Should the Met Office be sued?

Yes, according to the author of this article from The Times. Earlier this year, the Met Office announced that we were in for a "barbecue summer"... But there has not been much evidence of that so far - in fact, it's been quite the opposite!

The Met Office revised their forecast earlier this week, claiming that they had only said that there was a 65% chance of a hot summer, and that the media had mis-reported the seasonal forecast. Here is their response to the recent criticism they've received...

Nice article here, with some excellent photos.... Kayaking round a campsite anyone?

Ottery St. Mary??

You could probably be forgiven if you haven't heard of Ottery St Mary - but this Devon town made the national news today after freak hailstorms caused "absolute chaos"...

Rather scary video and In Pictures from the BBC and an interesting set of photos and links on Great Geography (thanks Jo!).

And on a a related note, an interesting article from the BBC about the success (or otherwise of you read the whole article) of the new Boscastle flood defences.

Flood Sim

Unfortunately I have not managed to get Flood Sim to load properly yet, but it looks interesting and I've heard good reports from various "virtual colleagues"... The game was developed by Norwich Union and PlayGen in order to raise awareness about flooding and get people to take action to protect themselves against flooding in the future.

Have a go and then leave a comment here to let us know how you got on!

Also have a look at Flood Resilient Home to find out what you could do to protect your home from flooding...

Flooding in Brazil

Flooding in north-eastern Brazil has killed at least 15 people, forced more than 40,000 people out of their homes, and caused damage to crops and infrastructure.

BBC report here.

East Coast Storm Surge...

Fortunately, despite a lot of local disruption, it seems that things on the East Coast were not as bad as anticipated...

There were still some pretty big waves though!

The picture above was taken at Walcott, in Norfolk, and is one of the BBC's "In Pictures" series.

Storm Surge Warnings

It's probably a good thing this evening that we are almost as far away from the coast as is possible... This is what the Environment Agency's Flood Warning website looks like at the moment:

There are currently 6 "severe flood warnings" in place in Norfolk and Suffolk, with threats of "extreme danger to life and property", as well as 9 "flood warnings" and 24 "flood watches" along the east coast of England, and the Thames Barrier will be closed later this evening.

The reason for all this, according to the Met Office, is a combination of north-westerly winds exceeding 50mph, low pressure and high tides. Tide levels are predicted to be almost 3 metres higher than normal tide levels - something that happens, on average, once every 20 years.

More from the BBC here.

Flooding...

The picture shows a scene which unfortunately is fairly familiar to us at the moment.

This though, is in India.

200 people have died, and almost 20 million people been displaced from their homes in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, in some of the worst floods that South Asia has seen for years.

More information about the floods, and the monsoon season that's causing them on the BBC website.

More flooding misery...

Just spotted these pictures on the Sky News site from Filey, on the east coast of Yorkshire... You wouldn't think it was July...!!

Boscastle flooding

The Cornish village of Boscastle, made famous by the devastating flood it experienced in August 2004, is under water again this evening.

Things are not as bad as they were in 2004, due to the new flood defences that have been built since then, but it's brought back unhappy memories for many in the village.

Video coverage from the BBC here and the full story here.

Wet West Yorkshire...

We might have had a lot of rain in Derbyshire, but West Yorkshire was officially the wettest county today... My dad's just sent me these photographs of the River Aire (just across the road from my old school!)

This picture shows a different view of the same bridge (from Yorksview) on a slightly calmer and drier day...

There's lots of coverage of the floods on the BBC website, and some interesting maps tracking the downpours.

Ooh - and this is post 200 since Geogtastic began on 11th December 2006! Thank you to our 8000+ visitors, and to all those people who point out things for me to write about on a regular basis! Here's to the next 200...

Wet Weather!

As you might possibly have noticed, there's been a fair bit of rain in the past couple of days! The map shows the regions where severe weather warnings have been issued by the Met Office. Click on the map to link to the Met Office website to find out more - Year 10 should be able to explain the causes of the miserable weather!

7RPr should be able to use what they learnt this morning to predict what the effects of the heavy rain might be... Check out the BBC News site for more...

There are also very severe floods elsewhere in the world including China and Australia... Let us know if you find any good coverage, photos, etc.

Flooding in China

Thanks to Lauren for pointing out this news story about the floods and landslides that have killed more than 60 people, forced 600,000 people out of their homes, and caused an estimated £284 million worth of damage.

Year 10 - Boscastle

A few links to help you with your homework...

Boscastle Cornwall - Boscastle Village website, with various flood photos, information about the rebuilding/regeneration, and about the area in general.

TintagelWeb - loads of pohtos, taken during and after the flood.

Museum of Witchcraft - the Boscastle Witchcraft Museum, and lots of its artefacts were badly damaged in the flood, and they kept an interesting and comprehensive diary of the clean-up.

Geobytes GCSE - a useful summary and lots of links on Rob Chambers' blog.

GeographyPages - lots of useful links about Boscastle and other floods (and everything else geographical!)

And loads of articles on the BBC website... type Boscastle into a BBC search!

Year 10 Homework - Flooding

Year 10 homework this week is to research an area in the UK that is prone to flooding. Which river(s)? Causes? Effects (don't forget to consider social, political, economic and environmental impacts)? Responses/management?

The picture shows part of one city that has major floods fairly frequently and would be a good example to use - where is it, and which river is this?

Enjoy the holiday - and don't forget to take lots of geographical pictures (especially from Egypt - you know who you are!!).

Britain's Worst Weather

Just finished watching Britain's Worst Weather on Channel 4 (what better way to spend a Saturday night?!).

The programme, which looked at flooding in Boscastle, Lynmouth and Carlisle amongst other places, as well as considering whether the ongoing developments along the Thames (including the Olympic site in Stratford) are wise, was excellent - not least because it was presented by a GEOGRAPHER (Dr Nick Middleton from the University of Oxford)!

It was the first of a series of 4 programmes - the other 3 are Lightning, Storms and Snow - well worth watching, if tonight's was anything to go by!

More information about the programmes, Nick Middleton and weather in Britain on the Channel 4 website.