Storm Gerrit’s 85mph Gales Batter Britain? Nope
STORM Gerrit (pictured above) arrived the day after Boxing Day, accompanied by the usual headlines: ‘85mph gales barrelled down on Britain’, screamed the Daily Mail
As usual the public were being deliberately deceived.
The 85mph claim was based on one site in North East Scotland, at the top of a 400ft cliff overlooking the North Sea, marked in red below.
A few miles away at sea level average wind speeds never got above 30mph.
The Met Office never reports any of this, preferring to publish its favourite sites on clifftops or halfway up mountains.
It was the same story a week later, when another system of low pressure came along to be given yet another silly name, ‘Henk’.
‘94mph winds pummel the UK’, shrieked the Mirror. This time the wind speeds were measured on the Met Office’s go-to weather station, the Needles, off the Isle of Wight.
As this column has discussed before, the Needles sit at the end of a long, narrow peninsula, and the station is on top of a 260ft cliff.
Winds there are routinely 30mph higher than even exposed sites nearby, such as St Catherine’s Point. Meanwhile average winds inland were typically around 30mph.
It rained as well last week! During the two days of Storm Henk, about an inch fell in parts of southern and central England. There is nothing at all unusual about this amount; it is the sort of thing which happens every year.
Because the ground was already saturated, following wet weather last month, there was inevitably some flooding. But, for the most part, this was little more than flooded fields, overflowing river banks and localised flooding.
Again, normal scenes in England. And as Patrick Benham-Crosswell pointed out in TCW this week, many houses built on flood plains were once again flooded. There was certainly none of the major river flooding which has hit the country many times in the past.
According to the Environment Agency, about 2,000 properties were flooded, a tragedy for everybody involved. But in overall terms, this is a tiny number.
For instance, 55,000 were flooded in 2007.
Inevitably, the media jumped to blame it all on ‘climate change’. According to ITV:
‘Henk is the eighth named storm to have hit the country this winter and the pattern is likely to continue due to the effects of climate change.’
“This is climate change and the impacts we are seeing,” the Environment Agency’s Tom Paget added. “We are seeing these increasingly wet and blustery winters. We are seeing storm upon storm which is exacerbating the issues”.
Claims like this explain why the Met Office decided to start giving every low-pressure system a silly name back in 2015.
But as it admitted in its State of the UK Climate last year, storms used to be much stronger:
‘The most recent two decades have seen fewer occurrences of max gust speeds above these thresholds [40, 50, 60 kts] than during the previous decades, particularly comparing the period before and after 2000.
This earlier period [before 2000] also included among the most severe storms experienced in the UK in the observational records including the “Burns Day Storm” of 25 January 1990, the “Boxing Day Storm” of 26 December 1998 and the “Great Storm” of 16 October 1987.
Storm Eunice in 2022 was the most severe storm to affect England and Wales since February 2014, but even so, these storms of the 1980s and 1990s were very much more severe.’
Nor is there any evidence that December or the autumn last year were unusually wet.
We look like getting a few weeks of cold, dry weather from now on – so expect drought warnings soon!
What would we do without coal?
DURING COP28 last month, Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho bragged:
‘Eleven years ago coal was 40 per cent of our power generation. Next year it will be zero.’
It took just four days to break that pledge.
With wind power providing just 3GW, Britain needed to fire up the Ratcliffe coal power station to keep the lights on:
Last summer Coutinho’s predecessor Grant Shapps was desperate to keep two other coal plants on standby again this winter, Drax and West Burton. Last winter, the National Grid paid all three coal units about £400million to provide cover.
Shapps said it ‘would be crazy’ not to keep them on line again this winter. However, Drax and West Burton’s owner EDF refused, fed up no doubt with the continual threats to shut down coal power. They said they had already made plans to close their plants, and it was too late to backtrack.
Coutinho apparently believes that green virtue signalling is more important than keeping the lights on!
Ofcom head’s WEF role
MELANIE Dawes has been chief executive of the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom for nearly four years. Like most quango heads, she arrived on the Civil Service gravy train, having been permanent secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
She can therefore be thoroughly relied on to defend the Establishment agenda at Ofcom.
Much more sinister is the fact that she is also a member of the WEF’s Global Coalition for Digital Safety.
Though it claims to be tackling harmful content online, its real purpose is tackle what it describes as ‘misinformation’.
It is totally wrong that the head of Ofcom should also be working for a globalist organisation set up to undermine democracy.
See more here conservativewoman.co.uk
Bold emphasis added
Header image: GB News
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Lorraine
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Why does anyone pay attention to anything the government says?
Haven’t people learned they are master manipulators of all data?
If information can’t be twisted to fit an agenda, they simply invent whatever is required to try to convince the uninformed and easily led.
The people who are your leaders are liars, and not very good ones at that.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Lorraine and Other PSI Readers,
A fact is the USA government has sponsored several projects that measure actual NATURAL rrediations and standard weather stations at several to many remote Natural locations.as technology has allowed this data to be transmitted to central locations and this data is available from their website. I have for several years I have from time to time reported these links but I can rememberanyone giving evidence that have studied this actual data which has not been changed. However because of the volume of data is so great some of this earlier data is not available to me. but I am sure it is available to people with more knowledge than I have.
But the problem is too much data which seems to be ignored by most PSI readers. As people like Howdy and MattH write that so much is not their thing. So my comment is that the greatest problem is too many commenter whose main purpose seems to criticize others. Yes, I agree that this comment is critical.. But there is right and wrong, good or evil. And it is the responsibility of each individual how they deal with the information one reads here at PSI>. Because PSI does not censor.
Have good day
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Howdy
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Does my name get spoken?
Stop making things up Jerry, Just Because you deem something valuable does not make it applicable to everybody.
PSI exists to allow criticism, correction, or praise, dependent on the reader’s view, and knowledge.
Every time I raise a subject you are uncomfortable with, or have no knowledge of, you go silent. My suspicion is that the subject is, for your own reasons, ‘not your thing’. Touche.
Your own criticism of other commenters is worse of all because it was given without provocation, or request. Perhaps you should remember that.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Howdy,
Does it matter that the EARTH does NOT stand still. Galileo thought his observations were so important that his clearly risked his live to informed people of that time about his observation that the ‘idea’ that the earth stood still could never explain relative to his observations (which we still see).
Have a good day
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Howdy
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Galileo. There are others currently risking life-threatening action today. They are no less important.
Earths rotation doesn’t matter to me Jerry, as I assume it doesn’t matter to however many others. Were it to stop spinning and impact people’s lives on a personal level, I guess notice would then be taken that it stopped.
Blood flowing through my body is critical, but I don’t get pedantic about it, nor even think about it. That doesn’t mean I see it as unimportant.
The point is, what you reference is inconsequential, until it isn’t. People die, but it seems to a non-talking point because of lack of interest, though to some it most seriously will be.
I’ll address other subjects as, and when they impact me.
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Howdy
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I have a question, Jerry. How many scientific discoveries were based on belief?
Thanks.
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Lorraine
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Hello Jerry,
I don’t mind critical thinkers who evaluate information and arrive at different conclusions. There’s never total agreement, even by so-called experts, let alone well read laymen, on any subject.
My strongly held belief is there is no such thing as man made climate change. Have you looked at the Eemian record. It makes crystal clear the climate of the earth is in constant flux between glacial and interglacial periods, with anomalous periods occurring as part
of a dynamic planet. Nothing stays the same but change.
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Jerry Krause
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RHE REGIONIST VISION. REGIONAL GOALS
People
SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE enjoy independence and have choices in where to live, where to work and what they do. They have access to good schools, quality jobs and other resources that enable them to lead fulfilling lives and reach their full potential.
ENGAGED PEOPLE benefit from strong social networks with friends, family and coworkers. They are involved in the civic life of their neighborhoods and communities and are empowered to help create and promote belonging, inclusion and meaningful connection.
HEALTHY PEOPLE thrive in clean and safe communities that support healthy eating and active lifestyles. They have access to health care systems that foster physical and mental well-being, including services for both treatment and prevention.
Places
VIBRANT PLACES provide easy access to jobs and services, offer choices in housing, recreation, shopping and transportation, and promote access to arts and culture. Vibrant places make efficient use of public and private resources and are attractive to residents and businesses.
CONNECTED PLACES are linked by corridors that encourage walking, biking and public transportation in addition to serving motor vehicles. These corridors support sustainable development and help connect residents and businesses to jobs, goods, services and other opportunities
GREEN PLACES are ecologically healthy and resilient, creating real economic and social value. The conservation and restoration of natural areas and natural resources enhance both environmental and public health.
Communities
STRONG COMMUNITIES provide a solid foundation for people and places to prosper. They knit together networks of people, families, businesses and civic organizations, nurturing relationships that engender trust and collaboration. They are equitable, cohesive and well-governed. They respect history and community character while building for the future.
This is the REGIONALIST COMMUNITY in which I grew up and where my nephew and his extended family still live and farm. (Clear Lake, South Dakota)
Have a good day
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Jerry Krause
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Hi lorraine,
You weite; “My strongly held belief is there is no such thing as man made climate change.”
Go to a satellite image of the region about the town of Silver Lake. The circles of green were not there a hundred years ago. I consider this and other irrigated land has clearly changed the climate of their regions.
Have a good day
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Jerry. Krause
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Silver Lake, Oregon
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Lorraine
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Irrigation does not produce climate change. It simply artificially provides water to a formerly arid environment.
Changing climate is a natural occurrence which has been taking place since the origin of the planet.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Lorraine,
You wrote: “My strongly held belief is there is no such thing as man made climate change.” In other words; regardless of whatever human activities I draw to your attention, you are not about to change your mind.
But is will give you another chance. We know that natural freshwater lakes influence the natural weather which surrounds them. But when the Missouri River os dammed to create a quite large artificial lake. it doesn’t, in this case, change the weather ( hence climate, which surrrounds this quite large, new lake?
Have a good day
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Greg Spinolae
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None of this is an “Intelligence test”. People with more than one neuron only listen to anything the gubermint says for for its dark comedy entertainment value.
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