment on whether it is at all likely, but let's hope that this year isn't the equivalent of 1975.

God help us if this the equivalent of 1975 but that is a reason to talk and think about 1975/76. We should be conserving water, I see a neighbour who had a new lawn laid a few weeks ago having his sprinkler going for several hours a day. It is madness and if next year is as hot and dry as this year we will all be paying the price for that sort of madness let alone if it is hotter.

I don't know if anyone has managed with standpipes for weeks but it isn't any fun. You can imagine my horror when the water went back on and every house in the street had water except mine, the disruption to supply had caused a blockage and I had another week with a bowser at the end of my drive. We shouldn't have been living like that in the 20th century and I definitely don't want to go through it again in the 21st century. Water is so precious and so much is wasted. I think how we plant gardens is going to need a rethink as we can't afford sprinklers going for 12 hrs a day.

Back in the 70s the water boards fixed leaks quickly. Now unless it's pushing up tarmac flooding a building it's left. Back in the 70s they weren't pulling water out of rivers and streams because underground water is leaking. Our water board staffing levels are basically administration the rest is subcontractors we had a huge leak in the road it took them a year to find it. The repair guys different ones every day came from Liverpool, Rhyl, etc there was no one in charge, they dug many holes over twelve months. One day an old water engineer turned up he found it. They had dug above it, below it and a few feet to the left.

It was very entertaining especially the crew who turned up stoned

As an aside 1976 was the year I discovered shadows move when we sat under a different part of the tree at afternoon break to lunch break!

I think it's interesting that we are looking back to 1976. But not to dismiss climate change or it's only summer way.

Worth comparing statistics, how people were encouraged to save water, if water storage has changed, where it fits in global temperature increases, how 2022 is different. What we can learn from it. ..

I know other posters have mentioned other drought years. Looking at how often they come and in which areas would be interesting.

Comparing the effects of just two days record breaking temperatures on infrastructure may also be interesting as in if only two days causes xyz what will happen if we have longer spells of hot and or dry weather.

There was mention again today about no rain for the South East.

Apologies @ancientgran Ive had so many people invoke 1976 as the holy grail of heat that nothing could ever again compare to, so I'm a little bit over sensitive when it is mentioned.

Your experiences are really useful to read. It would be a nightmare to go back to standpipes. We are going to have to rethink planting. I'm not sure what works both with sudden floods and extreme drought.
I only hope that people don't feel inspired to buy plastic lawns as a result of seeing their grass turn brown.