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| Extensive flooding in England from Storm Dennis last weekend |
That was the storm that last weekend was billed as something that would possibly become the strongest storm on record in the North Atlantic.
It came close. The central barometric pressure of a storm is a good measure of how strong it is. Dennis bottomed out at 919 millibars, which is the third strongest storm on record in the North Atlantic.
It's also the ninth strongest non-hurricane storm on record for the entire Northern Hemisphere.
It produced wind gusts of up to 159 mph in Iceland, but saved its worst destructive punch for Great Britain. The center of Storm Dennis stayed well north and west of the British Isles. So the waves and storm surges, while destructive, weren't the worst on record.
However, the vast reach of Dennis really screwed Great Britain. Consider the storm's cold front at one point stretched from roughly Edinburgh, Scotland to Miami, Florida, an incredible distance of at least 4,200 miles.
That meant there was an immense feed of warmth and tropical humidity drawn far north by Storm Dennis. Which, in turn, meant downpours. Some areas in Scotland and northern England had a month's worth of rain in two days.
Worse, another very strong storm, named Ciara, came through six days earlier with its own bout of heavy rain and flooding. The result was some of the most serious inland flooding Great Britain has seen in decades. Videos are at the bottom of this post.
Some areas in southern Scotland received more than six inches of rain from Dennis.
There were some 200 different flood warnings in effect across Great Britain due to the floods from Dennis, says the BBC.
The storm has left England, but rivers remain high, and some won't fall below flood stage for several days.
By the way, that warmth drawn far north by Storm Dennis brought record warmth to much of western Europe. They've had an incredibly warm winter there. The result of this Dennis-related warmth and the balmy winter is a weirdly early spring.
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| The cold front from massive Storm Dennis at one point stretched from Scotland to Florida guaranteeing a massive flow of tropical moisture and flooding rains across Great Britain. |
I'll start with the caveat we're all familiar with: One storm or weather phenomenon doesn't prove or disprove climate change at all. Weather is variable, and freaks can happen, with or without climate change.
The global warming scenario for storms like Dennis is complicated, though. Many scientists believe that mega-storms like Dennis in the North Atlantic would actually become less frequent as climate change worsens.
However, storms around much of the world, including Great Britain, will have the capacity to dump heavier rain than they do now. That trend toward heavier precipitation events has already begun, and is expected to become worse.
Warmer air can hold more moisture than a cooler atmosphere. Under the right conditions, the added moisture in a toastier world can cause heavier downpours than what have generally occured in the past.
In any event, I'm sure many Britains are so busy cleaning up after the floods that they might not be thinking about the nuances of climate change.
Here's a couple Dennis compilation videos:
Here's a fairly long but worth watching compilation video of the widespread flooding in the UK:
Here's an equally good second-day compilation of Storm Dennis:
For some reason, the visuals in this news report remind of Waterbury, Vermont during the epic Tropical Storm Irene flood of 2011:
An outfit called Cornish Walking Tours sounds like a great thing to sign up for, except for during Storm Dennis. Corning Walking Tours put out this video of storm waves battering St. Agnes, Cornwall:
On one small bright side, Storm Dennis picked up a little mess that it made and set everything right:
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