Bloody awful weather. Took the kids to school this morning before going into work, and got pretty much soaked. Which i could live with, but expecting summer storm, I wasn't really prepared for the cold on top of the torrential rain and high winds.
I'm a geek for this stuff, and someday want to do a bit of storm chasing. The only twister I've seen so far was here in Holland, and was a minor one. But there are, occasionally, very serious twisters that hit.
40 years ago, on 25th June 1967, 7 died in the tornado that went through Tricht and Chaam. (Both these photos are from that tornado, approaching a roundabout near Deil).
On 23 August 1950, an F4 was on the ground for 46km in the Veluwe forest. 25th August, 1925, three died in the Borculo "Cyclone". And the worst death toll came in the Neede tornado, on 1st June 1925, when ten died in the destruction.
And extreme events will become more common. The flooding in the UK now is extreme: both my old schools, in Alkborough and Winterton, were closed today due to flooding. But they're both on hills- they shouldn't be flooded! I haven't heard enough from there to figure out how that's possible.
Over here, we haven't had a heavy tornado for a while, but Esther's hometown of Hoogeveen was mashed up badly by what at first was thought to be a twister, but is now thought to be a downburst just a few days ago.
Mind you, my mum was telling me about when I was 6 we had a week in June that began hot, became wet, cold, foggy and ended up snowing! So the climate will always mess with our heads - I still think it's advisable that we mess with it as little as possible in return...
