UK DISAPPEARING UNDERWATER

[Richard]

By: indigo

Aerial views of flooding in Gloucestershire
Helicopter footage of Gloucestershire shows towns submerged and villages cut off by the floods.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6910000/newsid_6910600/6910698.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&news=1

More videos available from same page:

UK floods round-up
Flooding in central England has led to the threatened loss of water and power as water levels keep rising.

Viewers' videos of UK floods
BBC viewers have sent in mobile phone footage of the heavy rain and flooding in several areas of the UK.

Environment secretary interview
The Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has defended the government's handling of the floods in England and Wales.

Article on BBC News website:

Water runs out in flood-hit areas

Drinking water supplies have started to run out in some areas of England worst affected by the flooding.
Severn Trent Water says 150,000 homes are without water in Gloucestershire after a treatment works was flooded.

The company said another 200,000 people could eventually be cut off in Gloucester, Tewkesbury and Cheltenham.

Power supplies to 500,000 people in Gloucestershire are also threatened and the RAF has been drafted in to protect a substation at risk of flooding.

Rest at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6910838.stm

Meanwhile, here in Norfolk (much of which is close to or below sea level), although it seems to have rained incessantly for weeks, thankfully there's no appreciable flooding. But it's mostly unseasonably cold. My tomato plants have plenty of fruits but not a single one has yet ripened... quite a few herbaceous plants, trees and shrubs are suffering from the cold - some leaves yellowing and even falling. We had a log fire last night! This could be the beginning of a trend:

Britain faces big freeze as Gulf Stream loses strength

By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent

THE Gulf Stream currents that give Britain its mild climate have weakened dramatically, offering the first firm scientific evidence of a slowdown that threatens the country with temperatures as cold as Canada’s.

The Atlantic Ocean “conveyor belt” that carries warm water north from the tropics has weakened by 30 per cent in 12 years, scientists have discovered. The findings, from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, give the strongest indication yet that Europe’s central heating system is breaking down under the impact of global warming.

Scientists have long predicted that melting ice caps could disrupt the currents that keep Britain at least 5C (40F) warmer than it should be, but the new research suggests that this is already under way. It points to a cooling of 1C over the next decade or two, and an even deeper freeze could follow if the Gulf Stream system were to shut down altogether.

Rest at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article598464.ece 

[Richard]

Southeast Europe sizzles, north hit by storms, tornado 

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Temperatures across central and southwest Europe threatened to top 42 degrees Celsius (107 Fahrenheit) on Saturday in a heat wave that has killed nine people in Romania and caused havoc from Hungary to Greece.

While the region sizzled, parts of northern Europe shivered in unseasonably fresh weather and flash flooding forced Britain to call out its Royal Air Force to rescue hundreds of people stranded in central England.

Poland was hit by a tornado, which is rare in Europe. News channel tvn24 showed roofs ripped off farmhouses and barns and cars destroyed near the southern Polish city of Czestochowa on Friday night.

At least 7 people were injured and hundreds left without power.

"Suddenly I saw the trees outside swaying violently and looked out to see a brown funnel approaching. We all took cover just in time," one middle-aged man told tvn24.

In Romania, Health Minister Eugen Nicolaescu said two people had died in the last 24 hours as temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius, raising the death toll this week to nine.

Meteorologists said temperatures could get even higher in Romania's southern regions on the Danube river border with Bulgaria, where forest fires have ravaged thousands of hectares (acres) of land.

Bulgarian government officials said Russia was sending an airplane that can carry up to 40 metric tons of water to join the operations to stop one huge fire in the southeast from spreading further.

The fire sent huge clouds of smoke and dust over a nearby city of Stara Zagora with authorities warning thousands of residents to keep their windows shut and only go out wearing masks or wet towels.

Dozens of children were forced to flee their summer camp near the Greek city of Corinth this week when a huge brush fire threatened to engulf their compound.

Greece has been badly hit by forest fires over the past month as it swelters in its hottest summer in more than a century. Three fire-fighters were killed in a blaze on the island of Crete.

In Britain, hundreds of motorists were stranded in their cars on a major highway on Friday after one of the biggest downpours of an already wet summer.

"We've seen a month's rainfall for July fall in day," said a Meteorological Office spokesman.

In central England, thousands of people were taken to emergency centers.

"We've rescued in excess of 100 people by air," a Royal Air Force spokeswoman said. "We've picked people out of rivers or who were stranded on bits of land cut off by water as well as rescuing people from caravan rooftops."

There appeared to be no immediate let-up in the waves of rain across northern Europe, nor in the heat wave further south.

In Hungary, the heat has caused disruptions on railway and tram lines as tracks and power lines were damaged by the heat.

But few in the crowd at a Rolling Stones concert in Budapest's main Puskas stadium complained on Friday as organizers sprayed water over them to keep them cool.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL2151039120070721?pageNumber=2&sp=true