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LAST UPDATE | 27 Nov 2021
THREE PEOPLE HAVE died and thousands of homes are without power as Storm Arwen moves across the North and Great Britain.
The severe gale left 75,000 homes still without electricity on Saturday in Scotland, according to the country’s electricity utility.
Head teacher Francis Lagan was killed when his car was struck by a falling tree in Northern Ireland on Friday evening. Another man died when he was hit by a tree in the Lake District, northwest England.
A third man was pronounced dead at the scene when his truck was struck by a falling tree in Aberdeenshire in Scotland on Friday.
Storm Arwen has resulted in the UK’s meteorological service issuing a rare “red weather” warning, with wind gusts of almost 100 miles (160 kilometres) per hour.
One woman tweeted a video of her flight from Paris struggling to land in Manchester, northwest England, in high winds late Friday.
Passengers’ nervous laughter gave way to screams and sobs before the pilot aborted the landing, succeeding on a second attempt.
“People should stay away from the coast as waves and debris are a danger to life,” the Met Office warned.
Express train services were suspended north of Newcastle and roads closed by fallen debris in parts of Scotland, while snowfall from Friday afternoon brought disruption to routes more widely.
The snow and fallen trees caused road blockages across northern England and Scotland, forcing many drivers to sleep in their vehicles overnight, according to traffic police and social media.
Around 120 lorries were “stuck in the snow” on one section of motorway between Manchester and Leeds, police said, tweeting pictures of the road blanketed in white before snow ploughs could be deployed.
While the winds had eased by Saturday morning, the Met Office warned conditions would remain challenging because of ice and snow, and the public was urged to avoid non-essential travel.
The railway operator for southwest England warned of “multiple trees and obstructions blocking the railway”. ScotRail services were suspended between Edinburgh and Glasgow after a barn was blown onto the line.
The storm also forced the cancellation of at least one lower-league football fixture and a horse racing meet later Saturday.
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Warming ocean are fueling more and more powerful storms. Its climate change here now.
@GO GREEN: climate change has been around from the day this planet was found.we live on a rock with different weather patterns that revolves around the sun.we could be in warming oceans this decade we could be in another ice age in a hundred years time.we have no control on our weather patterns
@James: d’oh
@James: @James: This time it is man made climate change – its cutting down 15 billion trees a year – its taking millions of years of stored carbon of oil gas coal and peat and dumping into the atmosphere in just over 200 years.
If this had not happened our climate would be same as it was in 1880 when co2 levels were 280 parts per million and had been for thousands of years. Now they are 417 parts per million and rising.
@James: yeah exactly. Why would we listen to almost every climatologist and meteorologist in the world about this when we have our own opinions?
Seriously though. We can send a spaceship to Mars with a robot that can remotely fly a drone.
Have mobile video calling.
The ability to significantly change the face of the planet. To destroy habitats, to wipe out entire species. To split the atom and harness the energy.
OF COURSE WE HAVE THE ABILITY TO INFLUENCE CLIMATE PATTERNS.
Question is what are we going to do with that capability? Continue to change the climate with hugely destructive results in the name of fast profit. Or…
Use our capability to positively influence the climate, to try to keep the relative climatic harmony we have enjoyed for the last 10,000 years?
@john doe: the relative climatic harmony enjoyed for the last 10,000 years was enjoyed while we lived off the land, foraging for food, walked for hours to achieve anything and instead of turning profit big business and industry, we attacked each other to get what we wanted for a better quality of life.. It’s a summary of why we have gotten this far without destroying the planet but to continue enjoying the comforts we have been born into we will inevitably destroy the planet.
@GO GREEN: is there really 15bn trees cut down a year? That’s a lot of sticks to burn like! But does that include say sustainable forestry, you know where they replant it again? Just out of curiosity, it’s probably only a tiny number if it is. 15bn that’s a fair whack alright boy
@This time its personable!: source? https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18287
@James: ‘rate of change’ is the difference James…..
@GO GREEN: yes I agree,humans need to get back to as natural earth as we possibly can.we have consumed a lot from our lands and I personally think this world is way over populated.we need to get back to it’s natural life cycle
@D. Memery: Thanks boy. I wasn’t saying it was false or anything, it was just the sheer number of them!
@GO GREEN: A simple RIP to the 3 dead would have been the appropriate comment by you. Anyways…
@GO GREEN: not even the most ardent climate scientist would draw that link.. It has actually been relatively quiet on the storm front this year.
@GO GREEN: is it feasible to go back 200 years, where there was one seventh of the current world population and life expectancy was around 40 in Europe?
We’ve just come out of a 24 hour power cut due to the storm and if anything it’s reminded me how much we depend on fossil fuels. We ended up cooking on a gas stove, burning logs to stay warm (it was snowing), using an oil lamp for light and charging the phone by running the diesel car (we don’t have a landline).
It would be interesting to know how many households aren’t left cold and dark without fossil fuels when experiencing a power cut.
@This time its personable!: https://tree-nation.com/projects/inside-tree-nation/article/9739-deforestation
It is 15 billion trees – 5 billion replanted, but it will takes decades for them to grow to take out same amount of carbon out of atmospher
RIP.
All the trees need to go
Hopefully as storms hit Ireland many of the large trees infected with Ash Dieback do not cause fatalities by falling on to roads
I love the way it’s said Northern Ireland and Great Britain
@Lorrimore: that’s correct. GB is the island of England, Wales and Scotland.. technically it is GB and NI.. the U.K. would include NI
Think that storm swept across Ireland
have your say