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WEATHER NORMAL

Reports last month suggested Britain would melt during summer:

It could be time to say goodbye to defining features of British life, like rainy picnics and cloudy sunbathing …

Not quite yet:

A diligent BBC researcher has discovered that yesterday was the coldest on record for a Test match in England. Temperatures dropped to 7.4C (45F), but it felt colder.

Meanwhile, Australia’s allegedly endangered ski fields seem to be doing just fine:

Victoria’s Alpine region is experiencing the best lead-up to the ski season since 2004, with heavy falls overnight …

“This is great considering it’s two weeks away from opening weekend,” [Mount Buller Resort marketing manager Amber]
Gardner said.

Remember, our planet is just five years away from climate change catastrophe.

Posted by Tim B. on 05/29/2007 at 11:29 PM
  1. It could be time to say goodbye to defining features of British life, like rainy picnics and cloudy sunbathing …

    Now there really is a sure sign that it’s the end of the world: Poms with a tan.

    Posted by entropy on 2007 05 29 at 11:39 PM • permalink

  2. Well, easy come, easy go.

    Posted by yojimbo on 2007 05 29 at 11:39 PM • permalink

  3. This is interesting and was a also a topic of discussion on the British SKY news the other day. The first question, where is the warming if Bank Holiday weekends normally have crappy weather? It was actually warmer in Alaska and Siberia than in the UK on that day. Is that also ‘proof’ of GW? The presenters then spoke about the record drought in 1976. OK, what caused that one?

    Posted by Nic on 2007 05 29 at 11:48 PM • permalink

  4. If the goreble worming straightens their teeth out, I’m going to church.

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 05 30 at 12:18 AM • permalink

  5. from the allegedly endangered ski fields link

    A 2003 CSIRO report, part-funded by the ski industry, found that the resorts could lose a quarter of their snow in 15 years, and half by 2050. The worst case was a 96 per cent loss of snow by mid-century.

    Funny. I thought they lost 100% of whatever they got every spring.

    Posted by kae on 2007 05 30 at 12:26 AM • permalink

  6. The temp was 7.4C and funnily enough that was the Windies’ average score.

    Posted by anthony_r on 2007 05 30 at 12:29 AM • permalink

  7. I’ve been in england during a “heatwave”, and it’s not for the fainthearted; the mercury rose to the furnace-like level of about 25 degrees C, and as it hadn’t rained for 48 hours a drought was declared. If you had the misfortune to wander into Hyde Park and had neglected to put a pair of welding goggles in your pack, snowblindness was your fate- acres of puffy, pale, dimpled flesh, lying about the grass like the result of an explosion in a tallow plant.

    Others with handkerchiefs knotted on their mis-shapen heads frollicked in the shallows of the Serpentine, splashing around the first water their bodies had had contact with since last Autumn.

    Almost as disturbing as going out for a drink and waking up next to this.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 05 30 at 12:44 AM • permalink

  8. People, people—-Get it into your heads -it doesn’t matter what the bloody weather does, because it is all caused by gorebal warmenising.  Klimate Katastrophe is upon us, hoWARd just do something, anything. 

    What, sell my new 4WD…. you must be
    f!~@#$ joking

    Cheers
    RodC

    Posted by Rod C on 2007 05 30 at 12:59 AM • permalink

  9. The UK has weather but not much of a climate. I remember one year when the shortest day of the year Dec 21st was warmer than the longest day June 21st.

    Also, the northern oceans are showing a marked cooling. Wonder how long before, this gets adjusted away.

    http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html

    Posted by phil_b on 2007 05 30 at 01:01 AM • permalink

  10. Ok I got told something weird today that I need a mechanic to sort for me.
    We have just started to recieve the new V8 turbo diesel Toyota utes for underground use. I was told that they will become a fairly standard model as the V8 meets EU emmisions standards whereas the 6 cylinder doesnt.
    Have I just been told bullshit or is that Bizzaro world of the EU seriously lost the plot?

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 05 30 at 01:17 AM • permalink

  11. Totally off topic I’m afraid, but I almost just got killed so it’s important for me:

    At 2:30pm, a car sped along the Bourke Street (Melbourne) tram tracks and ran the red light - mid-cycle - at Queen, very narrowly missing me and several other pedestrians, so if anyone sees a royal blue metallic Daewoo Lanos, registration OWW-093 with a broken rear passenger side window, a Jack Lives Here sticker on the rear bumper and two males on board with pirate-style scarves and no teeth, call the cops.

    Thanks.

    Posted by ilibcc on 2007 05 30 at 01:21 AM • permalink

  12. And on a related topic, I have a solution for the Victorian water crisis. According to their water authority, 86% of the water that falls on the state is lost to evaporation and transpiration.

    The problem is too many bloody trees. A mature large tree uses as much water as 2 or 3 typical households. Victorians need to fire up their chainsaws and go fix the problem.

    Posted by phil_b on 2007 05 30 at 01:26 AM • permalink

  13. Well don’t talk to me about climate change.  We are heading into June with consistent 100 degree temperatures for as far as the eye can see according to the weather people.

    Oh!... Wait!  Tucson-June-100 degrees.  Never mind.

    Posted by yojimbo on 2007 05 30 at 01:30 AM • permalink

  14. #11 Ilibcc, with that information, couldn’t you report it to the cops and they’ll follow up the registration?

    Posted by Ash_ on 2007 05 30 at 01:48 AM • permalink

  15. #11 Ilibcc and #14 Ash

    a broken rear passenger side window, a Jack Lives Here sticker on the rear bumper and two males on board with pirate-style scarves and no teeth

    As this happened in Melbourne, they probably are the cops.

    Posted by Pickles on 2007 05 30 at 01:53 AM • permalink

  16. #7
    Reminds me of The Great Ulster Heatwave of ‘95.
    The beaches of Co. Antrim have little to recommend them.

    Posted by lotocoti on 2007 05 30 at 02:01 AM • permalink

  17. #9 Sea Temperatures

    Interesting to note that the only areas of all the world’s oceans which show any significant ‘warming’ are those around the big Soviet naval bases of Vladivostok and Murmansk.

    Makes you wonder…

    Posted by Apparatchik on 2007 05 30 at 02:03 AM • permalink

  18. #11- sounds like you stumbled into the middle of a blag. What sort of a loser twocks a Daewoo Lanos as a getaway car? They’d have more credibility trying to out-run the filth in this.

    At least they didn’t dunlop anyone, not that they would’ve given a shit. Vermin like that should be “shot while resisting arrest”.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 05 30 at 02:08 AM • permalink

  19. #15 LOL, Pickles, good point.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2007 05 30 at 02:12 AM • permalink

  20. To be fair, the weather is very strange and unpredictable in Europe at the moment.
    London 7 degrees, Moscow 31.
    Neither is normal for late spring.

    Posted by Honkie Hammer on 2007 05 30 at 02:13 AM • permalink

  21. Well, the planet better get busy warming up or I’m going to be seriously pissed.  All this energy spent running around in circles and waving my arms about in righteous panic has put me in danger of completely depleting my own natural resources.

    Posted by saltydog on 2007 05 30 at 02:15 AM • permalink

  22. #18 Habib, it’s amazing how many “received injuries due to resisting arrest”. Some cops like to balance the universe.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2007 05 30 at 02:20 AM • permalink

  23. #22 Ash

    Almost as many as the cops who line up for criminal compensation for injuries received whilst making an arrest.

    Posted by Pickles on 2007 05 30 at 02:24 AM • permalink

  24. Ash: yes, I did report it to the police. I should have said so in this initial comment.

    Pickles, I have a mate in the force and he would strongly resemble that remark.

    Habib, the Lanos was flying. You can milk a decent speed out of just about anything these days with the added advantage of lightness and manoevrability in a city infested with roundabouts, barriers and other ‘traffic calming’ devices everywhere you look.

    Posted by ilibcc on 2007 05 30 at 02:24 AM • permalink

  25. #11 Men of pirate-style appearance - I don’t think that really helps.  Any man wearing a white puffy shirt open to the waist and a parrot on his shoulder would fit that description.

    Posted by anthony_r on 2007 05 30 at 02:30 AM • permalink

  26. The beaches of Co. Antrim have little to recommend them.

    I can also report the snow skiing is crap. Me and mate of mine are perhaps the only people ever to have tried downhill skiing in the Mourne Mountains in neighbouring County Down.

    Posted by phil_b on 2007 05 30 at 02:31 AM • permalink

  27. Oops! Looks like I stuffed up the italics. See if this fixes it </i>

    Posted by phil_b on 2007 05 30 at 02:34 AM • permalink

  28. O/T, but it looks like there might be some more Rein on Kevnis parade- this could turn ugly for the ferret-faced git.

    #24- you can get most things to tootle along these days if you give them enough welly (and are sufficiently chemically relaxed to not notice the fact that it handles like a watermelon truck full of Mexicans) but it probably won’t impress too many of your peers when you wind up in remand for knocking off a Daewoo.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 05 30 at 02:35 AM • permalink

  29. #24 Ilibcc, I should also congratulate you on your awesome observation skills of a car going that fast.

    I’m sure one of the many departments of PACO Industries has a position suitable for your skills.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2007 05 30 at 02:38 AM • permalink

  30. Hmm, someone spilt the italics.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2007 05 30 at 02:38 AM • permalink

  31. #7 habib

    An English heatwave’s no joke.

    The elderly expire in mass numbers, the roads melt, the govt issues stay-at-home warnings and there’s a run on suntan lotion (in extreme cases lotions with UV Factors in double digits are sold). 

    Sometimes, jumpers are removed.

    Posted by pommygranate on 2007 05 30 at 02:46 AM • permalink

  32. Sometimes it’s not limited to jumpers- in extremis, string vests are doffed, and wooly gor blimey trousers rolled to knobbly knee level.

    You can tell when it’s a real scorcher though when coal is emptied from bathtubs nationwide.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 05 30 at 02:56 AM • permalink

  33. #7 Habib

    I too have gazed into the swampy waters of the Serpentine and yes, even taken the obligatory row boat ride. The knotted handkerchiefs and melon coloured faces bring back memories. The green water would have made a cane toad throw up & people were actually swimming amongst the flotsom. Maybe it has been cleaned up since my time.

    GW means London will now only have three seasons in one day.

    Posted by Spag_oz on 2007 05 30 at 03:16 AM • permalink

  34. Look, when it comes to British weather, the Guardian has all bases covered.
    If it’s warmer than average -  global warming pure and simple.
    If it’s cooler than normal, it’s a sign that the Gulf stream is shutting down due to… (wait for it)...global warming.

    Posted by chrisgo on 2007 05 30 at 03:16 AM • permalink

  35. Anthony R: I could see neither chests nor parrots, but they had bandanas on.

    Habib, they certainly looked chemically relaxed enough not to notice they were six inches from mowing down half of Melbourne’s stockbrokers, legal secretaries and me (no jokes, thanks!).

    Ash, the car got hemmed by traffic in at the next intersection before hauling off up Elizabeth and I was able to grab the reg and bumper sticker. Their faces I could see as they sailed past. They were wired.

    Posted by ilibcc on 2007 05 30 at 03:22 AM • permalink

  36. our planet is just five years away from climate change catastrophe.

    Is that when Al Gore is set to explode?

    Posted by PW on 2007 05 30 at 03:22 AM • permalink

  37. #36 PW

    Is that when Al Gore is set to explode?

    Ick, that’d be really gory.

    Posted by kae on 2007 05 30 at 03:40 AM • permalink

  38. #31
    Even worse, the offie doesn’t sell slabs cold.

    Posted by lotocoti on 2007 05 30 at 04:13 AM • permalink

  39. Remember, our planet is just five years away from climate change catastrophe.

    There are few things I hate more than procrastination. Frickin slacker earth. Get a job!

    Posted by Texas Bob on 2007 05 30 at 04:45 AM • permalink

  40. O/T- Dateline tonight actually had a lead item about a particularly demented band of ROP followers infesting central Islamabad (how’s that for a prophetic name?) and applying their own form of Sha’ria to locals, usally with big waddys.

    Pakistan plod seems reluctant to do anything about this gang, who reminded me of another common subcontinental cultwhich prospered until the British army decided their practices were unacceptable.

    The adherents of this current silliness continually stated they would give their lives for their cause- I suggest that Musharref take them up on their offer posthaste.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 05 30 at 07:05 AM • permalink

  41. how’s that for a prophetic name?

    Nominative determinism?

    Posted by murph on 2007 05 30 at 07:17 AM • permalink

  42. Islamabad (how’s that for a prophetic name?)

    Would the opposite of this be Christchurchgood?

    Posted by surfmaster on 2007 05 30 at 07:22 AM • permalink

  43. Cold killed 25000 in the UK in the “second warmest year in the past 1,000”.

    Posted by moptop on 2007 05 30 at 07:26 AM • permalink

  44. #36 PW: I imagine that would look something like this.

    Posted by paco on 2007 05 30 at 08:06 AM • permalink

  45. Oh. My. Fucking. God.

    JQ should seriously consider suicide.  He and the rest of the world would be better off for it.

    Posted by aaron_ on 2007 05 30 at 08:08 AM • permalink

  46. Aaron I looked at the link. It beggars belief.

    JQ and his ilk seem to be saying that just because someone from Philip Morris considered using the example of DDT and malaria in an exercise to distract WHO from tobacco, it invalidates the concerns people have that DDT wasn’t used to help control malaria - concerns which long predated 1998 when PM supposedly came up with this strategy.

    And his equation - if you criticised the banning of DDT you were only saving 1 to 3 million lives a year but you were helping Philip Morris (god knows in what way) which by selling cigarettes causes 3 to 5 million deaths a year - what can you say to that piece of logic???

    And of course PM have been so successful. I mean they’ve totally eradicated anti-smoking advertising and campaigns world wide. Which is why we in Australia smoke in ever increasing numbers, smoking is encouraged in all closed spaces and cigarettes are given away at school canteens.

    Can someone educated as JQ is be any more stupid?

    Posted by Francis H on 2007 05 30 at 08:35 AM • permalink

  47. Can someone educated as JQ is be any more stupid?

    Cause and effect I would have thought.

    Than and the fact that his beard has become ingrown.

    Posted by Habib on 2007 05 30 at 08:50 AM • permalink

  48. #36 The transcipt from the Gore Disaster:

    He’s practically standing still now. They’ve dropped ropes out of the nose of Al; and (uh) they’ve been taken ahold of down on the field by a number of men. It’s starting to rain again; it’s—the rain had (uh) slacked up a little bit. Al’s back blast is just holding him (uh) just enough to keep him from—
    He’s burst into flames! He burst into flames, and he’s falling, he’s crashing! Watch it! Watch it! Get out of the way! Get out of the way! Get this, Bill; get this, Bill! He’s fire—and he’s crashing! He’s crashing terrible! Oh, my! Get out of the way, please! He’s burning and bursting into flames; and the—and he’s falling on the mooring-mast. And all the folks between this is terrible; this is the worst of the worst catastrophes in the world. [indecipherable] The flames… twenty, oh, four- or five-hundred feet into the sky and it—it’s a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. He’s smoke, and he’s flames now; and his enormous head is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring-mast. Oh, the humanity and all the global warmers screaming around here. I told you; it—I can’t even talk to people. Their friends are out there. Ah! He’s—he—he’s a—ah! I—I can’t talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honest: he’s just laying there, mass of smoking wreckage. Ah! And everybody can hardly breathe and talk and the screaming. Lady, I—I—I’m sorry. Honest: I—I can hardly breathe. I—I’m going to step inside, where I cannot see it. Bill, that’s terrible. Ah, ah;—I can’t. Listen, folks; I—I’m gonna have to stop for a minute because.  I’ve lost my voice. This is the worst thing I’ve ever witnessed.

    Posted by Texas Bob on 2007 05 30 at 08:51 AM • permalink

  49. #48: Hilarious, T-Bob!

    Posted by paco on 2007 05 30 at 08:53 AM • permalink

  50. #48 Ah, the Gorenburg Disaster!  I had almost forgotten the Crash of the Titanic of Tennessee.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 05 30 at 09:04 AM • permalink

  51. 48. 1st in a series I hope, Titanic might be out though, no icebergs you see.

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 05 30 at 09:04 AM • permalink

  52. #11 Ilibcc - if you try reporting something like this in sydney, the cops couldn’t be arsed to even take a report.

    A guy deliberately swerved at me last year, so I noted his rego and a description of the car and went around to the local copshop.

    The young pube behind the counter did everything he could to avoid taking a statement.  In the end, to fob me off, he looked up the rego on COPS and then told me it was reported stolen, so they couldn’t do anything about it.

    Like hell.  I could tell I was being given the flick.

    Since the incident happened on the only road out of a peninsular, I simply wandered around the streets of the peninsular on the weekend and - lo and behold!  There was the car. 

    I then had the pleasure of calling the copshop and saying, “You know that car you told me was stolen?  Well, it’s outside such and such a house on Bling street.”

    Response:  “Oh.” 

    As in, “Oh shit, now we have to do something about it, and how do we cover up the misuse of COPS and lying to the public?”

    It’s been a year, and I still can’t get a response out of them as to what happened.

    Posted by mr creosote on 2007 05 30 at 09:12 AM • permalink

  53. Youtube: Beck Cheers NYT Admission of Global Warming Swindle

    Posted by egg_ on 2007 05 30 at 09:13 AM • permalink

  54. #16—Sure and aren’t we after using the very best rocks and boulders and all?

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 05 30 at 09:44 AM • permalink

  55. #48 That is so funny in the most macabre way!

    Definitely first in a series, I hope.

    Titanic is always possible. As the polar caps melt there will still be icebergs floating into shipping lanes.

    Or we can do the Poseidon Adventure.

    Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 05 30 at 10:31 AM • permalink

  56. Remember, our planet is just five years away from climate change catastrophe.

    Make that 4 years, 11 and a half months!!!11!1!

    Posted by Major John on 2007 05 30 at 01:49 PM • permalink

  57. *sigh*  I see I must explain this.  The Hindenburg was called the Titanic of the Skies.  That’s where the reference comes from.  Nothing, really, to do with ships or icebergs.

    And yes, I hope #48 was the first in a series, because I couldn’t stop giggling.  I love gallows humor.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 05 30 at 04:26 PM • permalink

  58. Texas Bob, I lost it completely at “indecipherable”, the men in white suits will be here any minute

    Posted by moptop on 2007 05 30 at 05:21 PM • permalink

  59. As the country basked in warm spring sunshine over the Easter weekend, the new research suggests that it could be time to say goodbye to defining features of British life, like rainy picnics and cloudy sunbathing.

    And this is a bad thing? I’m booking my flight for August.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 05 30 at 06:40 PM • permalink

  60. #5 I don’t know why this yeld out to my brain, but ski fields is an anagram of Fisks lied.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 05 30 at 06:45 PM • permalink

  61. #48. I’ve just got off the floor.

    My daughter might have to be taken to hospital.

    We cant’ stop her laughing.

    It is the funniest thing I have read in years.

    Posted by Macosghair on 2007 05 31 at 05:43 AM • permalink

  62. #43. “Cold killed 25000 in the UK in the “second warmest year in the past 1,000”.”

    Be careful, moptop.  Apparently they used the same methodology as the Lancet did in Iraq.  To quote from the article, “The Office for National Statistics said there were 25,700 ‘excess winter deaths’.”  Whenever I see that term “excess deaths” I can’t help but hear the warning bells go off.  The Lancet claims there were 655,000 “excess deaths” in Iraq without actually documenting anything of the sort.  It was a miracle if they actually counted 2000 deaths total.  They just used fancy math to turn that small number into the kind of big number they were looking (as well as hoping) for.

    #17. I think you misread the map.  The areas around Vladivostok and Murmansk showed unusual relative cooling, not warming, if I’m not mistaken.  Purple and pink are the coolest colors, not the warmest.

    Posted by kcom on 2007 05 31 at 06:23 PM • permalink

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