Remember this on the BBC the other day?

"Children's book inspired by Somerset's 1607 killer wave"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-50642915

"Emma Carroll's book, The Somerset Tsunami, is set during the aftermath of the 1607 flood, which has been described as "the worst natural disaster to hit Britain in historic times".

...Prof Haslett, a professor of physical geography at the University of Wales, and tsunami expert Dr Bryant had investigated the 1607 flood.

"Being geographers, Ted and I were able to study evidence in the landscape as well as historical documents and quickly came to the realisation the 1607 flood may very well have been due to a tsunami and not a storm," Prof Haslett said.

"We began to realise the 1607 flood may have been caused by a tsunami when one of the historical accounts we read stated that the day was 'fayre and brightly spred' and that the wave rushed in faster than a 'greyhound could run'.

"Such descriptions are at odds with a storm, which often floods slowly starting with a thin sheet of water covering the ground and then rising up, rather than travelling as a faster wave like a tsunami.

"As we looked into the coastal landscape around the Bristol Channel other clues supported our theory, such as large boulders that realistically might only be moved by the force of a tsunami."

He said he was "very pleased" their work had inspired the author as it would "continue to broaden the public interest in our theory and widen the educational reach of our academic research to a younger audience"."

So, the long-standing theory that it was a storm surge is now being dumped on the basis that before anthropogenic climate catastrophe, such a storm surge simply couldn't be possible, so it must have been a tsunami wot dun it.

Well, this is indeed a re-writing of history. Paul Simon's book "Since Records Began" offers up the following (I won't put it all in quotes, but everything that follows in this comment is a quote from the book:

Killer Wave

1607

On the morning of 20 January 1607, a great wall of water surged up the Bristol Channel into the Severn Estuary. "Huge and mighty hills of water were seen tumbling over one another to the astonishment and horror of those who saw the spectacle. Many, at first mistaking it for a great mist or fog, did not seek to escape, but on its nearer approach, which seemed faster than the birds could fly, they saw that it was the violence of the waters which had broken bounds and were pouring in to deluge the whole land."

An area of 200 sq miles across South Wales and Somerset were flooded, some 2,000 people drowned, and at least 30 villages were wiped out....There is speculation that the flood was a tsunami - a giant wave born out of earthquakes or volcanoes. According to a BBC 'Timewatch' programme shown in 2005, a tsunami up to 32ft high swamped the low-lying land around the Severn in South Wales and Somerset. The waters were said to have rushed inland, catching people unawares, advancing at a speed 'faster than a greyhound can run' and reached 25ft high. In the low-lying Somerset levels, it reached 14 milesinland. Experts believe a repeat flood today would cost £13Bn.

The television programme suggested that the tsunami was triggered by an earthquake off southwest Ireland. But oceanographers at the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Liverpool say there is no record of a tsunami anywhere else in striking distance. And parts of eastern England were also flooded around the same time, even though a tsunami from Ireland could not have reached there.

More likely, the disaster was caused by a storm surge riding on an exceptional high tide. A storm's strong winds and low atmospheric pressure can drive a huge mass of water into shallow coastlines. The mean spring tidal range of the Bristol Channel is 40ft, the second highest in the world, making the Bristol Channel and its surrounding regions highly susceptible to flooding. Large parts of the Somerset levels are at or below sea level and these traditional flood plains routinely suffer inundation. The flooding of Somerset and Monmouthshire is well documented.

"But the yeere 1606, the fourth of King James, the ryver of Severn rose upon a sodeyn Tuesday mornyng the 20 of January beyng the full pryme day and hyghest tyde after the change of the moone by reason of myghty strong wynde", wrote John Paul, Vicar of Aldsmondbury. Stow in 1615 recorded that an inundation took place in the East Anglian Fens owing to a violent storm, and that further south in Romney Marsh, Kent the sea came in "so outrageously that it did not seem that the area would ever be reclaimed".

The only authentic historical record of a big tsunami striking Britain was in 1755, when an earthquake off Portugal destroyed Lisbon. Tsunami waves reaching 10ft high hit the south coast of Cornwall, but with no known damage. And even this most extreme seismic event caused waves in southwest England no higher than those experienced during a typical storm surge.

Remember the panic when the dam at Whaley Bridge was weak and heavy rain threatened the possibility of a breach and serious flooding? Remember the usual suspects invoking climate change? The likes of this?:

"Whaley Bridge dam: heed flood defence warning, experts urge
Government told it is not acting quickly enough to upgrade infrastructure"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/02/heed-flood-defence-warning-from-whaley-bridge-dam-scare-experts-urge

"The Whaley Bridge dam scare is a warning of the potentially disastrous consequences of failing to build new infrastructure to cope with the climate emergency, experts have said.

...Bob Ward, a policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said: “This is an example where our infrastructure is not up to scratch and we are not acting quickly enough to upgrade it. It is a warning to Villiers that she has got to put climate resilience at the top of the government’s list.

“It is all very well worrying about Brexit, but without upgrading infrastructure we are going to suffer more and more grave consequences. If you delay on this, all you are doing is setting us up for disaster.”

Ward said the government had been “caught on the hop” by the two wettest winters on record, in 2013 and 2015. In response it promised a flood resilience review, but so far it has examined only river flooding and not the impact of surface water flooding.

In May the Environment Agency said an increase in extreme flooding events could force thousands of people to move away from coastal regions.

Ward said: “We have the flood defence system fit for the climate of the 20th century when we need it fit for the 21st century. We are going to see more record rainfall, more flooding along our coasts and rivers, and we are just not prepared for that.”"

And lots more in similar vein:

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/8xw5qx/whaley-bridge-dam-collapse-toddbrook

"Whaley Bridge: An Ordinary British Town at the Centre of the Climate Crisis
Whaley Bridge in Derbyshire was evacuated last month when a dam wall collapsed following extreme rainfall. As the climate crisis worsens, disasters like this may become the new norm."

http://www.occupy.com/article/whaley-bridge-dam-collapse-brings-climate-change-home-britain

"WHALEY BRIDGE DAM COLLAPSE BRINGS CLIMATE CHANGE HOME TO BRITAIN"

etc, etc, ad nauseam.

Well, a little history might put things into perspective. Below is another extract from "Since Records Began" by Paul Simons. As before, I won't bother with inverted commas, as everything that follows is a direct quote from the book:

Sheffield Dam Burst

1864

In the mid-1800s, Sheffield was a major centre for steel production in the thick of the Industrial Revolution. Huge volumes of water were needed for the booming industry, and Dale Dyke Dam was built a mile long and a quarter mile wide, high on the city's outskirts. By February 1864 the dam was completed and a month later it had filled to its maximum water volume.

On 11 March, a storm raged across Sheffield, whipping spray off the reservoir in sheets of water. A workman returning home that evening was shocked to see a large crack on the 100ft high earthen banks of the reservoir. He ran down the valley for the chief engineer, John Gunson, who inspected the dam and thought the crack was merely a surface problem caused by frost damage or settlement of the earth. But he had the presence of mind to order the water level in the reservoir to be lowered immediately using gunpowder to blow open a hole in the side of the dam and drain off water quickly....However, shortly before midnight a new problem appeared, as Gunson felt a violent shaking of the ground. He looked up at the top of the dam and saw 'water running over like a white sheet in the darkness.' Sections later a large section of the dam's mighty banks collapsed and a mountain of water was unleashed onto the Loxley Valley below....Some 700 million gallons tore don into Sheffield in a wall of water over 50ft high....Stone houses were torn from their foundations and swept away, generations of families lost, most people died asleep in their beds.

After about 30 minutes the flood gradually subsided leaving a trail of destruction more than 8 miles long, described as 'looking like a battlefield'. Over 4,000 houses, 106 factories, mills and workshops, 64 other buildings and 20 bridges were completely or partly destroyed. It is estimated that around 240 people were killed in the flood in the biggest dam disaster, and one of the worst man-made disasters of any sort, in British history.

The disaster inquiry concluded that the construction was to blame, and that a small leak in the dam's earthen wall had grown rapidly until the dam failed completely....

The Sheffield dam burst was not an isolated accident. A remarkably similar disaster had struck before, in February 1852, after days of heavy rain swamped the large Bilberry reservoir, which supplied mills along the deep and narrow Holme Valley, Holmfirth....

On February 5, rain fell in torrents all day and by night-time water was seen spilling over the top of the dam. Cracks opened up in the dam's earth embankments before they gave way....The floodwaters swept up rocks and boulders, some reported to be at least 5 tons, and bulldozed through Holmfirth lying miles below. Buildings, bridges and even a graveyard were all torn up and swept away. Next days the hills were scoured so deeply by the floodwaters they 'looked like the bed of a mighty river, with just chimneys left from some of the mills.' Holmfirth and the valley for many miles beyond was a scene of devastation that left 81 people dead.

Government inspectors found that the reservoir was poorly designed and built, but no one was prosecuted...

...in 1872 November, a dam burst in Halifax, killing ten people. And on 2 November 1925, a small dam in north Wales burst after weeks of heavy rain and pulverised the village of Dolgarrog, killing 16 people. Even the village church was swept away, and survivors said they could hear the bell ringing as the church disappeared....

Since the Dolgarrog disaster no more lives have been lost in the UK from a dam burst, but there are fears that a disaster could still occur. Smaller dams and reservoirs under 25,000 cubic metres fall outside the safety legislation. Most of these are over 100 years old, built of earth, and many are built-up areas, so there is potential for another disaster. Asmall reservoir in a quarry near Derby failed, and in June 2005 another small dam failed at Boltby, North Yorkshire, although both caused no significant damage. 'The problem is that legislation is concerned with the volume of reservoirs, rather than the risk they pose,' explains Andrew Hughes of the British Dam Society. 'They're often old, left over from the Industrial Revolution in the Pennines. In my opinion, these dams could put lives at risk, as well as damage buildings.'

[How prescient - remember the book was published in 2008. The issue at Whaley Bridge was there for all to see, but had been ignored. It had nothing to do with climate change, however much the usual group of climate hysterics would have us believe that it did].

".... big tsunami striking Britain was in 1755, when an earthquake off Portugal destroyed Lisbon. Tsunami waves reaching 10ft high hit the south coast of Cornwall, but with no known damage...."

Jan 12, 2020 at 8:31 PM Mark Hodgson

I have no idea how long it would take for a tsunami to travel from Lisbon to Cornwall.

" Storm surges" actually occur whenever there is low pressure, and during high pressure, sea level is depressed. I have been on land and watched sea level rise 4 inches in 10 minutes off a Greek Island. I had no access to a barometer but knew a big storm was coming.

Most changes in sea level due to atmospheric pressure go unnoticed, but recorded, as nothing significant occurs. The exception is at High Tide especially during Spring Tides.

The Canvey Island flooding did coincide with storm surge and Spring Tides and was matched by flooding in Holland.

The possibility that the Lisbon generated tsunami washed up in Cornwall with a 10ft wave without causing any significant damage is entirely plausible unless it was in the hours either side of High Tide.

Tide Tables will note the Highest Astronomical Tide as being the highest when sun, moon, planets are all lined up. The height above HAT that coastal defences are designed to withstand, for storm surges and big waves that result from storms, varies.

Don't forget the Storegga landslides, series of submarine landslides in the Norwegian Sea that occurred between approximately 8,400 and 2,200 years ago. These are recorded as deposits of tsunami waves within coastal sediments from eastern Scotland and indicate tsunamis 3-5 m high. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide

The coastal mudflat sequence in Slapton Lee in South Devon contains a single interval of coarse sand which is totally out of place. This could also record a tsunamite, but could also be the product of a major storm, or even the imbalance caused by the wholesale felling of woodlands for agriculture. I have repeatedly cored this sequence with first-year undergraduates during Easter field camps.

As you might expect, climate change is predicted to produce more Storegga type landslips and tsunami disasters.

Jan 14, 2020 at 8:26 AM AK

Are there modern electronically recorded tsunami events caused by large lumps of the Earth falling into the sea, as opposed to earthquakes beneath the sea?

GC. Storegga slides probably caused by earthquakes.

Do you remember the "Beast from the East"? Do you also remember that, almost amazingly, some people seized on this counter-intuitive event as something to be blamed on climate change? E.g.:

"Beast from the East and climate change"

https://www.vsointernational.org/news/blog/beast-from-the-east-and-climate-change

"The link between climate change and hot weather shocks is clear. But could the Beast from the East and Storm Emma also be a sign of climate change? A little internet digging this morning tells me that may well be the case. Cold snaps like this are not unprecedented in Irish history (the brutal winter of 1962/63 saw 45cm of snow fall on New Year’s Eve) and, while this could be a one-off event, some scientists worry it may indicate a weakening of the polar vortex. The polar vortex is a set of strong winds that act as a buffer around the Arctic Circle, keeping cold air mass in and warm out. Scientist Jeremy Mathis has compared it to the Earth’s refrigerator – “But the door to door to that refrigerator has been left open and the cold is spilling out, cascading throughout the northern hemisphere.” The climate in the Arctic Circle is undoubtedly changing, with temperatures soaring above those in London, Paris and New York at various points over the last couple of weeks alone. This is all very worrying for our beloved planet.

If this is indeed the case, then climate change is not the sole problem of the Global South but something that is affecting, and will continue to affect, each and every one of us. This has already been recognised by cities like San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Cruz and, just last month, New York City who sued five of the world’s largest oil companies for damages related to recent climate change-induced storms. The catastrophic implications for our health, infrastructure and economy go without question. As things come to a complete standstill around the country this week, our inability to deal with these kinds of extreme weather conditions is also obvious. And if we’re being affected in such a negative way, then how are poorer, more marginalised countries expected to cope?"

Or this:

"UK weather latest: climate expert warns of more 'Beasts from the East' and says humans will struggle to produce food and clean water within 50 years"

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/uk-weather-latest-climate-expert-warns-of-more-beast-from-the-east-weather-events-and-says-we-will-a3794066.html

Or this:

"Explainer: The polar vortex, climate change and the ‘Beast from the East’"

https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-polar-vortex-climate-change-and-beast-from-the-east

Perhaps a look at the history books might have helped. What follows is another extract from "Since Records Began" by Paul Simons. I won't put any of it in inverted commas, since everything that follows is a direct quote from the book:

Easter Weather

More and more people are using Easter to flee the UK for warmer climates, and a look back at the past weather records shows this [is]often a good choice. Snow is more likely to fall at Easter than at Christmas, and over the last 50 years snow has fallen on more than a dozen Easters, most recently in 2008. ..

Possibly the most diabolical Easter was in 1908. Because the date of Easter can fall between 22 March and 25 April, the coldest Easters tend to strike in late March, but not always. In 1908, Easter Sunday fell late, on 19 April, so most people expected decent weather. But a snowstorm and hailstorms struck southern Britain, while Scotland and northern England experienced extreme frosts. The Vicar of Hawkedon, near Bury St Edmunds, reported 3 inches of snow on Sunday night and another 4 inches the following morning....

But that Easter storm was only a taste of something worse to come. On 25 April a full-blown blizzard swept England with an even greater fall of snow, piled up to 2ft high in the worst-hit areas of Hampshire and Berkshire. Oxford recorded 18 inches of snow, the heaviest snowfall in the city's history in the 20th century, just as the new summer term began at the university. Even the Scilly Isles and Channel Islands were snowed under. Greenhouses collapsed under the weight of snow, telegraph poles keeled over, and horse-drawn sleighs were used to haul supplies to villages marooned by snow. ...

Easter's reputation for wintry weather even had a starring role during a debate in Parliament in 1928 about fixing the date of Easter. It was decided to make the date between 9 and 15 April, when there was a better chance of good weather. However, at that time Scottish meteorologist Alexander Buchan revealed that over the previous 50 years this period tended to be cold. And to prove the point, that April turned cold again. Even though an Act to fix the date of Easter was passed, it did not come into law and remains in legal limbo until the World Council of Churches agrees to it.

So why is Easter so prone to atrocious weather? Much depends on the jet stream...In spring-time, the jet's path can snake around as the atmosphere warms up, and that can profoundly alter weather patterns below. When the jet wobbles southwards it can drag down cold air from the north, bringing arctic winds and snows. Then, over Africa, it can head north again, pulling in warm Saharan air and a mini-heatwave.

This is also the time of year when the seas around Britain are close to their coldest, after losing their heat over the winter like radiators cooling down....

[Snow in spring. In the past - weather. Today - climate change].

Mr Hodgson:

“… says humans will struggle to produce food and clean water within 50 years”

Jan 14, 2020 at 10:30 AM AK
Thank you.

Modern technology has proved that observations were true, and experts had been wrong.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave

"Once considered mythical and lacking hard evidence for their existence, rogue waves are now proven to exist and known to be a natural ocean phenomenon. Eyewitness accounts from mariners and damage inflicted on ships have long suggested they occurred. The first scientific evidence of the existence of rogue waves came with the recording of a rogue wave by the Gorm platform in the central North Sea in 1984. A stand-out wave was detected with a wave height of 11 metres (36 ft) in a relatively low sea state.[5] However, the wave that caught the attention of the scientific community was the digital measurement of the "Draupner wave", a rogue wave at the Draupner platform in the North Sea on January 1, 1995, with a maximum wave height of 25.6 metres (84 ft) with a peak elevation of 18.5 metres (61 ft). During that event, minor damage was also inflicted on the platform, far above sea level, confirming that the reading was valid.[1]"

The Great Flood of 1968. This hit Southern England. Google produces many results, some for very specific areas

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1968

"The Great Flood of 1968 was a flood caused by a pronounced trough of low pressure which brought exceptionally heavy rain and thunderstorms to South East England and France in mid-September 1968, with the worst on Sunday 15 September 1968, and followed earlier floods in South West England during July.[3] This was likely the severest inland flood experienced in the Home Counties during the last 100 years.[1][4]"

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/the-great-floods-of-1968/

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/gallery/great-flood-1968-bristol-1765201

Another comparison with the Beast from the East, taken again from "Since Records Began" by Paul Simons:

March Blizzard

1891

...In March 1891, southern England and Wales was plunged into a storm of such cold and ferocity that it became known as The Great Blizzard, of which great tales were told.

The storm raged for four days, and the winds were so violent that over half a million trees blew down, roofs were ripped off houses and dozens of ships were wrecked in the English Channel. The West Country was worst hit, where snowdrifts piled up to 20ft high, burying houses, roads and railways and even settled in church spires and muffled their bells. One gigantic snowdrift was estimated at [100[ft deep and filled a ravine at Tavy Cleave on Dartmoor, over which a vicar was reported to have skied from one side to the other.

'No such storm had visited the West of England within remembrance,' the Times exclaimed. Several people froze to death outdoors and thousands of livestock perished. But the worst casualties were at sea...Some 220 lives were lost in 65 ships wrecked in the English Channel, one of the worst maritime disasters of the century.

...Inland, the snow fell so thick and fast that many trains were buried for days in monstrous drifts. The Times reported the harrowing experience of one train driver snowed in on Dartmoor: 'We ran into a pile of snow 7ft high and about 100 yards long and we were fairly caught,' described engine driver John Murray. 'A terrific snow was then raging and we could see only a few yards ahead. In about one hour I became insensible.' He and his mate were found suffering frostbite and taken to shelter. 'Had we not been rescued just in the nick of time there is no doubt we should have been frozen to death,' he said.

One of the most astonishing railway ordeals was the 'Zulu' express train that left London for Plymouth at 3pm on 9 March. Later that evening it was blocked by a huge wall of snow on Dartmoor, and conditions on board the train steadily deteriorated as snow began to blast its way into the carriages and the heating ran out. In took two days before a farmer in a house only about 200 yards away spotted the train sticking out of the snow, and even then he had to dig his way through to rescue the stranded passengers who were led to a local village and put up in houses. Altogether, it took 300 navvies to rescue the train, which eventually arrived in Plymouth eight days late, something of a record even by today's standards....

Other trains were lost in the snow and railways blocked for up to a fortnight. Lady passengers on the Princetown to Plymouth train were reported to be very distressed when the train became buried, carriages filled up with snow right up to the hat racks despite the doors being shut tight, and the engine driver announced 'We ought never to have started'. The passengers spent 36 hours trapped in the train before finding refuge on a Dartmoor farm.

It was indeed a wretched spring, and things seemed to get from bad to worse. The following Whitsun, 18 May, the entire country felt the full wrath of another blast of winter with heavy falls of snow, hail, rain, frost. Orchards were devastated, lambs killed, ponds froze over and there were reports of a flu epidemic. In fact, it was so called that some snowdrifts across Dartmoor remained visible until June.

[I'm pretty confident that if that happened now it would inevitably be blamed on "the climate crisis".].

A modern record for the IPCC, unreported by the BBC/Guardian

https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2020/01/15/ipcc-experts-8-discredited-papers/
"Last week, Nature published a damning refutation of a significant body of climate change research. The title of that article is self-explanatory: Ocean acidification does not impair the behaviour of coral reef fishes.

The authors studied more than 900 fish from six different species over a period of three years, attempting to verify earlier findings by a team of researchers at Australia’s James Cook University. Their attempts failed.

Scholarly convention being what it is, the now-discredited work isn’t identified in a clear manner. Readers are compelled to sift through footnotes to locate the “several high-profile papers” that are being refuted. So here they are: ... "

The Hot Summer

1911

The summer of 1911 was spectacular, a last Edwardian swan-song before the outbreak of the First World War. Blistering heat stretched from May to September and a new July record of 38C (96.8F) was set on the 22nd at Epsom, Surrey. It was also the sunniest month on record, with 384 hours of sunshine logged at Eastbourne and Hastings, a record that still stands.

Whilst the upper classes enjoyed summer parties and country retreats, workers across the country were boiling with resentment....The heat also led to thousands of deaths...and gastroenteritis diseases caused by contaminated waters and poor public hygiene.

The searing heat and drought carried on well into September, and left harvests in a dire state, with vegetables shrivelled up and pasture grass parched brown. 'The cabbages are tough enough to make carpets,' remarked one vegetable buyer at Covent Garden market. Reservoirs ran completely dry, streams withered away and water supplies were turned off. Many northern woollen mills closed down as their streams dried up, throwing thousands of workers out of work. Palls of smoke hung over the countryside from forest and heath fires. But the seaside resorts did a roaring trade, even in September...

At Dover on 6 September, under a warm blue sky, Yorkshireman Thomas Burgess, aged 37, started his 16th attempt to swim the English Channel. He was stark naked except for a pair of motorist's goggles and a rubber bathing cap, and was smothered in lard....He landed near Sangatte almost an entire day later...

...The long hot summer and autumn finally broke in mid-September and the second half of the month was cool and unsettled.

[I think we can all guess how this would be reported if it happened today, and the words "climate change" would feature long and loud].

[I think we can all guess how this would be reported if it happened today, and the words "climate change" would feature long and loud].

Jan 17, 2020 at 8:03 PM Mark Hodgson

The Guardian and BBC would have reported a major marine pollution incident resulting from all that lard.

John Eidson in American Thinker:

"In fact, extreme weather has occurred with monotonous regularity for millions of years. Below is an infinitesimal sampling of the endless multitude of catastrophic weather events in Earth’s past, many of which occurred long before the Industrial Revolution."

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/01/earths_climate_history_what_the_doomsayers_dont_want_voters_to_know_.html

Thanks Charly - an interesting read:

Full link:

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/01/earths_climate_history_what_the_doomsayers_dont_want_voters_to_know_.html

Don't know why the full link doesn't come up. But go to American Thinker and the article is quite high up on the website (at the moment).

Rain Records

1912, 1903

August 1912 broke the records for the coldest, dullest, wettest August in history. To cap it all, it was also the rainiest summer on record. Amazingly, this hideous weather came after the astonishing heat of the summer of 1911. But the summer of 1912 was dogged by gales, thunderstorms and cloudbursts of exceptional rainfalls....

At the end of August, rain had been falling for several days before a gigantic deluge on 25 and 26 August. Over 7" of rain fell in a single day in Norwich and the city collapsed into chaos. Large trees were blown down in the winds, rivers burst their banks, drains clogged up with debris and the streets turned into rivers surging through the city.

In those days, Norwich was densely populated with 100,000 inhabitants living within a mile of the city centre, and thousands of people were trapped in their homes....

Heroic rescue efforts were made in rowing boats, but four people died. About 15,000 people suffered damage to homes and 2,000 were left homeless. 'Not within living memory has there been such an August as that now drawing to a close, nor, in view of this week's terrible experiences one so disastrous,' read one report.

Norfolk was cut off from the rest of the country as 52 bridges collapsed and roads and railways vanished under floodwaters. There was enormous damage to crops and the 'new-fangled' tractors proved useless in waterlogged fields. The rest of that year remained thoroughly wet, and a large are of East Anglia stayed under water through the winter....

The summer of 1903 was another travesty, and June was desperately wet and cold. Rain fell continuously at Camden Square, London for 58.5 hours from 13 to 15 June, the longest period of continuous rain recorded in England. At the same time, snows blanketed the Scottish Highlands and even parts of lowland England...

That summer farmworkers suffered an epidemic of lung disease from mouldy hay and grain.

The interesting feature of both these wet summers is that they can be linked back to volcanic eruptions....

After the unprecedented drought, unprecedented hail and unprecedented deja vu

http://joannenova.com.au/2020/01/unprecedented-hail-phenomal-damage-in-canberra-1871-1877-1897-1919-1936-1956-1963/

"A Dales Heritage" (sub-titled "Life stories from documents and folk memory") by Marie Hartley & Joan Ingilby (Dalesman Books, 1984), pp 133 & 134:

"in the late nineteenth century William and Elizabeth Kilburn and their daughters occupied the top house [at Hoggarths, in upper Swaledale, North Yorkshire], the other being used as outbuildings, and their experiences on 4 July 1899 have been passed down in vivid detail in the family. The day started close and thundery, and they were in tow minds whether to gather the sheep for clipping or to fetch coal from Tan Hill. They opted for Tan Hill, and William returning about noon, tipped out the coal, put up the cart shafts and led the horse still harnessed into the stable meaning to attend to it after they had had a meal.

It was raining hard by now and water began running into the yard as was not unusual. Elizabeth took a besom to sweep it out of the front door. William went on eating, declaring that he 'wasn't going to shift for a sup o' watter.' But very soon they saw water rushing down the gill and heard the noise of clashing boulders. The women ran upstairs and as William came up too water followed him up step by step until it was door top height. He put his heavy boot through the landing window and they all escaped on to the hillside. This well-known flood, the result of a triple cloudburst on Great Shunner Fell, did enormous damage to houses, bridges and land here and elsewhere.

When it subsided in Ash Gill William found the horse standing tied up in its stall up to its belly in sludge and its head held high. A very good sheepdog chained up in the next stall had slipped its collar and run away to Stone House. A puppy which had been lying in front of the fire in the house was found straddled across a wringing machine. There were two pigs in a sty with half doors opening inwards. They were swimming round and round so exhausted that when the door was opened and the water released they staggered out and fell down on the ground.

The cart and the coal had disappeared. The front door was taken off its hinges and the house wall damaged. All the paddocks were covered with soil and boulders which took years to clear and the spring never re-appeared.

...Hoggarths Bridge nearby was one of several washed away....".

More from "Since Records Began"

Snow

4 June 1975

The weather of early June 1975 delivered an unbelievable shock - it snowed over much of Britain. It had been very chilly for much of May, and by June a wicked blast of cold Arctic air sent a biting frost across Scotland: on 2 June, Gleneagles, Perthshire sank to -3.3C, more like the depths of winter than early summer. The Daily Telegraph reported 'Flaming June had arrived - freezing, and delighting only the skiers in the Cairngorms, where a blizzard replenished the slopes at Aviemore,' adding that one tourist, Mr Alan Friedland from Stafford, was actually delighted: 'It is the highlight of our holiday. I have taken pictures of our two young sons enjoying a snowball fight in June. This surely must be unique.'

The cold air swept down into England and snow fell as far south as East Anglia and London, with sleet reaching Portsmouth. Although the snow quickly melted in the south, it settled on the ground further north. Play was abandoned at the county cricket match between Derbyshire and Lancashire in Buxton, where snow reached an inch deep....Snow also delayed play between Essex and Kent at Colchester. John Arlott reported in the Guardian that snow also fell at a cricket match at Lords, London, although a complaint was made to the Press Council that he had exaggerated. The Guardian refused to print a correction or letter that, as the Daily Telegraph commented on, 'pointing out the absurdity of the report.' But meteorologist Professor Gordon Manley stated, 'it was the first occasion in reliable records that snowflakes had been seen over London as late as the beginning of June.' The Press Council did not uphold the complaint.

Many other reports were given at other places of snow that day, as tourists shivered in their overcoats on all-but deserted seaside promenades. The cold snap lasted a while, with snow lying on the ground for four days in parts of Scotland. But on 6 June the weather performed a breathtaking somersault and a heatwave sent temperatures soaring, followed by a gloriously hot summer across Britain.

[I remember both the snow and the heatwave and the gloriously hot summer. The temperature was in the high 90s F one day that summer as I walked with my family round Ullswater, and I was in a very dehydrated state when we made it to Patterdale and were able to buy refreshing drinks, the water we had taken with us having long run out, the heat was so "unprecedented"].

"John Arlott reported in the Guardian that snow also fell at a cricket match at Lords, London, although a complaint was made to the Press Council that he had exaggerated. The Guardian refused to print a correction or letter that, as the Daily Telegraph commented on, 'pointing out the absurdity of the report.' But meteorologist Professor Gordon Manley stated, 'it was the first occasion in reliable records that snowflakes had been seen over London as late as the beginning of June.' The Press Council did not uphold the complaint."

Arlott was right. I was watching live.