British Weather Report - And Character Report

The original headline from the UK's Metro was The Met Office warns the UK will be double-fisted by deadly snow and ice. When they got roasted on The Social Media Platform Formerly Known as Twitter, they changed it to "After double-whammy of snow and ice comes blowy Storm Isha – as it happened." Sounds like Snow-pocalypse that NYC gets on a regular basis.

Aside from being funny as Hell, this story disappointed me. I thought the Brits were tough. Turns out they react to snow the way bureaucrats in Washington, DC do. With panic.

They were expecting 2 to 4 inches of snow, with some areas being heavier. Temperatures in London were supposed to hover around freezing, but be around 8° Celsius, or 45° Fahrenheit on Sunday. That was revised down, from warmer temps than that.

There were some photos of a snowball fight, scroll down at the link above. Supposedly about 300 people were taking advantage of the fact that London never gets snow. But they did this year. I blame Global Warming.

Scotland did get hit with more snow. Hard to tell how much from a few photos, but it's clear that the Scots don't know how to drive in those conditions.

As I type this, it is 3° Fahrenheit or -16° Celsius where I am. We got about 3 or 4 inches of snow the other day, and yet somehow it wasn't the end of the world.

Now the UK is set to be blasted by a storm on Sunday, which will bring warmer temperatures and winds in the 50-60 mph range, and higher in coastal areas.

Deaths Related to Heat in the NW and Canada

I'm not sure how to feel about any of this... Hundreds of deaths could be linked to Northwest heat wave - Chicago Tribune

So there is record heat in the NW and Vancouver. As high as 115 in "some areas" but they are not exact.

The National Weather Service showed a couple of hours over the past 7 days where the temperature hit 107℉ in Seattle (at the airport - the university was not as hot), but at that point the relative humidity had fallen to 24 percent. That is hot, but all you have to do is stay wet with cool water. And make sure you stay hydrated.

Unless you are ill, or elderly, or both, you should be able to survive that weather. (It is much hotter in Phoenix in the summer!) Some of the people who passed away were in their 40s and 50s. And if you are ill, most cities have some place during these times called "cooling centers" where they have air conditioning. Even on days it was over 100 degrees, it did cool off some overnight.

And yes, I get that it is a tragedy. Maybe it is the prepper in me. I get not having air conditioning, but some of these people didn't have a fan. And they probably did have access to cool water. And if you don't have access to clean drinking water, you have other problems.

This reminds me, like it is the other side of a coin, of the people in Texas who didn't know how (or why) they should shut of the water in their homes before their pipes froze this past winter. Learn a little bit about extreme weather, how to deal with freezing temperatures, how to deal with heat, how to prevent heat-stroke, and the like. Learning something will only hurt for a minute, and it might just save a life, and the life you save might be your own.

British Columbia’s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, said her office received reports of at least 486 “sudden and unexpected deaths” between Friday and Wednesday. Normally, she said about 165 people would die in the Canadian province over a five-day period.

“While it is too early to say with certainty how many of these deaths are heat related, it is believed likely that the significant increase in deaths reported is attributable to the extreme weather,” LaPointe said in a statement.

They do not provide very detailed numbers, but it appears that fewer people died in Seattle and Portland.