This Week in Green – Nov. 22, 2010
Another Weather Record: Deluge
We saw record heat all over the globe this summer. We saw record storms all over the midwestern U.S. in October. And scientists in Great Britain are now saying that a torrential rainfall last November was a once-in-an-1,800-year event.
The 12.5 inches of rain that fell in Cumbria, a town in the northwest part of Great Britain, was by some measures, the heaviest rainfall over 24 hours ever recorded.
“What fell in 24 hours in the Lake District was about half what you get in a whole year at somewhere like Gatwick, near London,” said Jamie Hannaford, a scientist at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
The rain set rivers raging, with many doubling their previously recorded highs. Seventeen rivers in northwest England and southern Scotland set records.
What won’t be known for some time is whether the ferocity of the storm was due to our changing climate, or was just a freak occurrence. But as we’ve seen around the globe all too frequently in the past 12 months, record everything is becoming all too common.