Breaking Waves: Ocean News

With the UK experiencing the driest summer on record, we look at how the weather is affecting the pitches and courses across the country Continue reading...

Weather forecasts once gave Britons something safe to chat about. Not any more, and that’s a problem for the experts – indeed, for all of us In this fragmented but supposedly mild country, watching and talking about the weather forecast is meant to be a reassuring, unifying activity. Collectively, we have created and maintained a national climate narrative of small disappointments and pleasures. The first weather forecaster to appear on British TV, George Cowling, made his debut on the BBC in January 1954, predicting that “tomorrow would be rather windy”, but “a good day to hang out the washing”. For most of the 72 years since, such brief, carefully calibrated broadcasts have provided people from Aberdeen to Penzance with practical information, small talk and minor grumbles about essentially the same situation: living in a country where the weather is constantly changing, in a paradoxically unchanging way. Yet like the traditional British climate, that common weather culture may now be evaporating. “Met Office considers issuing red ‘extreme heat warning’ across Britain while nation enjoys ‘incredible summer’,” said the headline above the forecast on the GB News website on Monday, caught between terror and delight at the latest heatwave. As the climate crisis has affected this country in more and more unmistakable but uneven ways, TV weather forecasters have increasingly struggled to find the right language to describe this transformation’s daily consequences. Their struggle influences and exemplifies that of many Britons to understand, and work out what we think about, the apparent end of the weather patterns we expected to shape our whole lives. Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Most owners would consider installing aircon as heatwaves lead buyers to focus on ability to stay cool, Rightmove says Searches for homes for sale in the UK with air conditioning have more than doubled this summer as heatwaves push staying cool up the list of priorities for homebuyers, alongside nearness to good schools and transport links. In the week of the UK’s fifth heatwave, in which temperatures in parts of England hit 38C, the property website Rightmove said the heat was influencing how Britons thought about their homes, with more people paying attention to how comfortable a property would be during hotter weather. Continue reading...

Evacuation orders issued for 400,000 after flooding, landslide warnings and power outages in Chiba prefecture At least five people have died in eastern Japan after “unprecedented” heavy rain that left nearly 7,000 stranded at Tokyo’s Narita airport and forced thousands to take refuge in government buildings. The torrential rains hit Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, on Thursday night, triggering landslide warnings and power outages. Evacuation orders were issued for more than 400,000 people in Chiba and other areas, and about 45,000 homes lost power, as 115mm of rain fell hourly, approximately the same amount usually recorded for the whole month of August. Continue reading...