CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
"get warned that the world is about to end
It did for some people during the last few storms, one in Scotland during the last storm and five UK wide the storm before that."
*sigh*
Yes, it did. But my point was the disproportionate nature of the pre-event reporting, "...bringing to mind the devestation caused by tropical Typhoons or American hurricanes" where many many more people died.
I'm going to leave this now.
Wow. Pressure has dropped 18mb 19mb in less than 5.5 hours. Now that is pretty impressive.
Part of the 'problem' is that some parts of the media (eg D Express) are hyping 'shock horror' on the basis of some dubious 'forecasters'.
More importantly it seems most people no longer have any sense of 'normal for this time of year'.
The 25th anniversary of "Lockerbie" had (as I remember it) the exact same stormy weather.
That said, there does seem to be an increase in 'extreme' weather in recent years which accords with some of the predicted outcomes of "climate change".
There has been little in the way of changes that are assumed to be desirable - including encouraging cycling and, perhaps, dualling fewer roads...
There's a bit of disconnection between the official "only travel unless absolutely essential" and travel infrastructures' suspensions of use/service with employers' opinions on the essentialness of their staff, particularly pertaining to the chronological persecution of staff whose normal method of travel relies upon roads or bridges being open and public travel-modules running, often resulting in people driving in to ensure they don't have to use up leave or make up time.
It'd probably be considered a draconian imposition on civil liberties to issue officially-mandated meteorological-risk-reducing travel-curtailment edicts which could be enacted by the police being granted temporary powers to turn people back if their journey along the @#### was deemed insufficiently immediately life-threateningly essential, unless employers were also prevented from being nasty to employees for not being physically present in an office if it was temporarily illegal for them to travel there.
@stiltskin Pressure has dropped 19mb in less than 5.5 hours
A BBC forecaster yesterday was getting quite excited about a predicted ~50mb (or more) drop in 24 hours. They explained that >24mb in 24 hours was a weather bomb!
Robert
We're supposed to be going to my parents' home near Newcastle for Christmas. I'm really regretting booking train tickets (as opposed to a car) now :( If we don't get down on the 24th we'll be here all on our own till the 26th...
Employers certainly do carry a lot of responsibility for creating an atmosphere where people feel obliged to travel. I suppose I'm in the fortunate position of being able to create the atmosphere (in the office, not the weather you understand) and I like to lead the charge to the sofa from the front ;-) I'm thinking of setting a fine example and heading home just now.
Anth, don't you think your "...bringing to mind the devestation caused by tropical Typhoons or American hurricanes" is a little bit of the hyperbole you're criticising?
I don't recall any ludicrous reports like that from the media, but that's probably because I only read the BBC for news. Their reporting of what was going to happen was pretty much spot on, as was their weather forecast.
Not really Insto (hell, it even uses a picture of the devestation of the last Typhoon to illustrate the story).
I guess that's only a local paper, this is is the Daily Star, but the mesasge is there.
Obviously we've covered the Express Christmas from Hell.
The Beeb isn't calling it a 'killer', but has a live online update of the weather around the country (like their election coverage) (with the latest amusing update being, "Wet and windy weather also hit London, with shoppers in Oxford Street braving the elements to get last-minute presents").
The irony, of course, will be me getting wiped out by a falling tree on my way home tonight.
Well, that was a 25mb drop in 6 hours, so I guess it officially is a weather bomb Roibeard. Not all that windy yet, but it must be coming sooooon.
OK. I'll not drag it out but the Bristol Post and Daily Star articles aren't actually related to any real weather forecast. Certainly not the storm in early December. They're just silly stories from early November - the Bristol Post picking up and reprinting the Daily Star's original story two days later. Both of them are fuelled by 'forecasters' desperate for publicity although at least the Bristol Post gets a quote from the Met Office dismissing the story .
So those stories are baseless hyperbole "predicting" what might happen a month in the future that no one was expected to respond to. And as you say, we've done the Express.
The BBC and the Met Office's sites seem pretty reasonable. They're expecting it to be wild and windy over the next few days. There's yellow warnings covering almost the whole country and amber warnings in large parts. Seems reasonable to tell people that. But to conflate all of those into the same phenomenon is, I think, over-reaching.
In this Beeb video (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25488198), the forecaster says he has never seen anything of the like of this storm hurtling towards us, ie it's coming at 280mph on the jet stream. He also mentions that pressure *may* hit all time lows. Lowest on record in UK currently is 925mb, this is currently sitting at 927mb.
'Bawbag' saw a rapid drop in pressure in the order of 50mb in 24hrs. This may be of same magnitude (in some places). This may be anecdotal, but I have a sore head today. Forth Road Bridge now also warning a 'full' bridge closure may happen tomorrow.
So because some of the stories are baseless hyperbole, but some are reasoned and based on forecasts, that means I can't say the media are blowing things out of all proportion.
I mean, I guess I should have said, "Some of the media, generally the lower end outlets and local news resources, disproportionately exaggerate the upcoming storm warnings and predicted results".
"So those stories are baseless hyperbole "predicting" what might happen a month in the future that no one was expected to respond to."
So every single person who read those stories just tucked them away saying, 'Ach, it'll never happen'? Eeh, I wish that were true, because if it were then the people who read them also wouldn't believe the UK was becoming an Islamic state and that Poles were taking over the universe. But they do. Because people (some people, lest I'm conflating all individuals in the country) do actually believe these stories.
And my original point was simply that pre-event coverage is OTT to the point that the reality never seems to match it. You pointed out this was the 'role' of the media, but on the basis of above presumably not of the BBC (which you didn't split out, thereby conflating the BBC into the media whose role it is to over-state).
Erm.
Just re-read. "...every single bit of the media..." Ah. Mea culpa.
Damn. That was a particularly fine high horse I was on....
"Damn. That was a particularly fine high horse I was on...."
Jingle bells
Haven't watched the forecasts but a friend who is a self confessed weather geek has warned me off that the approaching storm is looking more and more certain and is the most extreme low pressure/pressure drop she's seen. Extremely high winds looking more and more likely, everything else to be seen.
Of course it's only a forecast, little is certain until it happens! ;-)
"the weather looked a bit ropey" just isn't going to rub with my sister on Christmas Day, so I'll be out to brave a few more shops to try and get her sorted.
Quite pretty (if it didn't mean something...)
I can see Elvis in that picture.
^^ Like.
hurricane Elvis?
I can see Elvis in that picture
Ha! I thought it was Homer Simpson...
"
23 December 2013
Last updated at 17:09
Wind warnings for Christmas Eve in Scotland upgraded
"
If all the CCEers have to stay indoors 'cause of the weather, I'd expect to see a massive spike in posts here... ;)
"I'd expect to see a massive spike in posts here..."
Nah, they'd have nothing to talk about.
Oh,
Maybe...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25493887
"Gritter comes off Scottish Borders road due to icy conditions"
Surprised this doesn't happen more often. Begs the question, who grits the roads for the gritting lorry ?
Our barometer is about to clock itself. The pressure is so low the needle is heading back round to the high pressure bit.
Hurricane Hadrosaur Head.
Are you suggesting that's the likely out come of the weather ? Wur all doomed.
Our weather station is showing a pressure of 934.6, now that may not be terribly accurate, being a cheap electronic weather station, but it's extremely low regardless and comfortably the lowest depression we've measured in the couple of years it's been set up :-/
You must log in to post.
Cycling in Edinburgh Flickr group
Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin
posts