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It's the first week of November, and we have climbed up above the | :00:09. | :00:12. | |
village of Braemar in the Scottish Highlands. We are at about 1300 | :00:12. | :00:17. | |
feet, it seemed a good place to join the conversation that's | :00:17. | :00:21. | |
already gearing up around the country, on what sort of winter we | :00:21. | :00:28. | |
might have in store. Why are we here? As well as being incredibly | :00:28. | :00:32. | |
blustery, Braemar holds the record for the lowest temperature ever | :00:32. | :00:39. | |
recorded in the UK, a minus 27.2 degrees Celsius. Where better to | :00:40. | :00:44. | |
ask are we heading for another big freeze. We will be looking at the | :00:44. | :00:49. | |
latest science and cutting edge weather forecast. What about our | :00:49. | :00:53. | |
airports, our supermarkets, energy suppliers and health service. Do | :00:53. | :00:56. | |
they think they have another hard winter coming. And most importantly, | :00:56. | :01:00. | |
are they prepared for it? Over the next hour, what we seek to answer | :01:00. | :01:10. | |
:01:10. | :01:18. | ||
is really just one simple question, Remember this? Motorists gridlocked | :01:18. | :01:23. | |
on icey roads, trains stranded, and thousands of flights cancelled. | :01:23. | :01:28. | |
Across the UK, we did battle with the wrong type of snow, killer ice, | :01:28. | :01:34. | |
and an estimated cost to the economy of over �200 million per | :01:34. | :01:38. | |
day in transport disruption alone. December was the coldest month for | :01:38. | :01:43. | |
over a century.With the mild weather across the UK today, it is | :01:43. | :01:47. | |
hard to cast our minds back to just nine months ago, when we emerged | :01:48. | :01:57. | |
:01:58. | :02:02. | ||
from what journalists dubbed, "Snomageddon". Look at that, the | :02:02. | :02:05. | |
very first snow of the British winter, I knew we had come to the | :02:06. | :02:10. | |
right place, and this is Alex Hill, at the frontline of Scottish | :02:10. | :02:14. | |
meteorology for how many years? When you see snow like that, is | :02:14. | :02:18. | |
this a science that winter is well and truly on its way. Is this the | :02:19. | :02:22. | |
first snow of the year? The first snow was a few weeks back, it is | :02:22. | :02:26. | |
all gone, apart from the little patch we saw there. We had a cold | :02:26. | :02:33. | |
northerly for a while, very heavy showers, that ploanks a few | :02:33. | :02:38. | |
centimeters of snow - plonks a few centimeters of snow around the | :02:38. | :02:43. | |
place. What are we looking at? the next few weeks and days the | :02:43. | :02:47. | |
chances of snow are very, very small. In your 37 years of | :02:47. | :02:50. | |
experience, had you seen winters like the ones that we have had the | :02:50. | :02:54. | |
last couple of years? I think that is the curiosity, everybody got | :02:54. | :03:02. | |
into a kind of paddy about it, and yes, I think 2010/11 was a | :03:03. | :03:05. | |
particularly chilly winter, but it lasted just for November and | :03:05. | :03:08. | |
December. By the time you were into January and February, the | :03:08. | :03:13. | |
temperatures were getting milder and milder. Has it been an exciting | :03:13. | :03:17. | |
time for meteorologist? Exciting, certainly, yes, stressful, | :03:17. | :03:21. | |
certainly. But it makes people realise, perhaps, that weather has | :03:21. | :03:27. | |
much more impact than you imagine on your day-to-day life. | :03:27. | :03:34. | |
The Met Office has one of its 450 weather stations up here at Braemar. | :03:34. | :03:38. | |
They know from bitter experience, it is not too early to be on snow | :03:38. | :03:44. | |
alert. So what has been making our winters so unseasonably cold | :03:44. | :03:49. | |
recently. Can we blame a particular type of weather system. Can | :03:49. | :03:53. | |
scientists predict how much snow is going to small? And what about the | :03:53. | :03:57. | |
forecasters, can we rely on them to see another big freeze heading our | :03:57. | :04:02. | |
way? I have to say, it is quite a relief | :04:02. | :04:05. | |
to sit down. We have been tearing around the country for the last | :04:05. | :04:09. | |
week, trying to establish whether we have got another truly horrible | :04:09. | :04:17. | |
winter heading our way. It does seem a little bit ridiculous. We | :04:17. | :04:22. | |
are just emerging from the warmest October on record. We are at the | :04:22. | :04:25. | |
BBC headquarters in Glasgow, and look, we have an open roof above us. | :04:25. | :04:29. | |
It is not exactly sunny, but it is actually quite warm. Do you think | :04:29. | :04:34. | |
we are all getting into a bit of a panic about nothing? It is | :04:34. | :04:37. | |
unseasonably warm, but this is a conversation we do love to have in | :04:37. | :04:41. | |
the UK. I think it is a scientific question, the headlines have | :04:41. | :04:44. | |
already started. This is one from one newspaper that Britain faces an | :04:44. | :04:48. | |
early big freeze. Science should be able to answer that question, | :04:48. | :04:51. | |
already, earlier this week in the US there was a monster snowfall, | :04:51. | :04:56. | |
and we did see the type of chaos we saw last year, with airports being | :04:56. | :05:00. | |
closed down. People are even saying could we be entering into a mini- | :05:00. | :05:05. | |
Ice Age. The thing is, we have got all this technology at our | :05:05. | :05:11. | |
fingertips, satellites in the sky, data pouring in, surely science | :05:11. | :05:14. | |
should be able to tell us whether or not it will snow? Climate | :05:14. | :05:18. | |
science is an enormous field. There is a bewildering amount of data out | :05:18. | :05:22. | |
there. What I want to find out is what are the limits of that science. | :05:22. | :05:24. | |
How much can the data actually tell us about what the weather will do | :05:24. | :05:29. | |
in the next few weeks. Let's also not forget that there was a time, | :05:29. | :05:33. | |
when we didn't have satellites, we didn't have all this technology at | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
our fingertips. Can the natural world actually give us any sort of | :05:37. | :05:41. | |
clue as to what sort of winter we are going to have? Later in the | :05:42. | :05:44. | |
programme, Alys Fowler is going to be investigating that for us. She's | :05:44. | :05:48. | |
heading out into the countryside to see what the natural world might or | :05:48. | :05:53. | |
might not be able to tell us about the coming winter. But our | :05:53. | :05:56. | |
investigation started right at the frontline of meteorology, down | :05:56. | :06:04. | |
south. Britain's weather is volatile and | :06:04. | :06:09. | |
ever-changing, and we are famously obsessed with it. The people who do | :06:09. | :06:13. | |
daily battle with our unpredictable weather, and indeed with our | :06:13. | :06:23. | |
:06:23. | :06:23. | ||
expectations, work here. At the Met Office headquarters. The Met Office | :06:23. | :06:28. | |
works around the clock, 365 days a year. Providing forecast data for | :06:28. | :06:36. | |
over 300 locations in the UK. But predicting the weather is a | :06:36. | :06:40. | |
trickery business, involving superxuet computers, expert | :06:40. | :06:44. | |
meteorologist, and data collected from all over the planet, including | :06:44. | :06:47. | |
the deep ocean and outer space. If you have all these thousands and | :06:47. | :06:51. | |
thousands of observations coming in, you have got all these computers | :06:51. | :06:55. | |
and computer models doing all this work, and all these specialists | :06:55. | :07:01. | |
here, why is it so difficult to get a forecast absolutely accurate? | :07:01. | :07:04. | |
is difficult, but we have successes as well. You have got to remember | :07:04. | :07:10. | |
last winter the snow forecast for the shert period were excellently | :07:10. | :07:13. | |
forecast. We had the Heathrow forecast, we do very well. There | :07:13. | :07:18. | |
are some difficulty in forecasting the weather. As we head into winter | :07:18. | :07:22. | |
there is a lot at stake. Farmers risk loss of livestock, local | :07:22. | :07:26. | |
authorities need to know when to grit the roads, and any of us | :07:26. | :07:29. | |
wanting to travel are desperate to know what's in store. | :07:29. | :07:34. | |
But the truth is, predicting the weather day by day is still the | :07:34. | :07:42. | |
only way to promise accuracy. This model is created by your | :07:42. | :07:45. | |
supercomputer, from all those millions of observations that are | :07:45. | :07:49. | |
coming in from around the globe? That is absolutely right. It shows | :07:49. | :07:53. | |
band of rain coming across Ireland. When the forecasters, the chief | :07:53. | :07:57. | |
forecaster, one of his jobs is to check out the reliability of that | :07:57. | :08:01. | |
forecast. As you can see here, around about the same time, this is | :08:01. | :08:06. | |
actual rainfall over Ireland. So the front, coming in from the west, | :08:06. | :08:09. | |
the model prediction and the actual position of the rain on the radar | :08:09. | :08:12. | |
is actually fairly good. We know categorically what is happening now, | :08:12. | :08:16. | |
how about what's going to happen tomorrow, how do you then use that | :08:16. | :08:19. | |
information? Absolutely right. We have to know what's happening now, | :08:19. | :08:22. | |
whether the model is exactly correct before making a prediction. | :08:22. | :08:26. | |
Once we know what's happening now through the Oakss, the models and | :08:26. | :08:30. | |
looking at everything, we can make a more confident statement about | :08:30. | :08:33. | |
what will happen tomorrow. Over the coming weeks, what will you be | :08:33. | :08:37. | |
looking for to tell you that it is going to snow? One of the most | :08:37. | :08:41. | |
important things is to look at the temperature of the air mass. It is | :08:41. | :08:45. | |
not just the, believe it or not, it is not just the temperature of the | :08:45. | :08:49. | |
air mass, it is the dryness, as that rainfalls into dry air, it | :08:49. | :08:56. | |
cools the air by a thing called evapive cooling. This is two very | :08:56. | :09:01. | |
important factor whrs it will be rain or snow. Despite a | :09:01. | :09:04. | |
supercomputer performing a billion calculation per second, predicting | :09:04. | :09:08. | |
whether it will snow, even as far ahead as this coming weeks, is | :09:08. | :09:12. | |
pushing the limits of what they can say with confidence. At this point, | :09:12. | :09:17. | |
could you say, hand on heart, whether it will snow this winter? | :09:17. | :09:19. | |
It will snow somewhere in the British Isles this winter. Anyone | :09:19. | :09:23. | |
who turns around and says in the 25th of December, which happens to | :09:23. | :09:28. | |
be Christmas day, it will snow, is, quit he frankly a fool.The | :09:28. | :09:36. | |
Office does look further ahead. Adam leads a team that looks both | :09:36. | :09:41. | |
at seasonal prediction and how climate on a long-term and global | :09:41. | :09:51. | |
:09:51. | :09:52. | ||
scale affects the weather we experience in the UK. | :09:52. | :09:57. | |
Why is it so hard to make an accurate long-term forecast? | :09:57. | :10:01. | |
reason is we live in the mid- latitudes where there are lots of | :10:01. | :10:04. | |
storms and vairability. This is part of the reason why British | :10:04. | :10:08. | |
people are so obsessed with the weather and like to criticise | :10:08. | :10:13. | |
weather forecasters also at times. Why is it so difficult to nail your | :10:13. | :10:18. | |
flag to the mast asay it will snow in February? - and say it will snow | :10:18. | :10:23. | |
in February? Because, basically, atmospheric chaos is a real | :10:23. | :10:28. | |
phenomenon. The old adage that the butterfly flaps its wings and sets | :10:28. | :10:31. | |
off a storm in the rest of the world, a small thing today could | :10:31. | :10:34. | |
change the detail in the outcome, you can't nail your flag to the | :10:35. | :10:40. | |
mast and be deterministic and specific. | :10:40. | :10:45. | |
Most people know that Britain is warming than it should be for its | :10:45. | :10:52. | |
latitude, that is thanks to two things. The first is thermohaline | :10:52. | :10:56. | |
circulation, or THC, a massive movement of water in the oceans | :10:56. | :11:01. | |
around the world. But some people have raised concerns that the | :11:01. | :11:05. | |
melting of the northern icecap could affect the THC, and maybe | :11:05. | :11:11. | |
even shut it down. And this would make our weather significantly | :11:11. | :11:16. | |
colder. Research continues. But the second and best understood governor | :11:16. | :11:20. | |
of our winter weather here in Britain, is, of course, the | :11:20. | :11:27. | |
jetstream, which feedz us with warm, moist air, from the west. But it is | :11:27. | :11:30. | |
an unpredictable beast, and sometimes gets snoked off course. | :11:30. | :11:35. | |
Just a single air current - knocked off course. A single air current | :11:35. | :11:39. | |
from Siberia can be enough to disrupt the air stream's warming | :11:39. | :11:42. | |
influence. Meteorologists call this a blocking pattern, and such a | :11:42. | :11:49. | |
weather system was responsible for last year's big freeze. It is clear, | :11:49. | :11:53. | |
even with thousands of bits of data, coming in every day, from every | :11:53. | :11:58. | |
corner of the globe, it is really difficult to forecast when snow | :11:58. | :12:02. | |
might fall here in the UK. But before they can worry about | :12:02. | :12:06. | |
predicting when snow will fall, scientists have to understand how | :12:06. | :12:14. | |
it is made. The big question for me is what | :12:14. | :12:23. | |
triggers is a huge snowfall. - triggers a huge snowfall. We snow | :12:23. | :12:28. | |
snow is made inside clouds like rain. But know is not just frozen | :12:28. | :12:36. | |
rain. What is it then? I'm hoping the Centre for | :12:36. | :12:39. | |
Atmospheric Science, here at the University of Manchester will have | :12:39. | :12:44. | |
some answers for me. The biggest problem in predicting snowfall is | :12:44. | :12:48. | |
that whilst we know if it is going to snow, we have no real idea what | :12:48. | :12:57. | |
type of snow is coming, and how fast it is going to fall. | :12:57. | :13:02. | |
High in the clouds, there are millions of tiny supercold water | :13:02. | :13:07. | |
droplets, to make snow, first you need some of these droplets to | :13:07. | :13:10. | |
evaporate into water vapour. This vapour then drifts through the | :13:10. | :13:15. | |
cloud until it makes contact with something, maybe a speck of dust, | :13:15. | :13:20. | |
or some other bit of matter that triggers the water vapour molecules | :13:20. | :13:26. | |
into forming ice crystals. This process is called seeding. When ice | :13:26. | :13:32. | |
crystals clump together, they can make a snowflake. | :13:32. | :13:35. | |
But what scientists haven't been able to work out is just how much | :13:35. | :13:41. | |
snow a cloud will produce. Inside there is a piece of kit which is | :13:41. | :13:49. | |
set to change that. This cylinder replicates the conditions needed to | :13:49. | :13:54. | |
make snow. It can literally conjure a flurry of snow out of thin air. | :13:54. | :14:00. | |
Well, technically, out of supercooled clouds. This is a cloud | :14:00. | :14:03. | |
chamber, this is where you make clouds here in the basement, how | :14:03. | :14:07. | |
does it actually work? It spans three floors of this building. And | :14:07. | :14:14. | |
we make clouds using this giant kettle, the steam travels up this | :14:14. | :14:22. | |
pipe into the cloud chamber, and contenses to form water droplets, | :14:22. | :14:27. | |
later on we can nucleate this cloud and seed it and make it into ice. | :14:27. | :14:32. | |
They make it look simple, but don't be fooled. It has taken years of | :14:32. | :14:41. | |
research to take what happens in nature high up in the atmosphere. | :14:41. | :14:45. | |
You can get straight snow out of there. That has fallen from the 10m | :14:46. | :14:50. | |
height, from ice crystals and lands as snow. That is exactly it. | :14:50. | :14:55. | |
But what is seeding, exactly? And how does it create the ice crystals | :14:55. | :15:03. | |
you need to make snow. We know that pure water freezes at zero degrees | :15:03. | :15:09. | |
Celsius, but the water in these test-tubes is 11 degrees below zero | :15:09. | :15:14. | |
and yet it is still liquid. For ice crystals to form, the supercooled | :15:14. | :15:18. | |
water needs to latch on to something around which it can grow. | :15:18. | :15:24. | |
In this case it is a single ice crystal that triggers the chain | :15:25. | :15:29. | |
reaction of lots more being able to form. Another more dramatic example | :15:29. | :15:36. | |
uses a supercooled bubble of soppy water, and a tiny bit of ice | :15:36. | :15:44. | |
hitting it, crystals rapidly appear. But it is what happens to these | :15:44. | :15:46. | |
tiny crystals after they have formed that determines if it is | :15:46. | :15:54. | |
going to snow. And how much snow will fall. Paul is working on what | :15:54. | :15:59. | |
he hopes will be a new way to predict snowfall more accurately. | :15:59. | :16:03. | |
These are the crystals being formed inside the cloud chamber, what are | :16:03. | :16:06. | |
we actually looking at? We are looking at the different ice | :16:06. | :16:11. | |
crystals that have fallen out. At this temperature, minus 15, they | :16:11. | :16:16. | |
are all the same type of ice crystal, the six-pointed shape, hex | :16:16. | :16:21. | |
ago national plates. Some of them, more than one ice crystal, stuck | :16:21. | :16:25. | |
together, there is two there on that one. This is two crystals that | :16:25. | :16:28. | |
have clumped together? That's right. That is the beginning of the | :16:28. | :16:33. | |
formation of a snowflake? Basically. What actually determines whether a | :16:33. | :16:39. | |
snowflake is going to fall? simply, it is to do with its weight, | :16:39. | :16:45. | |
and how much area it takes up, because the area determines the air | :16:45. | :16:49. | |
resistance. Some snowflakes have large surface area, not much mass | :16:49. | :16:53. | |
and fall very slowly. Some snowflakes are the opposite and | :16:54. | :16:57. | |
small much quicker. This is how you work out what are the conditions, | :16:57. | :17:01. | |
in a cloud, that determine whether it will snow or not? That's right, | :17:01. | :17:11. | |
:17:11. | :17:12. | ||
it happens at different rates and different temperatures. It is early | :17:12. | :17:16. | |
days for this study. But it could lead to weather forecasters being | :17:16. | :17:21. | |
able to accurately predict snowfall. And that could help prevent the | :17:21. | :17:25. | |
kind of chaos that sees airports close and motorists stuck in | :17:25. | :17:35. | |
snowdrifts. Last winter may have felt very long | :17:35. | :17:40. | |
and very cold. But it wasn't the hardest winter that Britain has | :17:40. | :17:45. | |
experienced in recent times. Some of you may remember 1963, the worst | :17:45. | :17:53. | |
winter in living memory. The snow started on Boxing Day, and | :17:53. | :17:57. | |
the big freeze lasted until March. Thousands of miles of roads, | :17:57. | :18:01. | |
throughout Britain, became impassable. Milk froze, water pipes | :18:02. | :18:06. | |
cracked, and fresh water had to be rationed. | :18:06. | :18:10. | |
Tanks were set up in the street, but even they froze up, and you | :18:10. | :18:15. | |
needed hot water to thaw out the tap to get cold water to make hot | :18:15. | :18:18. | |
water with. The cause, pretty much the same kind of Siberian weather | :18:18. | :18:25. | |
that hit us last year. On December 21st, this Siberian anticyclone | :18:25. | :18:29. | |
started to move in our direction. But the west Atlantic winds that | :18:30. | :18:34. | |
usually keep it at bay, suddenly weakened, and the Siberian | :18:34. | :18:39. | |
anticyclone moved right across to us. By December 22nd, it had hit us, | :18:39. | :18:46. | |
it was here, and the big freeze had begun. | :18:46. | :18:50. | |
The second blow, hundreds of towns and villages were cut off. For some, | :18:50. | :18:56. | |
the only way to survive was to walk miles in the snow. Others had to be | :18:56. | :19:02. | |
rescued. For over two months, the freezing air sat over the UK, a | :19:02. | :19:08. | |
classic blocking pattern, but on an even bigger scale than our winter | :19:08. | :19:14. | |
of 2010. And for 2011, well people are already preparing for the worst, | :19:14. | :19:24. | |
:19:24. | :19:26. | ||
especially out in the countryside. That was pretty impressive! Not bad, | :19:26. | :19:31. | |
through the gate first time. I have popped back home to Monmouthshire | :19:31. | :19:35. | |
in South Wales to see what plans farmers are making to survive the | :19:35. | :19:39. | |
worst that nature can throw at us, both for themselves, and, of course, | :19:39. | :19:45. | |
their livestock. Not far from here I have a small | :19:45. | :19:49. | |
holding, just over four acres, I have a couple of pig, ten ewes and | :19:49. | :19:53. | |
some chickens and ducks and things. When the hard weather hits, it is a | :19:53. | :19:59. | |
bit of a nightmare. All the pipes freeze, the water troughs freeze, | :19:59. | :20:03. | |
everything needs feeding twice as much as it does normally. | :20:03. | :20:08. | |
Everything takes an awful lot more time, but, imagine if you have a | :20:08. | :20:12. | |
farm, several hundred acres, and your whole livelihood depends on | :20:12. | :20:17. | |
the health of your livestock, or the state of your fields. Then, you | :20:17. | :20:26. | |
really know the meaning of hard weather. This sheep farm sond by | :20:26. | :20:33. | |
friends of mine, Jim and Kate Beavan. The farm has been in the | :20:33. | :20:36. | |
family for four generation, they have a thousand sheep, 80 cows and | :20:36. | :20:44. | |
all sorts of other animals. Whatever the weather, these animals | :20:44. | :20:48. | |
need feeding, that is a big problem if their food is frozen under a | :20:48. | :20:52. | |
foot of snow. If they are pregnant, and they have got lambs inside them, | :20:52. | :20:56. | |
then, of course, if they don't get enough food, then the lambs will | :20:56. | :20:59. | |
suffer. The other problem s when you are rooting around in the snow, | :21:00. | :21:05. | |
as a sheep, and you are looking for food, you are using up energy, and | :21:05. | :21:08. | |
keeping warm in the low temperatures, that is using up | :21:08. | :21:11. | |
energy, they need more food. It is a vicious cycle. You go through an | :21:11. | :21:17. | |
awful lot of food when the weather is cold. What have you done to | :21:17. | :21:22. | |
mitigate that? We have planted approximately 30 acres of root | :21:22. | :21:27. | |
crops, so they grow in, there is a swift variety of kale that grows | :21:27. | :21:30. | |
about that high, takes a lot of snow to cover that. Do you feel | :21:30. | :21:34. | |
prepared, do you think that if the worst happens you can cope? Yep. We | :21:34. | :21:40. | |
have had a good harvest this year, we have some good root crops. | :21:40. | :21:48. | |
we have down to a tee, water is the biggest problem, that is a problem, | :21:48. | :21:53. | |
at lambing time it is a problem. You think should we lamb earlier or | :21:53. | :21:56. | |
later, it could come in January or March, you don't know when it is | :21:56. | :22:03. | |
going to come. Jim and Kate have been farming for | :22:03. | :22:07. | |
a long time. As much as they will listen to the forecasts, they have | :22:07. | :22:12. | |
learned the hard way that there is only so much a weather report can | :22:12. | :22:15. | |
tell them. I can't see how it can work for months and months in | :22:15. | :22:20. | |
advance. When they have got a week or a fortnight, I can see that. But | :22:20. | :22:24. | |
when they say we will have heavy snow in January and February, I | :22:24. | :22:28. | |
can't see it in my mind, I can't work out how they can do that. | :22:28. | :22:32. | |
Short-term they have it bang on. Today I looked at it yesterday, we | :22:33. | :22:36. | |
knew exactly when the rain would start and finish, it was pretty | :22:36. | :22:42. | |
much bang on. The cows were lying down, we knew it would rain. Long- | :22:42. | :22:45. | |
term, as I remember, they said it would be a boiling hot summer, and | :22:45. | :22:50. | |
we didn't get it. What do you reckon, is it going to snow this | :22:50. | :22:53. | |
year? We will have t but I don't think we will have the quantities | :22:53. | :22:57. | |
that people are saying. I honestly don't. I said three years on the | :22:57. | :23:02. | |
trot, no. I have got the sledges out! | :23:02. | :23:05. | |
There you are, that is the definitive winter forecast from the | :23:05. | :23:13. | |
Beavans. Of course, weather forecasting is | :23:13. | :23:18. | |
hardly a new art. Gardener, Alys Fowler, has been tracking down some | :23:18. | :23:23. | |
of the more eccentric methods of divining whether a freeze is on its | :23:23. | :23:30. | |
way. Before modern weather forecasting, | :23:30. | :23:34. | |
we looked to nature to tell us what to expect from the weather. Not | :23:34. | :23:38. | |
just day-to-day, but for weeks and months ahead. Bits of that | :23:38. | :23:43. | |
knowledge, known as weatherlore, survive even today. | :23:43. | :23:48. | |
We have all heard the saying, "red sky at night, shepherd's delight, | :23:49. | :23:54. | |
red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning", is there any truth in it. | :23:54. | :24:00. | |
It turns out it is, a red sky at night tells us the setting sun is | :24:00. | :24:02. | |
sending light through dust particles, this usually means high | :24:02. | :24:05. | |
pressure and stable air from the west. Good weather is heading our | :24:05. | :24:10. | |
way. If the morning sky is red, it can | :24:10. | :24:14. | |
indicate lots of water in the atmosphere. And if it is cold | :24:14. | :24:19. | |
enough, that can produce snow. But what about our big question, | :24:19. | :24:25. | |
will it snow? What weatherlore predicts harsh | :24:25. | :24:28. | |
winters? This is one of my favourite ones, | :24:28. | :24:37. | |
onions skined very thin, milds a winter coming in, onion skin thick | :24:37. | :24:40. | |
and rough, winter is coming in rough. This is Spanish one, not | :24:40. | :24:45. | |
that accurate! But, of course, vegtables harvested | :24:45. | :24:49. | |
in August simply cannot tell us anything about the winter ahead. So | :24:49. | :24:51. | |
if onion weatherlore is out, what is in? | :24:51. | :24:56. | |
They say if the qirl has a really bushy tail, - the squirrel has a | :24:56. | :25:01. | |
really bushy tail, it will be a cold winter. Surely it is just that | :25:01. | :25:05. | |
they fluff up their tails to stay warm! | :25:05. | :25:09. | |
Here is another, thunder in September means snow is six weeks | :25:09. | :25:14. | |
away, also meaning less. Why did saying like this come about? Most | :25:14. | :25:18. | |
likely it is because trying to plan for bad weather was even more | :25:18. | :25:23. | |
important to our ancestors than to us today. | :25:23. | :25:28. | |
Lots of berries, particularly on the rowan or holly, is supposed to | :25:28. | :25:33. | |
indicate a hard winter is coming, this is a really good berry year. | :25:33. | :25:37. | |
But, alas, I haven't been able to find a scientist who can stand this | :25:37. | :25:41. | |
one up for me either. Although, I'm sure this berry bounty will be | :25:41. | :25:45. | |
snapped up in weeks to come. But there is one piece of | :25:45. | :25:50. | |
weatherlore that may be able to help us. Bob Elliot from the RSPB | :25:50. | :25:57. | |
is the man in the know. What about the old wives tale that | :25:57. | :26:02. | |
the swan brings winter on its wings? I think it is a lovely | :26:02. | :26:05. | |
saying, we have grown up with it. What is true is they are fleeing | :26:05. | :26:09. | |
the colder weather, they are bringing the winter with them. | :26:09. | :26:13. | |
there a particular swan we should be looking out for? A very special | :26:13. | :26:23. | |
:26:23. | :26:23. | ||
species called the Buick swan, nest ing in Siberia - testing in Siberia, | :26:23. | :26:27. | |
in early November there is a huge migration of these birds. Most | :26:27. | :26:32. | |
arrived all in one go over a couple of days. Very soon after that we | :26:32. | :26:35. | |
had snowy weather, they were fleeing from the extreme weather | :26:35. | :26:39. | |
conditions, this snow. When the swan falls, the snowfalls? | :26:39. | :26:44. | |
Precisely. It is the first week of November, | :26:44. | :26:48. | |
and they haven't arrived yet, so I think we are OK for now | :26:48. | :26:52. | |
I would like to believe that swans really can give us a heads up on | :26:52. | :26:58. | |
the weather. But when the big freeze descends, it is the smaller | :26:59. | :27:05. | |
birds that inhabit our gardens that need our help. | :27:05. | :27:11. | |
Bob has some tips for us? What they try to do is recreate their food | :27:12. | :27:16. | |
supplies in the gardens. Fruit, for the fruit-eating species, like the | :27:16. | :27:21. | |
thrushes, put out windfall apples, if you have some spare rotten | :27:21. | :27:27. | |
apples from the kitchen, they can be really beneficial for them. | :27:27. | :27:32. | |
they need more high-protien food, an apple is a lot of sugar? It is, | :27:32. | :27:39. | |
they need seeds, high protien, they need fatty foods, good old standard | :27:39. | :27:44. | |
peanuts have a lot of fat in it, they zone in on those. They will | :27:44. | :27:48. | |
know where they are, these feeding stations in people's gardens, they | :27:48. | :27:53. | |
know where it is. It is in their winter territories, and feed on | :27:53. | :27:56. | |
them communally it is a special sight. Where birds in the summer, | :27:56. | :28:01. | |
they are all breeding, separate in their own territories. Here, in the | :28:01. | :28:05. | |
winter, during snowy weather in particular, competition is pretty | :28:05. | :28:08. | |
fierce, but if there is enough food to go round, generally all the | :28:09. | :28:12. | |
different species will be able to find their particular food needs. | :28:12. | :28:17. | |
sometimes put out warm water for the birds, is it a good idea? | :28:17. | :28:21. | |
a good idea, temperatures will drop eventually so overnight they will | :28:21. | :28:25. | |
freeze. Try anything from a ping pong ball, one of my friends has | :28:25. | :28:29. | |
loads of these yellow plastic ducks that you have in the bath, floating | :28:29. | :28:35. | |
around in the water bowl outside, if it is a bit breezy the motion of | :28:35. | :28:39. | |
the objects will keep the ice from forming, at least enough for the | :28:39. | :28:43. | |
birds in the morning to drink. It is not just drinking it is bathing | :28:43. | :28:48. | |
that is incredibly important for them. Their feathers have been to | :28:48. | :28:52. | |
be in absolute tip top condition to survive the bad weather. They need | :28:52. | :28:55. | |
to be insulated properly, they can only do that if they are clean. | :28:55. | :28:59. | |
can't imagine having a bath on a cold day, I can see it makes sense. | :28:59. | :29:03. | |
So there is lots we can do to help wildlife survive the snow. We are | :29:03. | :29:07. | |
helped by the fact that city gardens tend to be warmer. It is | :29:07. | :29:13. | |
called the urban heat island effect. Gardens in big cities like London, | :29:13. | :29:17. | |
Birmingham and Manchester can be as much as five degrees warmer than | :29:17. | :29:23. | |
rural counterparts. All that brick and concrete is | :29:23. | :29:29. | |
great at stopping the heat escaping. But for prolonged cold spells, even | :29:29. | :29:32. | |
our urban gardens fall victim to the weather. | :29:32. | :29:37. | |
We just don't know what this winter will bring, but we do know, from | :29:37. | :29:41. | |
bitter experience, how damaging it can be for the garden and the | :29:41. | :29:45. | |
wildlife. So wrap up your plants, put out some extra bird food, then, | :29:45. | :29:55. | |
:29:55. | :29:58. | ||
if it does snow, at least you can Alys's advice will help our | :29:58. | :30:01. | |
wildlife through a tough winter. What about us? Are the | :30:01. | :30:04. | |
organisations we rely on to keep us warm and healthy ready for the snow | :30:04. | :30:12. | |
if it comes? It looks like the major utilities | :30:12. | :30:17. | |
companies are preparing for the worst. Hundreds of people have had | :30:17. | :30:21. | |
their gas supplies limited as the National Grid tries to cope with | :30:21. | :30:26. | |
the demand from home owners. National Grid has been forced to | :30:26. | :30:29. | |
issue a warning that demand for energy is threatening to outstrip | :30:29. | :30:34. | |
supplies. Only the second time they have ever had to do so. | :30:34. | :30:39. | |
When a cold snap bites, our demand for energy can jump 30%, as we turn | :30:39. | :30:49. | |
:30:49. | :30:50. | ||
up the heating. It is not just about energy, winter | :30:50. | :30:56. | |
places an added burden on the NHS, due to people injuring themselves | :30:56. | :31:01. | |
on snow and ice. I slipped and fell with my dog, I had a stick but I | :31:01. | :31:06. | |
fell on the ice. Size is always a nightmare, people call - ice is | :31:06. | :31:11. | |
always a nightmare, people fall over and break things like wrists | :31:11. | :31:16. | |
and ankles. It can cost an extra �40 billion in treatment costs. The | :31:16. | :31:22. | |
Met Office has arranged to send out weather reports about freezing to | :31:22. | :31:27. | |
the NHS, all in a bid to reduce the 25,000 deaths estimated if there is | :31:27. | :31:33. | |
another big freeze. But it isth still feels as these | :31:33. | :31:38. | |
organisations are often working in the dark. So where are the | :31:38. | :31:42. | |
newspapers getting their headlines from? There seems to be certain | :31:42. | :31:47. | |
forecasters out there claiming they can offer long-term predictions, | :31:47. | :31:51. | |
you can find them on the Internet. Is it really possible to beat the | :31:51. | :31:55. | |
Met Office? For big businesses, being able to plan weeks and months | :31:55. | :32:01. | |
ahead, is invaluable. And our supermarkets are no exception. | :32:01. | :32:06. | |
When bad weather is predicted, we tend to bulk buy, hot chocolate is | :32:06. | :32:15. | |
on the top of our list. And I am, - I'm delighted to say, is bird seed. | :32:15. | :32:19. | |
Supermarkets rely on the road and rail network to keep the shelves | :32:19. | :32:23. | |
well stocked. When bad weather hits, that supply chain comes under | :32:23. | :32:26. | |
threat. These days, most supermarkets have their own in- | :32:26. | :32:32. | |
house weather analysts. That is how important it is to them to know | :32:32. | :32:39. | |
what the weather is doing. I went to find out more from Ross | :32:39. | :32:47. | |
Eggletonn at more sons. This is extraordinary, - more sons, this is | :32:47. | :32:49. | |
extraordinary, are you using the same information as everyone else, | :32:49. | :32:54. | |
are you using the information from the Met Office? We also have an | :32:54. | :32:57. | |
independent provider that provides weather forecasts to us as a | :32:57. | :33:03. | |
business. What do your customers tend to buy? The snow? When it | :33:03. | :33:10. | |
snows behaviour seems - tend to buy in the snow? When the snow comes | :33:10. | :33:13. | |
behaviour shifts, lots of tinned food, in times of harsh weather I | :33:13. | :33:19. | |
think people like comfort, so comfort food seems to be it. Stews, | :33:19. | :33:25. | |
shepherd's pie? It is the home made, more traditional British dishes. | :33:25. | :33:28. | |
By combining Met Office data with information from other sources, | :33:28. | :33:32. | |
this supermarket tries to stay ahead of the game. | :33:32. | :33:37. | |
It is not foolproof, but Ross thinks it lets them get a slightly | :33:37. | :33:41. | |
better handle on what is round the corner. | :33:41. | :33:47. | |
What we have here, this is a map of all of the area serviced by the | :33:47. | :33:50. | |
Bridgwater depot. What we can do is pick up either an individual | :33:51. | :33:56. | |
vehicle, or we can look at a particular area. We get a live feed | :33:56. | :34:00. | |
back from that vehicle that tells us where it is, in temples location, | :34:00. | :34:04. | |
but also how fast it is moving, and - in terms of location, also how | :34:04. | :34:08. | |
fast it is moving, and the distance travelled over the last four or | :34:08. | :34:12. | |
five minutes. Each of the boxes represents a vehicle? Yes when it | :34:12. | :34:19. | |
is snowing we can see where the vehicles are due to the weather or | :34:19. | :34:22. | |
congestion due to weather. Due to this material we were able to keep | :34:22. | :34:27. | |
every store open every day throughout the whole period. | :34:27. | :34:30. | |
Your nightmare scenario would be if you had a huge dump of snow, | :34:30. | :34:33. | |
immediately around where this depot is. Because that then stops | :34:33. | :34:40. | |
everything going out? Absolutely. Our worst case scenario is heavy | :34:40. | :34:44. | |
snowfall on the depot. The risk to our business is not worth | :34:44. | :34:48. | |
contemplating if we can't get out. It is not worth it. The burning | :34:48. | :34:52. | |
question, I suppose, how nervous are you about this winter, what is | :34:53. | :34:57. | |
your forecast telling you? This year we think the pattern might be | :34:57. | :35:00. | |
different. We are expecting heavy snow the last week in November, but | :35:01. | :35:03. | |
particularly in the north-east and Scotland. There is going to be | :35:03. | :35:06. | |
wintry showers in December throughout, we believe. But not to | :35:06. | :35:10. | |
the same magnitude as last year. We believe that the heavy snowfall is | :35:10. | :35:20. | |
probably going to come in the new year. Kind of fascinating, isn't it, | :35:20. | :35:25. | |
that there is a company that is willing to be that prescriptive | :35:25. | :35:29. | |
about what the winter's weather has in store. Not only saying that | :35:29. | :35:32. | |
there is going to be a lot of snow in Scotland and the north-east, at | :35:32. | :35:37. | |
the end of this month, but then prepared to say, snow flurries | :35:37. | :35:42. | |
throughout December, and not until the new year, will there be, a | :35:42. | :35:46. | |
really serious snowfall in the UK. But I'm amazed that they feel that | :35:46. | :35:51. | |
they can give that sort of very, very accurate information. I'm with | :35:51. | :35:56. | |
the Met Office on this, I'm pretty sceptical about being that precise | :35:56. | :36:00. | |
about long range forecasts. The Met Office are not saying it won't snow. | :36:00. | :36:03. | |
What they are saying is we can't predict very accurately on what day | :36:04. | :36:09. | |
it is going to snow. But there are these website, aren't there, that | :36:09. | :36:15. | |
are filling a gap. I suppose we do want and expect very accurate | :36:15. | :36:18. | |
weather forecasts. That's right. People really do want to know this | :36:18. | :36:22. | |
information, because of our national obsession with the weather | :36:22. | :36:27. | |
maybe. I don't think the science is good enough to make those specific | :36:27. | :36:34. | |
predictions. We can actually put our postcode into this one here. | :36:34. | :36:40. | |
That is the postcode for BBC Scotland. What does it say? 13-14 | :36:40. | :36:45. | |
degrees in the next few days, the chances of snow are, zero. No real | :36:45. | :36:52. | |
surprise there. But that is five day, you think, that scientifically | :36:52. | :36:55. | |
stands up. Meteorologists around the world would agree with that. | :36:55. | :36:59. | |
That is what weathermen do. What I would be extremely cautious about | :36:59. | :37:05. | |
is saying it will snow in six weeks times or on the 17th of December, | :37:05. | :37:10. | |
or a specific long range forecast. Those specific long range forecasts | :37:10. | :37:15. | |
have got us into trouble in the past. It reminds me of the infamous | :37:15. | :37:20. | |
summer of 2009. The economy may be in the doldrum, at least there is | :37:20. | :37:24. | |
some hope on the horizon for a long hot summer. The Met Office says we | :37:24. | :37:29. | |
are heading for a long period of barbecue weather this year. After | :37:29. | :37:32. | |
the washouts of recent years, it could be a summer to remember. | :37:32. | :37:37. | |
didn't just rain a bit, it poured and poured. | :37:37. | :37:41. | |
I think we better go home, it is getting very, very, very wet. | :37:42. | :37:46. | |
And the weather got even more extreme. Out in the Bristol Channel, | :37:46. | :37:50. | |
cameras spotted what looked like a water spout, while the Isle of | :37:50. | :37:55. | |
Lewis was hit by a tornado. So did the Met Office get it wrong, | :37:56. | :38:01. | |
or were they misinterpreted. I'm going to take you back to the | :38:01. | :38:07. | |
summer of 2009, the infamous summer, where we were promised barbecues | :38:07. | :38:10. | |
from beginning to end. All that happened was it rained, it was | :38:10. | :38:14. | |
pretty cold and our barbecues sat in the garden getting rusty. Why | :38:14. | :38:18. | |
did you get it so wrong? I think the message got translated by | :38:18. | :38:22. | |
certain sections of the press into what is called a deterministic | :38:22. | :38:27. | |
forecast. It will be a hot summer, or something like that. The | :38:27. | :38:33. | |
information we put out was it is odds on for a barbecue summer. The | :38:33. | :38:37. | |
probability was high that we would end up with a warm summer. The | :38:37. | :38:41. | |
summer wasn't as bad as you think, but a bit of a disappointment for a | :38:41. | :38:46. | |
lot of people. This is the problem with any kind of forecast. The | :38:46. | :38:49. | |
weather around us is just too chaotic for anyone to be able to | :38:49. | :38:53. | |
make a definitive prediction more than a few days ahead. And maybe | :38:53. | :38:56. | |
there is another side to this. But the public doesn't always take the | :38:56. | :39:06. | |
weather as seriously as it should. This is the M8 motorway, the | :39:06. | :39:10. | |
busiest in Scotland, brought to a stand still by the worst blizzard | :39:10. | :39:16. | |
to hit the country in 40 years. Hundreds of motorists were left | :39:16. | :39:18. | |
stranded, with no let up in the conditions, many were forced to | :39:18. | :39:24. | |
spend the night in their cars, as temperatures plunged to minus 14 | :39:24. | :39:31. | |
degrees send grate. - centigrade. | :39:32. | :39:40. | |
I started at Deerpark at 10.05am. That is me travelling five miles in | :39:40. | :39:44. | |
ten hours. Somebody needs it pay for this. Who? The head of | :39:44. | :39:48. | |
transport. The transport minister. The Met Office warned of severe | :39:48. | :39:56. | |
blizzards and icey roads, a full 12 hours before the snow arrived. | :39:56. | :40:00. | |
new weather feature brings fresh snowfall into the central belt just | :40:00. | :40:06. | |
in time for the rush hour. Despite the warning, motorists headed off | :40:06. | :40:14. | |
to work, and drove straight into a clearly forecast bliz standard. - | :40:14. | :40:19. | |
blizzard. How much warning we get, there is little to keep the roads | :40:19. | :40:22. | |
clear when a blizzard on this scale hits. | :40:22. | :40:26. | |
What about this year? If the last couple of winters are anything to | :40:26. | :40:30. | |
go by, it is a problem not just confined to Scotland. If major | :40:30. | :40:33. | |
roads anywhere in the country aren't treated in time, it is | :40:33. | :40:37. | |
gridlock. Have we learned a valuable lesson? | :40:37. | :40:43. | |
Apparently, we now have 1,500 extra tonnes of grit, stockpiled up and | :40:43. | :40:53. | |
down the country. But is there really enough to go around? It | :40:53. | :40:59. | |
might not look that much, but last year this stuff was like gold dust. | :40:59. | :41:04. | |
UK piles of grit ran dangerously low, some councils ran out all | :41:04. | :41:07. | |
together. There was reports of criminal gangs stealing this stuff | :41:08. | :41:12. | |
and selling it on the black market. The question is, this time round, | :41:12. | :41:20. | |
are we better prepared? I have come to one of three depots | :41:20. | :41:23. | |
that supply Glasgow's fleet of gritters. I'm hoping that Robert | :41:23. | :41:26. | |
Booth, the council's executive director of land and Environmental | :41:26. | :41:31. | |
Services, will convince me this time we will be prepared. | :41:31. | :41:35. | |
I'm pretty sure this is the biggest pile of grit I have ever stood on, | :41:35. | :41:39. | |
how much have you got here? 6,000 tonnes in the barn. 22,000 tonnes | :41:39. | :41:45. | |
held in Glasgow. The simplest question I ask, what is it? That is | :41:45. | :41:50. | |
a mixture of rocksalt, molasses, or sugar. This is salt, with sugar on | :41:50. | :41:55. | |
it? That seems quite a complex thing for grit. Most people think | :41:55. | :42:01. | |
it is dirt. That mixture allows us to melt ice and Snowndown as low as | :42:01. | :42:07. | |
minus 10 degrees. Rocksalt on its own would stop working at | :42:07. | :42:11. | |
temperatures of minus six degrees. It gives us a material better in | :42:11. | :42:14. | |
combatting the severe weather in Scotland and elsewhere. Where do | :42:14. | :42:17. | |
you get it from? Most of our stock comes from Northern Ireland. But we | :42:17. | :42:23. | |
have had to, in the past, purchase from as far away as Chile. This is | :42:23. | :42:29. | |
Irish grit, and that over there a Chilean grit? Most of it, yes. | :42:29. | :42:35. | |
is estimated upwards of 50,000 tonnes per day would be needed to | :42:36. | :42:39. | |
keep Britain moving through another big freeze. | :42:39. | :42:43. | |
It is not just having reserves of grit that is important, you also | :42:43. | :42:53. | |
:42:53. | :42:55. | ||
have to know where and between use Your man is loading up the gritter | :42:55. | :43:02. | |
from the 6,000 tonnes then, when do you know the right time to grit? | :43:02. | :43:06. | |
culmination of factors, we have three weather forecasts every day, | :43:06. | :43:11. | |
one in the morning, noon and 7.00pm at night. We have a number of | :43:11. | :43:16. | |
sensors in the roads across the city. All those factors allow the | :43:16. | :43:21. | |
supervisors to make a decision on between grit. We try to grit before | :43:21. | :43:25. | |
the weather hits the city, get the grit on the road before the snow | :43:25. | :43:28. | |
comes. Temperature sensors in the road can give an indication of | :43:28. | :43:32. | |
where and when the grit is most needed. That level of preparedness | :43:32. | :43:39. | |
isn't cheap. It cost us, last year, �4 million | :43:39. | :43:41. | |
for our winter maintenance programme. That is a lot of money, | :43:41. | :43:46. | |
but a small price to pay to ensure Glasgow continues to operate. | :43:46. | :43:50. | |
This sentiment is echoed across the country, with the vast majority of | :43:50. | :43:54. | |
councils ordering much more grit than in 2010. With luck, that will | :43:54. | :44:01. | |
be enough to avoid the chaos of last year. What's this then, the | :44:01. | :44:06. | |
great British grit-off? It is demonstration time. Clearly. You | :44:06. | :44:08. | |
demonstrate why grit is so important for getting us through | :44:08. | :44:13. | |
the winter. Right, here is a giant bucket of grit, which I may or may | :44:13. | :44:19. | |
not have borrowed off Glasgow council. This is the stuff in the | :44:19. | :44:23. | |
yellow bins you see alongside the road? This one has a lot of rocks | :44:23. | :44:28. | |
in t but basically grit is rocksalt, it is salt. It is a big block of | :44:28. | :44:32. | |
ice. No kidding. You are good, I can see why you're a scientist? | :44:32. | :44:37. | |
know, so what happens is, when you mix salt with water, it reduces the | :44:37. | :44:42. | |
freezing temperature. If I put salt on water it will no longer freeze | :44:42. | :44:47. | |
at zero degrees. Pop some down there. Look it is melting already. | :44:47. | :44:51. | |
Ice has a particular characteristic, it is sort of unique, but it is | :44:51. | :44:55. | |
what makes grit work in terms of gritting the road. I'm going to do | :44:55. | :45:00. | |
something, I will lean my microphone over this? Can you hear | :45:00. | :45:04. | |
it cracking. It is melting. Sorry, go on. When you put your hand on | :45:04. | :45:08. | |
ice, it feels slidey, the reason for that is that ice is not just | :45:08. | :45:13. | |
solid, on the surface it has a constantly changing melting and | :45:13. | :45:18. | |
refreezing cycle, all the time. That is why ice-skaters can glide | :45:18. | :45:23. | |
so easily, there is a thin sheen of water. What happens is, when you | :45:23. | :45:28. | |
add the salt, in the form of grit, to the ice, it he dissolves into | :45:28. | :45:35. | |
that surface layer, and stops it - it dissolves into that surface | :45:35. | :45:40. | |
layer and that refreezes. So you have a surface that is safe for | :45:40. | :45:44. | |
walking? The tyres go over it rather than sliding on the thin | :45:44. | :45:48. | |
surface. There was Koon none drum last year, particularly here - | :45:48. | :45:51. | |
conundrum last year, particularly here in Scotland. It was so cold | :45:51. | :45:55. | |
people were claiming grit no longer worked? That is also true. The | :45:55. | :46:02. | |
reason for, is when you get to minus 7-9 degrees Celsius, the salt | :46:02. | :46:06. | |
doesn't dissolve into the water it freezes too quickly. At that point | :46:06. | :46:10. | |
it stops working. At that point you have to use sand or not go out. | :46:11. | :46:14. | |
all? Probably best. But, but, but, there is another thing, actually is | :46:15. | :46:19. | |
it isn't specific to salt, you can use anything that dissolves in | :46:19. | :46:22. | |
water. It has the effect of reducing the freezing temperature | :46:22. | :46:27. | |
of the water. As we have seen, even sugar can do the job. Last winter | :46:27. | :46:37. | |
:46:37. | :46:38. | ||
there were reports of sheep licking the shrugry grit off the roads. | :46:38. | :46:43. | |
keep your sheep inside if you are using sugary grit! Thank you, great | :46:43. | :46:47. | |
demonstration. How much we love to moan, are our | :46:47. | :46:50. | |
winters really getting worse? Science would argue that in fact we | :46:50. | :46:55. | |
shouldn't be moaning at all. We know, from studying ice core | :46:55. | :46:59. | |
samples, that there was a time when our winters were very different. | :46:59. | :47:06. | |
For a period of almost 300 years, from 1550-1850, the average | :47:06. | :47:09. | |
temperatures in Britain fell by half a degree. Now that doesn't | :47:09. | :47:13. | |
sound a lot, but it had a devastating effect on our climate. | :47:14. | :47:23. | |
:47:24. | :47:24. | ||
This period is known as the little Ice Age. | :47:24. | :47:28. | |
It caused the River Thames to freeze over. Bitter winters reduced | :47:28. | :47:33. | |
the growing season for farmers by as much as two months. Crops failed, | :47:33. | :47:37. | |
forcing up grain prices. The result was malnutrition and familiar | :47:37. | :47:43. | |
anyone, which wiped out huge numbers of the population. - famine, | :47:43. | :47:46. | |
which wiped out huge numbers of the population. Bitter cold winters had | :47:46. | :47:51. | |
become a fact of life. Since then, when you look over the long-term, | :47:51. | :47:54. | |
it looks like our average temperatures have claimed | :47:54. | :47:57. | |
significantly. Despite our last three cold winters, when we look | :47:57. | :48:04. | |
back at snowfall records for the last century. We see that a snowy | :48:04. | :48:09. | |
winter is quite a rare event in the British Isles F it is not the start | :48:09. | :48:19. | |
:48:19. | :48:21. | ||
of a another mini-Ice Age, what is So could three bad winters in a row, | :48:21. | :48:27. | |
simply be a freak of nature, or is there something out there having a | :48:27. | :48:32. | |
profound influence on our weather? The sun, our nearest star, it heats | :48:32. | :48:36. | |
our planet, can it be responsible for freezing Britain? If so, what | :48:36. | :48:45. | |
is it about the sun's activity that cools rather than warms the UK? | :48:45. | :48:49. | |
You would be for given for thinking that the sun might not be the first | :48:49. | :48:52. | |
thing you take into consideration when trying to predict snowfall. | :48:52. | :48:55. | |
But scientists here at the university of Reading have | :48:55. | :48:58. | |
established a clear link between sunspot activity and our winter | :48:58. | :49:04. | |
weather. Sunspots are dark regions on the | :49:04. | :49:10. | |
surface of the sun. They are caused by intense magnetic activity. | :49:10. | :49:15. | |
When they disappear, less heat and light hit the earth. Which the team | :49:15. | :49:20. | |
at Reading believes shows up as a reduction in levels of ultraviolet | :49:20. | :49:25. | |
light. They think fewer sunspots and less UV light means harsher | :49:25. | :49:33. | |
winters. Mike Lockwood is at the forefront of this research. | :49:33. | :49:39. | |
So the sun is nice and warm today, how can the sun actually make our | :49:39. | :49:46. | |
weather colder, it seems very counterintuitive? What it does is | :49:46. | :49:50. | |
it affects the highest part of the at moss stpee, the strat sphere, | :49:50. | :49:58. | |
how the winds propagate down - stratosphere, how the winds | :49:58. | :50:02. | |
propagate down is hard to understand, but we are beginning to | :50:02. | :50:06. | |
do. It is the UV on the sun on the Stratosphere, that determines what | :50:06. | :50:13. | |
happens down on the ground? Europe, yes, it is not a global | :50:13. | :50:15. | |
problem. It is something that affects Europe, and Eastern Europe | :50:15. | :50:18. | |
and here, we are on the edges in the UK. Mike and his colleagues are | :50:18. | :50:22. | |
using data from satellites that measure ultraviolet light from the | :50:22. | :50:27. | |
sun. They have detected a reduction in | :50:27. | :50:34. | |
UV levels, and think this is a result of the solar cycle. | :50:34. | :50:38. | |
The most well known cycle of the sun is roughly 11 years, it goes | :50:38. | :50:43. | |
from being very quiet to very active and back again, and on an 1- | :50:43. | :50:49. | |
year cycle. What is the sun doing right now - 11-year cycle. What is | :50:49. | :50:55. | |
the sun doing right now, what part of the cycle is it at? We have | :50:55. | :51:01. | |
emerged from the longest solar minimum we have had since the 1920. | :51:01. | :51:05. | |
Right now they think we have fewer sunspots and less UV light hitting | :51:05. | :51:09. | |
the earth. In turn, they are modelling how these changes affect | :51:09. | :51:14. | |
the earth's statistics to fear, which could change the weather - | :51:14. | :51:17. | |
stratosphere, which could change the weather systems we experience | :51:17. | :51:22. | |
on the ground. What we found is when solar activity is unusually | :51:22. | :51:28. | |
low. As it has been recently. jetstream can find these big | :51:28. | :51:32. | |
meanders, and that can influence the weather underneath, and in | :51:32. | :51:38. | |
winter, particularly, it affects us here. Ultimate irony, in a warming | :51:38. | :51:44. | |
world, Europe may get more cold winters. They think it is the | :51:44. | :51:47. | |
Northern Hemisphere that is vulnerable, and low solar | :51:47. | :51:50. | |
activities could be one of the factors that causes the jetstream | :51:50. | :51:57. | |
to behave unusually. Remember blocking, that big bad weather wolf, | :51:57. | :52:00. | |
Mike's colleague, Dr Tim Woolings is working on what causes it and | :52:00. | :52:05. | |
how quickly it can happen. blocking event is basically a type | :52:05. | :52:08. | |
of weather pattern, that is fairly persistent. We will have the | :52:08. | :52:14. | |
weather pattern sticking around for a whole week or two. So here we go, | :52:14. | :52:18. | |
this is the blocking forming with the air being pulled up from the | :52:18. | :52:23. | |
Tropics over Greenland. This dense, dark blue bit here is cold air from | :52:23. | :52:28. | |
the Arctic? Exactly. That is being pulled down. That's right. These | :52:28. | :52:32. | |
events are pretty persist dent for weather patterns. Once it has | :52:32. | :52:36. | |
actually started, then, yes, we have quite a bit of predictability | :52:36. | :52:41. | |
for the next week or so. The key is when they will start. It does look | :52:41. | :52:46. | |
very, I'm not jealous of you trying to solve these problems, it looks | :52:46. | :52:50. | |
insanely chaotic to me. It looks like you can't actually predict? | :52:50. | :52:56. | |
This is it, it is maizeing weather prediction works at all - as | :52:56. | :52:59. | |
amazing weather prediction works at all. The idea is still the subject | :52:59. | :53:03. | |
of much discussion, tantalising though it is, it is likely to be a | :53:03. | :53:11. | |
few years yet before this theory is fully understood. Predicting the | :53:11. | :53:15. | |
weather is fiendishly difficult, because there are so many complex | :53:15. | :53:20. | |
and chaotic factors involved. When scientists look at the bigger | :53:20. | :53:23. | |
picture, including solar activity, they can get a much more detailed | :53:23. | :53:28. | |
understanding of how local weather works. Ultimately, that means | :53:28. | :53:37. | |
better, more accurate snow forecasting. | :53:37. | :53:41. | |
Now I know that there are very few of you sitting at home watching | :53:41. | :53:45. | |
this thinking please let's have another long, hard, cold winter, | :53:45. | :53:49. | |
but you can't deny it, there is something very romantic about a | :53:49. | :53:53. | |
white Christmas, isn't there? Everybody loves a white Christmas. | :53:53. | :54:01. | |
I think Bing Crosby is largely responsible for that. And Charles | :54:01. | :54:06. | |
Dickens. The last official white Christmas was in 2009. The official | :54:06. | :54:11. | |
criteria for a white Christmas is that a single snowflake has to fall, | :54:11. | :54:16. | |
it doesn't have to land. That cannot be true. Surely your perfect | :54:16. | :54:21. | |
white Christmas is piles of mince pies and snow everywhere, singing | :54:21. | :54:26. | |
Robins? Alas, no, it gets mori dick Louis. There are nine specific | :54:26. | :54:32. | |
locations where a white Christmas can be officially designated. | :54:32. | :54:37. | |
Aberdeen Football Club. Just get this right, if one snowflake falls | :54:37. | :54:45. | |
above Aberdeen Football Club it is a white Christmas. Belfast Airport, | :54:45. | :54:51. | |
Birmingham Bull Ring, a shopping centre. Cardiff, Millenium Stadium. | :54:51. | :54:55. | |
Edinburgh Castle, Glasgow Cathedral, Liverpool, the Albert Dock, | :54:55. | :55:00. | |
Buckingham Palace. If the Queen sees one. Manchester it is Granada | :55:00. | :55:07. | |
Studio, and the next one is my back garden. I made that one up! So, if | :55:07. | :55:11. | |
a snowflake is observed in the sky, it doesn't have to fall, it doesn't | :55:11. | :55:15. | |
have to settle over any of those locations it is a white Christmas? | :55:15. | :55:20. | |
It is officially a white Christmas. That is a rubbish white Christmas? | :55:20. | :55:25. | |
In London it is currently 10-1. That it will be a white Christmas? | :55:25. | :55:30. | |
Glasgow it is 7-1. There is a bet which I'm not going to make. | :55:30. | :55:34. | |
you not? It is ludicrous. So you are saying what, do you think it is | :55:34. | :55:39. | |
going to snow, do you think it will be a white Christmas? No. It is | :55:39. | :55:43. | |
definitely not. Look, he's a scientist and hedging his bets. | :55:43. | :55:47. | |
Scientists don't make bets. If I knew it was going to snow then I | :55:47. | :55:52. | |
would make a bet. That is what science does. It is pathetic, let's | :55:52. | :55:56. | |
remind ourselves of what our experts have told us. It is going | :55:56. | :56:00. | |
to snow somewhere in the British Isles this winter. Anyone who turns | :56:00. | :56:04. | |
around and says on the 25th of December it will snow is, quite | :56:04. | :56:08. | |
frankly, a fool. We are expecting some heavy snow the last week in | :56:08. | :56:12. | |
November, particularly in the north-east and Scotland. Will it | :56:13. | :56:17. | |
snow this winter? You will have to talk to the Met Office about that | :56:17. | :56:21. | |
and see their latest predictions. Being able to pinpoint the precise | :56:21. | :56:25. | |
conditions under which snowfalls in the atmosphere, could offer help to | :56:26. | :56:30. | |
forecasters when it comes to predicting a monster snowfall hit. | :56:30. | :56:34. | |
At the moment, long-term predictions can only give us an | :56:34. | :56:40. | |
idea of the type of conditions to expect in a winter. They can't tell | :56:40. | :56:44. | |
us categorically if and when it will snow. The good news is | :56:44. | :56:47. | |
meteorologists can recognise the kind of weather system that brings | :56:47. | :56:50. | |
very cold conditions, one that blocks the warming effects of | :56:50. | :56:57. | |
currents like the jetstream and the thermohaline circulation that keep | :56:57. | :57:04. | |
the UK mild. It is a system that can close in on us in a matter of | :57:04. | :57:11. | |
days t can't be picked bup I long range forecast. For the mini-Ice | :57:11. | :57:14. | |
Age,s expert consensus is there is no compelling evidence. Some argue | :57:14. | :57:19. | |
we may even be in for a run of milder winters. We may not know | :57:19. | :57:25. | |
where or win it will snow, but we do know that it will snow. The | :57:25. | :57:28. | |
heartening thing we have discovered on the epic weather quest around | :57:28. | :57:31. | |
the country, is people are beginning to take the idea of | :57:31. | :57:34. | |
winter much more seriously. Organisations like our supermarkets | :57:35. | :57:39. | |
and the health service and airports, are getting prepared for the worst. | :57:39. | :57:43. | |
So that if it does happen, we shouldn't get into the pickle that | :57:43. | :57:46. | |
we did last winter. That's right, it is the beginning of November | :57:47. | :57:51. | |
right now, all the best data we can get from the Met Office suggests we | :57:51. | :57:54. | |
are not going to have a particularly cold winter. But, what | :57:54. | :57:57. | |
we have learned is that the position of the UK on the earth, | :57:57. | :58:00. | |
means that our weather systems are chaotic and difficult to predict. | :58:00. | :58:04. | |
So we can't rule out the possibility that we may get a | :58:04. | :58:09. | |
sudden big freeze. Don't shout at the weatherman if it happens. And | :58:09. | :58:13. | |
also, remember that we are, standing here, at the beginning of | :58:13. | :58:17. | |
November, that is the beginning of winter, a season where temperatures | :58:17. | :58:21. | |
drop, and occasional bad weather does get flung at our doorsteps. | :58:21. | :58:25. | |
Here is my little piece of advice, for what it is worth. Dig out the | :58:25. | :58:29. | |
winter woolies, stock up on hot chocolate and bird feed and get out | :58:29. | :58:37. |