:00:00. > :00:00.Now Nick Miller looks back at this year's extreme weather, including
:00:00. > :00:09.conditions that tested the world's best golfers, in Weather World.
:00:10. > :00:15.Storms, science and the stories behind the weather making news.
:00:16. > :00:23.Coming up, Cumbria under water again.
:00:24. > :00:25.The floodwaters are up to their living room windows.
:00:26. > :00:35.Can you believe these people have decided to stay indoors?
:00:36. > :00:45.Events today appear unprecedented, even surpassing the 2005
:00:46. > :00:58.It is the second time we have gone through it.
:00:59. > :01:04.Hard for the children, hard for the women.
:01:05. > :01:13.This reservoir has completely dried up.
:01:14. > :01:21.It goes to show how severe the blight is.
:01:22. > :01:42.Making waves to prepare for a warmer, wetter future.
:01:43. > :01:47.This time I am in Scotland at historic St Andrews,
:01:48. > :01:52.I will be meeting the people who try to make this course playable
:01:53. > :01:59.Heavy rain and strong winds have brought chaos to parts
:02:00. > :02:04.of the country as hundreds of people are forced to flee from their homes.
:02:05. > :02:07.The weather pattern was all too familiar.
:02:08. > :02:10.For the third time in over a decade incessant rain slammed
:02:11. > :02:18.We have got the highest tier of weather warning
:02:19. > :02:24.And floodwaters inundating the towns and cities
:02:25. > :02:32.After 13 hours of rain, nothing was going to stop this
:02:33. > :02:40.The barriers are somewhere under here.
:02:41. > :02:44.There is concern the nearby bridge is in a dangerous state.
:02:45. > :02:48.It is a bit scary with the houses being so high.
:02:49. > :02:57.But it is the sheer volume of water that did the damage as the UK
:02:58. > :02:59.enjoyed its wettest 24 hours on record, with 341 millimetres
:03:00. > :03:04.of rain falling in the Lake District.
:03:05. > :03:10.The events today surpassed the 2005 and 2009 floods.
:03:11. > :03:13.The amount of rainfall and water levels is vast and we are working
:03:14. > :03:27.very hard to protect the properties and particularly the lives at risk.
:03:28. > :03:29.That is a sofae going down the river.
:03:30. > :03:31.The situation there must be pretty awful.
:03:32. > :03:36.That water, at nine o'clock this morning, was just at the bottom
:03:37. > :03:41.Within half an hour it was rising rapidly.
:03:42. > :03:43.The floodwater is halfway up their living room windows.
:03:44. > :03:52.Can you believe that people have decided to stay indoors?
:03:53. > :03:54.And from the Lake District the floodwaters swept
:03:55. > :04:00.Nearly 48 hours after a record-breaking deluge caused
:04:01. > :04:04.these floods, Carlisle's roads looked like canals.
:04:05. > :04:07.Thousands of homes have been ruined in the east of the city.
:04:08. > :04:11.After being stranded for two nights in the dark without power,
:04:12. > :04:13.the casualties were still coming this morning.
:04:14. > :04:17.The ones trying to tough it out finally gave in.
:04:18. > :04:20.And if you have lived here for more than ten years this is the second
:04:21. > :04:26.I don't even know if I can speak because it is the second time
:04:27. > :04:33.As the clean-up operation began, the community spirit kicked in.
:04:34. > :04:37.How important is it for you to do it?
:04:38. > :04:40.I think it is very important, helping the community when there has
:04:41. > :04:47.There is so much that needs to be done.
:04:48. > :04:52.But every home here has been flooded.
:04:53. > :04:56.To help families, the Government has promised ?50 million,
:04:57. > :05:04.This is what is left of Natalie's home.
:05:05. > :05:07.She says her insurance will not cover the damage.
:05:08. > :05:21.So any help we could get would be greatly appreciated.
:05:22. > :05:26.This is the Lake District village of Glenridding being flooded
:05:27. > :05:29.for the second time in the same week, as more rain follows Storm
:05:30. > :05:34.For the Brown family, who have owned this shop for 30
:05:35. > :05:49.It was not just northern England but Northern Ireland
:05:50. > :05:56.Storm Desmond's impact felt far and wide.
:05:57. > :06:00.But it was Cumbria and the Lake District hit hardest.
:06:01. > :06:03.We were driving along the banks of the River Eden and we came
:06:04. > :06:09.Have a look at the destruction caused by the force of the water
:06:10. > :06:17.Many caravans have been smashed together and smashed
:06:18. > :06:24.It is more akin to the sort of thing you would see in Tornado Alley
:06:25. > :06:32.What is going wrong with our weather?
:06:33. > :06:35.Scientists say the strong El Nino may have contributed to the stormy
:06:36. > :06:38.start to winter and record winter rainfall may also be linked
:06:39. > :06:47.The latest research says that under the same weather pattern an extended
:06:48. > :06:50.period of rainfall is sometimes more likely because of the emissions
:06:51. > :06:59.This is from Britain's first officially named storm,
:07:00. > :07:05.What may look like snow is actually foam whipped up by strong winds.
:07:06. > :07:11.Here we are at the famous St Andrews golf course.
:07:12. > :07:16.When they host the Open here, the best players come to take it on.
:07:17. > :07:21.But they are taking on the weather, too.
:07:22. > :07:24.An early morning deluge and a three-hour delay to play
:07:25. > :07:31.As the floods were swept away, more bad weather was about to sweep in.
:07:32. > :07:36.We have another suspension in play this morning.
:07:37. > :07:38.The golfers have been out there for half an hour.
:07:39. > :07:41.But the winds are so strong, the balls are moving around
:07:42. > :07:49.Let's talk to someone who was here that we don't,
:07:50. > :07:54.The wind picking up today but that weekend was wild?
:07:55. > :08:03.Even on the tournament days it was pretty windy.
:08:04. > :08:06.Can you ever prepare for wind that strong?
:08:07. > :08:13.We can prepare for normal windy conditions like today.
:08:14. > :08:18.We have got a unit here called track man.
:08:19. > :08:27.Today with the wind downwind, the ball travels further but moves
:08:28. > :08:34.We have also got a function in the unit that we can normalise
:08:35. > :08:40.It should have a relatively straight flight.
:08:41. > :08:48.We will aim towards the monument and we will look at
:08:49. > :09:04.It travelled to the left-hand side like I mentioned.
:09:05. > :09:09.If we look in the unit we can see the ball flight.
:09:10. > :09:14.If we normalise here on the left-hand side,
:09:15. > :09:17.you can see how the shot was straight without the wind.
:09:18. > :09:20.You can have a go accounting for the St Andrews wind?
:09:21. > :09:27.Coming up later, we look at how they deal with rain here.
:09:28. > :09:31.Sometimes it can rain so much, so hard, you cannot
:09:32. > :09:47.I am rolling down some sort of creek in the middle of this weather.
:09:48. > :10:03.Kerry Packer filming his personal flood drama in Texas.
:10:04. > :10:06.A storm he is lucky to survive by climbing a tree.
:10:07. > :10:09.With weather like that you would think we have not to worry
:10:10. > :10:12.But there is an expanding area of interest above our
:10:13. > :10:17.I will find out all about it in a moment inside this observatory.
:10:18. > :10:21.There has been a lots to look up and wonder at in recent months,
:10:22. > :10:29.including the night in September the moon turned from silver to red.
:10:30. > :10:32.Viewable by billions around the world, a super Moon lunar
:10:33. > :10:51.In Europe, the highlight of the year was the solar eclipse seen
:10:52. > :10:58.from the Faroe Islands, turning day into night.
:10:59. > :11:05.Caught on camera in Norway in October.
:11:06. > :11:13.Humpbacked whales swimming beneath the Aurora, or the Northern Lights.
:11:14. > :11:19.I have come inside the observatory to find Scotland's largest
:11:20. > :11:22.All well and good if you want a close-up of the moon and stars.
:11:23. > :11:25.But for a good handle on space weather, you need access to data
:11:26. > :11:39.from satellites which you download onto a simple laptop.
:11:40. > :11:45.Space weather is all about these huge explosions happening on the sun
:11:46. > :11:48.and injecting huge clouds of energetic material,
:11:49. > :11:53.particles travelling towards the Earth at high speeds.
:11:54. > :11:56.Why do we care that it is coming our way?
:11:57. > :12:06.All this energetic material interacts with the magnetic field
:12:07. > :12:11.on satellites, and that disturbs communications.
:12:12. > :12:14.Things like GPS, air traffic control and even just your Wi-Fi.
:12:15. > :12:17.I guess it is really useful to know it is coming our way
:12:18. > :12:21.There is work being done here to get better at that?
:12:22. > :12:23.All of these events on the sun are driven
:12:24. > :12:30.You want to model the behaviour of the sun's magnetic field
:12:31. > :12:36.so you can give people as much warning as possible to prepare
:12:37. > :12:50.Still to come... being done here.
:12:51. > :12:59.A cliff becomes a waterfall again for the first time in living memory.
:13:00. > :13:07.But it is the Mediterranean that has been the focus this year as hundreds
:13:08. > :13:09.of thousands of migrants have crossed it into Europe.
:13:10. > :13:13.Some have not made it, falling victim to high
:13:14. > :13:20.Strong winds batter the Greek island of Lesbos as more bodies
:13:21. > :13:33.Despite the bad weather, the boats kept coming,
:13:34. > :13:36.their occupants helped ashore by volunteers.
:13:37. > :13:42.Others were shocked, soaked and shivering.
:13:43. > :13:45.This constant flow of people may have slowed in the last 24 hours
:13:46. > :13:50.But this shows women, children and men are prepared
:13:51. > :13:56.to risk their lives whatever the weather.
:13:57. > :13:58.Once into Europe, the onward journey for these people is becoming
:13:59. > :14:01.increasingly difficult, as autumn and now winter
:14:02. > :14:08.This is the scene from Macedonia in October.
:14:09. > :14:15.Abdullah and his family escaped from Syria.
:14:16. > :14:18.Very hard for children, hard for women, hard
:14:19. > :14:32.And for those that remain in Syria, winters can be harsh.
:14:33. > :14:34.This was last winter with snow and freezing temperatures.
:14:35. > :14:38.This winter Damascus has had a record cold night.
:14:39. > :14:42.But it is heat and man's contribution to the warming
:14:43. > :14:45.of the planet that could affect us all, say scientists.
:14:46. > :14:50.In the media, the ground turns to dust from three years of drought.
:14:51. > :15:02.2015 will likely be proclaimed the hottest year on record.
:15:03. > :15:05.A warmer atmosphere can be a better one, too.
:15:06. > :15:09.I am here in the Netherlands to understand the force of a flood
:15:10. > :15:17.The waves are travelling the length of this tank, 300 metres.
:15:18. > :15:24.That is what you need to create the world's largest artificial
:15:25. > :15:29.waves, reaching a height of more than five metres.
:15:30. > :15:35.Waves mimicking sea conditions can be made to order.
:15:36. > :15:43.For any part of the world it can create a hurricane or a tsunami.
:15:44. > :15:48.The fightback against flooding starts here.
:15:49. > :15:50.These man-made waves will help engineers design the very
:15:51. > :15:57.If scientists are correct, our future could be
:15:58. > :16:04.The prospect of a different future lead to this.
:16:05. > :16:08.Nearly 200 nations making a landmark agreement in December to work
:16:09. > :16:11.to limit global warming to less than two Celsius by the end
:16:12. > :16:19.Sometimes when you want to make a change, it is necessary to turn
:16:20. > :16:28.It is not for the better but it is simply for the best.
:16:29. > :16:31.This agreement should be the turning point in our story, a turning
:16:32. > :16:37.Climate change brings the possibility of bigger,
:16:38. > :16:40.more frequent storms, and the prospect of
:16:41. > :16:47.The UK and Scotland has a lot of coast that could erode.
:16:48. > :16:53.One man interested in that is Tom from St Andrews University.
:16:54. > :16:58.This is one of many hundreds of sites around the coast
:16:59. > :17:09.In the cliff face you can see some of the buildings.
:17:10. > :17:13.You have to imagine a whole range year that has fallen into the sea.
:17:14. > :17:15.This is one of many hundreds ranging from prehistoric sites
:17:16. > :17:17.to the remnants of the Second World War.
:17:18. > :17:19.We are working with local communities to record some
:17:20. > :17:25.This is accelerating because of bigger,
:17:26. > :17:31.We hear stories from locals that there is more damage
:17:32. > :17:37.We know that with any one single storm there is the potential
:17:38. > :17:44.That is why we are asking people to keep their eyes and ears open
:17:45. > :17:47.This could keep you busy for many years?
:17:48. > :17:55.It means we have the chance of getting some fantastic
:17:56. > :17:59.We are talking a lot about how we are influencing
:18:00. > :18:04.What about natural weather variability?
:18:05. > :18:08.One of the main aspects of that recently has been El Nino.
:18:09. > :18:11.Seen from space, Patricia, the most powerful hurricane ever
:18:12. > :18:17.recorded, heads towards Mexico in October.
:18:18. > :18:20.But Mexico was ready and lucky, as the storm made landfall
:18:21. > :18:27.The severe flooding swept into the USA.
:18:28. > :18:34.It derailed this train in Texas as water engulfed the tracks.
:18:35. > :18:42.Dramatic rooftop rescues in September as a tropical storm hit
:18:43. > :18:46.Tens of thousands were left homeless.
:18:47. > :18:54.The power of the flood is there to say.
:18:55. > :18:57.Stronger tropical cyclones are one weather outcome from El Nino.
:18:58. > :19:00.A natural occasional warming of the Pacific ocean.
:19:01. > :19:03.This El Nino is one of the strongest we have seen.
:19:04. > :19:05.The ripple effects have been seen around the world
:19:06. > :19:13.China and Beijing's skyline in September, barely visible
:19:14. > :19:20.The city had its first ever red alert for pollution.
:19:21. > :19:25.El Nino means fewer weather systems to help clear and clean the air.
:19:26. > :19:29.In India, El Nino is blamed for a drier south-west monsoon.
:19:30. > :19:33.But the opposite in Chennai in December as the north-west
:19:34. > :19:37.monsoon produced several days of rain and flooding.
:19:38. > :19:40.But in Africa El Nino is being blamed for a drought.
:19:41. > :19:44.Here in Ethiopia the rains have failed again, leaving parched earth,
:19:45. > :19:51.scrawny cattle and millions of people in need of food aid.
:19:52. > :19:55.At this well things are getting desperate.
:19:56. > :20:02.People travelled here from miles around to give
:20:03. > :20:05.But the water table has fallen to almost nothing.
:20:06. > :20:10.30, maybe 40 metres down, it is full of silt and mud.
:20:11. > :20:19.The worst drought since 1982, with millions facing water
:20:20. > :20:31.Under normal circumstances I would be waist high in water.
:20:32. > :20:33.This reservoir has completely dried up.
:20:34. > :20:36.It goes to show how severe the drought is.
:20:37. > :20:43.I'm about to go where the public does not see.
:20:44. > :20:46.The slightly less glamorous side of things but very important.
:20:47. > :20:51.Now we are looking at what happens to the rain.
:20:52. > :20:55.A lot of it falls and a lot of it finds its way from the course
:20:56. > :21:01.Some of that will find its way back onto the course
:21:02. > :21:13.This controls the water that goes onto the golf course.
:21:14. > :21:19.The water goes through these five pumps.
:21:20. > :21:23.A maximum capacity of 500 cubic metres of water.
:21:24. > :21:30.It goes through the pipe work and heads out through the wall
:21:31. > :21:32.onto the golf courses to give us the irrigation we require.
:21:33. > :21:34.At the Open Championship you had a deluge.
:21:35. > :21:39.Yes, it caused us a wee problem as it came in such
:21:40. > :21:48.Sometimes when the weather arrives like it did you have
:21:49. > :22:29.Before we go, here are a look at some of your weather pictures.
:22:30. > :22:32.All of these photographs were taken by BBC Weather Watchers,
:22:33. > :22:35.a new online club telling the story of the UK weather.
:22:36. > :22:41.Simply sign up for a BBC ID and give yourself
:22:42. > :22:48.Add your home reporting location and away you go.
:22:49. > :22:52.You can upload a photo of the weather.
:22:53. > :22:54.And even add rainfall amounts if you're feeling particularly
:22:55. > :23:09.Sometimes even the worst weather can produce something breathtaking.
:23:10. > :23:12.The same Storm Desmond that brought devastating floods to north-west
:23:13. > :23:16.England brought life to this waterfall in the Yorkshire Dales,
:23:17. > :23:21.thought to have been dry for centuries.
:23:22. > :23:23.That is something that none of us in the village have
:23:24. > :23:39.A dust whirlwind in Australia, where this one was caught on camera
:23:40. > :23:50.And finally, with winter now well under way, spare a thought
:23:51. > :23:56.for the American groundhog, called upon by tradition each
:23:57. > :23:58.February to predict whether spring might come early.
:23:59. > :24:03.Last winter in Wisconsin this mayor got something he was not expecting,
:24:04. > :24:06.from Jimmy, now a hero among groundhogs.
:24:07. > :24:12.That is it from wet and windy St Andrews.
:24:13. > :24:47.Merry Christmas. Sadly very little good well from the weather over the
:24:48. > :24:48.festive