Category Archives: Environmental hazards

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew …

By Ray Bell In winter-time when the temperature gradient between the pole and the equator sharpens, the North Atlantic becomes a breeding ground for intense storms (extratropical cyclones). Occasionally associated with intense winter storms is a ‘phenomenal sea state’ (WMO … Continue reading

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Volcanoes as rain magnets

By Geoff Wadge When we have a very large volcanic eruption (as for example Mt Pinatubo in 1991) it gets global news coverage, not least because of its potential to perturb the climate. Whether smaller eruptions get widely noticed usually … Continue reading

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I blame Spain and France!

By Ross Reynolds I was concerned to read this warning published recently in a national newspaper, partly because to roast me would require perhaps 200 °C for quite a few hours, but to boil the air (see lower down the … Continue reading

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The wet and stormy winter of 2013/14 over the British Isles

By Joaquim Pinto                            Department of Meteorology homepage Given its geographic position, the British Isles are often affected by extreme wet and stormy winter weather. Still, the large number … Continue reading

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Early warnings of the May 2014 Balkan floods

By Hannah Cloke                                   Department of Meteorology Weeks of rainfall followed by significant rainstorms between 13-16 May 2014 led to widespread flooding in the … Continue reading

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Historical storms – a (very brief) book review

By Ben Harvey                         Department of Meteorology It has now been a year since the period of extreme storminess experienced in the UK during January and February 2014. High winds … Continue reading

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Weather index insurance helps African farmers

By Emily Black The 886 million Africans who depend on subsistence agriculture are highly vulnerable to weather-related agricultural risk.  This vulnerability is exacerbated by a lack of access to insurance. A cheap and practical alternative to traditional insurance is weather … Continue reading

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Not all Atlantic waves are good for surfing …

By Simon Rowell We’re now well into the North Atlantic Hurricane Season (generally taken from 1 June to 30 November each year, with the busiest months usually August and September). When a tropical depression gets named it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a … Continue reading

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Floods, Famine, Frosts … and Frankenstein

By Nicholas Klingaman No one who lived through the extreme climate of 1816 understood what caused the months of seemingly endless rain in Europe, the June snowstorms in New England or the severe drought in the eastern U.S. that convinced … Continue reading

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Observing the strong damaging winds of autumn and winter storms

By Oscar Martínez-Alvarado Some scientists are weird people. Take me as an example. It is summer, the sun is shining out there. Yet here I am, longing for autumn and winter and the storms they bring. Don’t get me wrong. … Continue reading

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