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

Back in the 70s the water boards fixed leaks quickly. Now unless it's pushing up tarmac flooding a building it's left.

Depends on your water board - Seven Trent who we used to have were always slow if they bothered at all and expensive - here welsh water were great.

We had a leak coming into our land from the road test only trace amounts of chlorine and couldn't fine leak - thought oh right last we'll see of them - no next day more men and equipment they traced it back to the big road junction at top of the hill junction - there's about 5 houses between that and us so fair way- dug road up fixed it straight and thanked us for letting them know.

Welsh water not-for-profit organisation and I have to say they've been good - we weren't just lucky many people say there out quick once leaks are reported.

That's OK, I just think it is dangerous to forget the lessons we learned, well half learned, back then, although I'm less up for sharing a bath than I was back then!

The waste of water is scary and yes to thinking about planting, those sprinklers annoy me. I said to someone that they won't be able to do it soon as we will have hosepipe bans and they said it was their right, they pay for the water so they can waste it if they want to. Beyond belief isn't it.

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.

This is interesting. . I wonder if its true that 1976 was the start of climate change. Certainly Al Gore was warning the world about it in 2006 with his film 'An inconvenient truth '. But this was 30 years before this. I remember my DM talking about the drought of 1976. I was too young to remember it but do remember using bath water to water the garden in other dry summers.

I do remember talk of climate change and the dangers back in the 1970s, I think the main worry then was the ozone layer. Then 1975/76 made us think some more. The depletion of the ozone layer was definitely raised in the 70s and I think that was the start of thinking about it. The Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer was signed in the 80s but I can't remember the actual date.

Having said that the 70s were a worrying time, the worries about nuclear war, overpopulations, a new ice age, the ozone layer and that's before we start on inflation, unemployment and interest rates. Of course the conflicting worries about the new ice age and global warming were a bit confusing.

Climate change probably started around the industrial revolution, but even in the 1930s it was thought that carbon dioxide increases could be causing global warming. There was some wobbling around wondering whether aerosols could cause global cooling before consensus merged around global warming. In 1975 and 76 research really raised alarm bells about methane and ozone too.

If you want a brief history then history.aip.org/climate/timeline.htm makes for a good read.

Thanks @OhYouBadBadKitten I didn't think I was dreaming, definitely remember it being talked about in the 70s, I think I remember the ozone layer being discussed in the 60s. In the 50s I was to busy out playing.

Fire Brigades across the country are calling for a ban on disposable BBQs in areas vulnerable to wildfires as temperatures in SE are due to rise and no rain forecast for forseeable future.

" Disposable BBQs continue to retain heat after use, causing fires. We want them taken off shelves to help prevent widespread blazes like we saw last week" t.co/fY1Ke0hqjW t.co/kpTutpgEs4

You've got a splendid memory for dates and details @ancientgran

I'd hoped that there would be some reasonable rain over the south and south east overnight, but this looks less likely now, with parts of the SE perhaps seeing nothing again. Some relief from very dry conditions for others though in the Midlands and perhaps the SW and the northern half of East Anglia.

We had a shower. So little you could count the individual drops on the windows but a little bit of wet.

We have 20% chance of rain overnight. Everything needs it... Have been very abstenious myself despite big garden full of sad (and a few now dead) plants. Sadly neighbours not so much...

We need attitude change. If using excess water was as frowned upon as drink driving...

I just had a shower and was pondering whether to take some small tubs in with me next time to collect a bit of water .

Thank you, I have a reputation for my strange memory. My husband always says, "If you want to know something useless ask Ancient." Harsh but there is an element of truth in there, if only I could remember what I've gone into the shop for that usually clicks just as I've gone through the checkout with £20 worth of stuff I didn't intend to buy.

I'm in the SW and we had rain this afternoon, you could count the rainspots on the windscreen, there were about 20 so it won't have done much good. I do hope we all get some soon.

Just like here, it is like it is teasing us.

Why not? I'm going to give it a try. Have already told kids to run tap into a big plastic jug. Just wish there was an easy way of getting bathwater onto the garden...

Syphon out with a hose pipe?

Only ok when there is no hose pipe ban.

In 1976 my dad used to put it in a bucket and take it outside. We all knew how to carry the bowl out of the backdoor to water the garden.

Our bath water drains down a drainpipe, so we could put a water butt diverter on the downpipe to collect the water if we wanted.
We live in Manchester, and have 3 water butts collecting from small bits of roof, we've never even got halfway down the water butts so are quite a way from needing bath water for garden watering.

I saw a useful suggestion recently - if it takes a while for your hot water to come through (mine does, esp in the kitchen as boiler is upstairs) capture the cold water in clean containers while you’re waiting.

All of our water in the kitchen is being captured and put on the garden.

I did experiment with using a hose pipe from our bath, which is upstairs, years ago when things were very dry, but it was difficult to get it going. I'd have to suck on it, get a mouthful of bath water to get started, then it was fine. My neighbour who observed my slightly mad escapades with interest lent us an old pond pump to pump the water out into waiting water butts. A bit crackers, perhaps, but it did work.

Started doing that this year. I can collect about 4 litres before it's hot!

@OhYouBadBadKitten thinking of the current economic factors affecting us, and how we might be even more affected if there is a hard Winter, do you have any advance predictions for Winter 2022/23?

@Pricklesinperil Im afraid that would be entering crystal ball territory. Long term forecasts rely on various climatological influences. I'd be extremely reluctant to give my thoughts at this point.

OhYouBadBadKitten · Yesterday 22:17

All of our water in the kitchen is being captured and put on the garden.

I did experiment with using a hose pipe from our bath, which is upstairs, years ago when things were very dry, but it was difficult to get it going. I'd have to suck on it, get a mouthful of bath water to get started, then it was fine. My neighbour who observed my slightly mad escapades with interest lent us an old pond pump to pump the water out into waiting water butts. A bit crackers, perhaps, but it did work.

I remember Christine did this trick on 'Christine's Garden'. Her face when she was sucking the pipe and the bath water went into her mouth! It looked like she'd added a heavy dose to the bath of dish water coloured milk so no wonder!!

Whenever a volcano blows all bets are off