Tornado Hits North London !

[v2]

Updated: 12:31, Thursday December 07, 2006

A tornado has hit a North London street, severely damaging several houses.
Eyewitnesses said it lasted only a few seconds, but it ripped off at least one roof and tore down the side of a house.
It is not thought anyone was hurt, but cars, houses and street furniture were damaged.

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[twoeagles]

Now there's a V-weapon Hitler never thought of!
Happy to know there weren't any injuries...

 

[R-2800]

yes, happy to see no one was killed in this freak storm

 

[Matt308]

Hey I heard on the radio here in the US today that the UK gets more tornadoes that most individual states in Tornado Alley. Is that true??

 

[loomaluftwaffe]

hope not
i know bad weather, believe me

 

[Chief]

Pennsylvania just got hit too and not to far from where I live to. 3 tornado's hit.

2 people were killed. It was bound to happen here again eventually I just wish I wasn't around to see it, or hear of it.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

It is starting to get bad over here with them as well. Germany would only get a few a year and they were not very common. (in 20 years I had never seen one in Germany) Now though they spring about 30 times a year here around Germany. Earlier this year one came down over Dresden, Germany.

 

[Clave]

They called it a 'mini-tornado' but the weather guy said is was a Cat 1 or 2. I was looking out of the window a couple of miles away at the time (about 11am) and the sky went black, there was lightning, a huge wind blowing, and horizontal hail, it was amazing...

We get about 30 a year, but nothing like the US ones, and there has not been one like that in London since 1954.

Global Warming?...

Seems like they are going to rebuild now instead of demolishing:

BBC NEWS | England | London | Tornado homes escape demolition

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I agree with your global warming assessment. It has completely turned the climate here in Germany. Last year at this time we had about -1 to 0 degrees C temp and several feet of snow and this was the norm. This year we registered 21 degrees C last Thursday and we have not had any snow. I drive home from base and the wild flowers are blooming again. I dont need a jacket during the day.

The weather is bizzar and I think we as the world if we dont do something to stop this global warming it is going to bite us all in the ass sooner.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I somewhat agree and disagree...

I think global warming as a result of fossil fuels are affecting the earth, a proven fact, but I could remember bazaar weather events 20 or 25 years ago (1969, a huge blizzard covered NYC for weeks, 1974, 75 degree temps in Jan., and the summer of 1975, 107 in NYC). It's also been proven that just by inhabiting this planet all life forms are contributing to global warming in one form of the other. In the mid 80s I remember the big craze was acid rain, hardly mentioned anymore. Yes we need to have alternate sources of energy but at the same time things need to be put into perspective and balanced - do we destroy the earth, keep living our lives with conservation in mind or revert back to the middle ages?

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Yeah but it has been warming up here in Germany over the last 5 years about a degree a year. It has been a gradual increase, not like it just happened overnight.

 

[Clave]

There are natural cycles of warming and cooling - half of the UK was covered in glaciers at one point - but it seems that right now we are accelerating a natural swing...

I think it would happen anyway, but industrial activity is pushing the effect harder than nature would normally allow. This may be recoverable if everyone takes action, but the more worrying side is the possibility of a sustained reaction, where the heat just keeps increasing no matter what we do.

This is one good reason to favour the Space Program - we might just have to leave here and find a new planet one day...

 

[Matt308]

Scary thought Clave. But I think you are right. If not for climate changes, then for sheer physical space and resources. Not in my lifetime though. Nor likely in my kids, kids either.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

then it's not our problem

 

[Clave]

I'll bet if they find a cure for ageing, then everyone will be interested in global warming.

It's just one of those gradual things that will kick us in the head as a species...eventually...

I wish I had an answer, but I still have to drive my car to work, I have bills to pay...

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

No I think it is our problem. The ice caps are melting at an alarming rate, the oceans currents are shifting as we speak at a faster rate. If the Gulf Stream moves just a bit, it will effect the worlds climates.

This is our problem and we need to do something to fix this now...

 

[pbfoot]

The gulf strean is changing as we speak the arctic ice pack is retreating and as result the cold water from the Arctic is now forcing the gulf stream south

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Thats what I said. We need to realize that we are causing this and we need to do something about it now before it really bites us in the ass.

Some of the most dramatic reports come from the polar regions, which are warming faster than the planet as a whole and have lost large amounts of ice in recent decades. The Arctic sea ice, covering an area roughly the size of the United States, shrunk by an estimated 6 percent between 1978 and 1996, losing an average of 34,300 square kilometers-an area larger than the Netherlands-each year.

The Arctic sea ice has also thinned dramatically since the 1960s and 70s. Between this period and the mid-1990s, the average thickness dropped from 3.1 meters to 1.8 meters-a decline of nearly 40 percent in less than 30 years.


The Arctic's Greenland Ice Sheet-the largest mass of land-based ice outside of Antarctica, with 8 percent of the world's ice-has thinned more than a meter per year on average since 1993 along parts of its southern and eastern edges.

The massive Antarctic ice cover, which averages 2.3 kilometers in thickness and represents some 91 percent of Earth's ice, is also melting. So far, most of the loss has occurred along the edges of the Antarctic Peninsula, on the ice shelves that form when the land-based ice sheets flow into the ocean and begin to float. Within the past decade, three ice shelves have fully disintegrated: the Wordie, the Larsen A, and the Prince Gustav. Two more, the Larsen B and the Wilkins, are in full retreat and are expected to break up soon, having lost more than one-seventh of their combined 21,000 square kilometers since late 1998-a loss the size of Rhode Island. Icebergs as big as Delaware have also broken off Antarctica in recent years, posing threats to open-water shipping.

The disappearance of Earth's ice cover would significantly alter the global climate-though the net
effects remain unknown. Ice, particularly polar ice, reflects large amounts of solar energy back into
space, and helps keep the planet cool. When ice melts, however, this exposes land and water surfaces that retain heat-leading to even more melt and creating a feedback loop that accelerates the overall warming process. But excessive ice melt in the Arctic could also have a cooling effect in parts of Europe and the eastern United States, as the influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic may disrupt ocean circulation patterns that enable the warm Gulf Stream to flow north.

 

[Chief]

I have the perfect answer to Global Warming...cancel it out with Nuclear Winter!

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Yeah thats real fucking great there Chief....