Rain clouds … ?

Remember the “Beast from the East” in the winter of 2018? I was working in London when the snow hit. My train home to Edinburgh only got as far as Newcastle. I was stranded there for over 48 hours. The East Coast mainline was impassable due to snowdrifts near Lindisfarne/Holy Island.

Today that same route is completely train less south of York due to searing temperatures risking buckled rails and sagging overhead power wires.

These two extreme weather events were initially described as “one off” and “unprecedented”. That meteorological commentary is now being rewritten. Such weather extremes will only increase in frequency. Our planet is warming and we are helpless bystanders. Another searing U.K. heatwave is predicted for August. Who knows what heat and cold the coming months have in store?

We all saw the devastation from last winter’s unprecedented storms taking out swathes of invaluable woodlands across the whole country.

Southern Europe’s pine forests are now burning at an alarming rate.

The heat is thawing the permafrost in the northern hemisphere. The tundra is being lost - seemingly irreversibly.

These are worrying times for us all.

My blip shows some clouds gathering late this afternoon. Sadly they only produced about 10 drops of rain!