:00:13. > :00:22.This is Weather World. Storms, science and the stories behind the
:00:23. > :00:30.weather making news. That is a so far going down the river. Coming up,
:00:31. > :00:33.Cumbria underwater again. The floodwaters have weighed up their
:00:34. > :00:39.living room windows. Can you believe people have decided to stay indoors?
:00:40. > :00:46.Storm Desmond brings a deluge and record rainfall. Events today appear
:00:47. > :00:55.unprecedented, even surpassing the 2005 and 2009 floods. Floods become
:00:56. > :01:00.rivers. I don't know if I can speak. It is the second time we have gone
:01:01. > :01:10.through it. Also, migrant misery as summer turns into winter. Very hard.
:01:11. > :01:18.Hard for the children, hard for the women. Sometimes I cry. El Nino hits
:01:19. > :01:23.hard. This reservoir has completely dried up. It goes to show how severe
:01:24. > :01:29.the Blyte is. -- the Blyte. Making waves to
:01:30. > :01:53.prepare for a warmer, wetter future. Welcome to Weather World. This time
:01:54. > :01:57.I am in Scotland at historic St Andrews, the home of golf. I will be
:01:58. > :02:03.meeting the people who try to play that might make this course playable
:02:04. > :02:06.even in severe weather. But first... Heavy rain and strong winds have
:02:07. > :02:12.brought chaos to part of the country as hundreds of people are forced to
:02:13. > :02:16.flee from their homes. The weather pattern was all too familiar. For
:02:17. > :02:24.the third time in over a decade incessant rain slammed into the --
:02:25. > :02:28.slammed into north-west England. We have got the highest tier of weather
:02:29. > :02:31.warning we have ever seen. And floodwaters inundating the towns and
:02:32. > :02:39.cities downstream, including Keswick. After 13 hours of rain,
:02:40. > :02:44.nothing was going to stop this river, not even the flood defences.
:02:45. > :02:50.The barriers are somewhere under here. There is concern the nearby
:02:51. > :02:55.bridges in a dangerous state. It is a bit scary with the houses being so
:02:56. > :02:59.high. It has never been this high before. But it is the sheer volume
:03:00. > :03:06.of water that did the damage as the UK enjoyed its wettest 24 hours on
:03:07. > :03:13.record, with 341 millimetres of rain falling in the Lake District. The
:03:14. > :03:19.events today surpassed the 2005 and 2009 floods. The amount of rainfall
:03:20. > :03:22.and water levels is vast and we are working very hard to protect the
:03:23. > :03:32.properties and particularly the life risk. That is a carriage going down
:03:33. > :03:38.the river. The situation there must be pretty awful. It really is. That
:03:39. > :03:42.tells the story. That water, at nine o'clock this morning, was just at
:03:43. > :03:48.the bottom of people's doors in Appleby. Within half an hour it was
:03:49. > :03:51.rising rapidly. The floodwaters halfway up their living room
:03:52. > :03:58.windows. Can you believe that people have decided to stay indoors? And
:03:59. > :04:04.from the Lake District the floodwaters swept into Carlisle
:04:05. > :04:09.again. Nearly 48 hours after a record-breaking deluge caused these
:04:10. > :04:13.floods, Carlisle's Road sluglike canals. Thousands of homes have been
:04:14. > :04:17.ruined in the east of the city. After being stranded for two nights
:04:18. > :04:21.in the dark without power, the casualties were still coming this
:04:22. > :04:25.morning. The once trying to tough it out finally gave in. And if you have
:04:26. > :04:31.lived here for more than ten years this is the second time disaster has
:04:32. > :04:36.struck. I don't even know if I can speak because it is the second time
:04:37. > :04:41.we have gone through it. As the clean-up operation began, the
:04:42. > :04:46.community spirit kicked in. How important is it for you to do it?
:04:47. > :04:50.Think it is very important, helping the community when there has been so
:04:51. > :04:56.much devastation. There is so much that needs to be done. This is just
:04:57. > :05:01.one street. But every home here has been flooded. To help families, the
:05:02. > :05:09.Government has promised ?50 million, money to rebuild lives. This is what
:05:10. > :05:16.is left of Natalie's home. She says her insurance will not cover the
:05:17. > :05:21.damage. With this cash help? Any bit of help is welcome. We have never
:05:22. > :05:26.done this before. We have only been here a year. So any help we could
:05:27. > :05:31.get would be greatly appreciated. This is the late district village of
:05:32. > :05:37.Glenn Reading being flooded for the second time in the same week as more
:05:38. > :05:43.rain follows Storm Desmond. For the Brown family, who have owned this
:05:44. > :05:46.shop for 30 years, it is therefore flawed. There is nothing we can do.
:05:47. > :05:54.We watched it coming down the road. It caught us out. We could not do
:05:55. > :05:59.anything. It was not just northern England but Northern Ireland that
:06:00. > :06:04.was flooded. And here in the Scottish Borders. Storm Desmond's
:06:05. > :06:08.impact felt far and wide. But it was Cumbria and the Lake District hit
:06:09. > :06:12.hardest. To we were driving along the banks of the River Eden and we
:06:13. > :06:17.came across this caravan park. Have a look at the destruction caused by
:06:18. > :06:21.the force of the water on the other side of the bank. Many caravans have
:06:22. > :06:26.been smashed together and smashed against the trees. Obviously
:06:27. > :06:29.completely destroyed. It is more akin to the sort of thing you would
:06:30. > :06:38.see in Tornado Alley States. Not really Cumbria in the
:06:39. > :06:43.UK. What is going wrong with our weather? Scientists say the strong
:06:44. > :06:47.El Nino may have contributed to the stormy start to winter and record
:06:48. > :06:51.winter will rainfall may also be linked to climate change. The latest
:06:52. > :06:56.research says that under the same weather pattern and extended period
:06:57. > :06:59.of rainfall is sometimes more likely because of the emissions of
:07:00. > :07:06.greenhouse gases. We have seen what Storm Desmond did.
:07:07. > :07:11.Britain's first officially named storm, Abigail, in November. What
:07:12. > :07:15.may look like snow is actually foam ripped up -- whipped up by strong
:07:16. > :07:20.winds. Here we are at the famous St Andrews
:07:21. > :07:24.golf course. When they host the Open here, the best players come to take
:07:25. > :07:29.it on. But they are taking on the weather, too.
:07:30. > :07:35.An early morning deluge and a three-hour delay to play on day two
:07:36. > :07:41.of the 2015 Open. As the floods were swept away, more bad weather was
:07:42. > :07:44.about to sweep in. We have another suspension in play
:07:45. > :07:49.this morning. The golfers have been out there for half an hour. But the
:07:50. > :07:54.winds are so strong, the balls are moving around on the green.
:07:55. > :08:01.Let's talk to someone who was here that we don't, Steve North. The wind
:08:02. > :08:07.picking up today but that weekend was wild? Absolutely. Quite rightly
:08:08. > :08:13.play was abandoned. Even on the tournament days it was pretty wind
:08:14. > :08:17.-- windy. Can you ever prepare for wind that strong? Not when it is
:08:18. > :08:23.that strong. We can prepare for normal windy conditions like today.
:08:24. > :08:32.We have got a unit here called track man. It follows the ball in real
:08:33. > :08:37.time. Today with the wind downwind, the ball travels further but moves
:08:38. > :08:42.to the left side. We have also got a function in the unit that we can
:08:43. > :08:49.normalise exactly what that shot those. It should have a relatively
:08:50. > :08:54.straight flight. Let's see how it works. We will aim towards the
:08:55. > :09:04.monument and we will look at the laptop afterwards. I will take dead
:09:05. > :09:10.aim. A pretty good shot there. It travelled to the left-hand side like
:09:11. > :09:16.I mentioned. If we look in the unit we can see the ball flight. If we
:09:17. > :09:22.normalise here on the left-hand side, you can see how the shot was
:09:23. > :09:29.straight without the wind. You can have a go accounting for the Saint
:09:30. > :09:35.Andrews went? Absolutely. -- wind. Coming up later, we look at how they
:09:36. > :09:40.deal with rain here. Sometimes it can rain so much, so hard, you
:09:41. > :09:43.cannot do anything about it. Another car caught in another
:09:44. > :09:52.flawed. This view is from inside the car. There is someone still inside
:09:53. > :09:58.it. I am rolling down some sort of Creek in the middle of this weather.
:09:59. > :10:04.I have called 9/11. They told me to stay in the car. Kerry Packer
:10:05. > :10:08.filming his personal flood drama in Texas. A storm he is lucky to
:10:09. > :10:12.survive by climbing a tree. With weather like that you would think we
:10:13. > :10:16.have not to worry about here on Earth. But there is an expanding
:10:17. > :10:20.area of interest above our atmosphere, space weather. I will
:10:21. > :10:26.find out all about it in a moment inside this observatory.
:10:27. > :10:29.There has been a lots to look up and wonder at in recent months,
:10:30. > :10:37.including the night in September the moon turned from silver to red.
:10:38. > :10:39.Viewable by billions around the world, a super Moon lunar eclipse,
:10:40. > :10:59.the best in 30 years. In Europe, the highlight of the year
:11:00. > :11:07.was the solar eclipse seen from the Faroe Islands, turning day into
:11:08. > :11:13.night. But beat this. Caught on camera in Norway in October.
:11:14. > :11:21.Humpbacked whales swimming beneath the Aurora, Bury Northern Lights.
:11:22. > :11:25.I have come inside the observatory to find Scotland's largest
:11:26. > :11:29.telescope. All well and good if you want a close-up of the moon and
:11:30. > :11:35.stars. But for a good handle on space weather, you need access from
:11:36. > :11:38.-- access to data from satellites which you download onto a simple
:11:39. > :11:45.laptop. It is all about eruptions from the sun. I'm joined by a
:11:46. > :11:50.professor who studies this. Space weather is all about these huge
:11:51. > :11:53.explosions happening on the sun and injecting huge clouds of energetic
:11:54. > :12:00.material, particle struggling towards the Earth at high speeds.
:12:01. > :12:05.Why do we care that it is coming our way? All this energetic material
:12:06. > :12:09.interacts with the magnetic field of the Earth and can interfere with
:12:10. > :12:15.electronics, on satellites, and that disturbs communications. Things like
:12:16. > :12:21.GPS, air traffic control and even just your Wi-Fi. I guess it is
:12:22. > :12:25.really useful to know it is coming our way to forecast that? There is
:12:26. > :12:31.work being done here to get better at that? All of these events on the
:12:32. > :12:36.sun are driven by the sun's magnetic field. You want to model the
:12:37. > :12:42.behaviour of the sun's magnetic field so you can give people as much
:12:43. > :12:49.warning as possible to prepare for one of these events. Good luck with
:12:50. > :12:55.all of the work being done here. Happy space weather watching. Still
:12:56. > :13:02.to come... A cliff becomes a waterfall again for the first time
:13:03. > :13:06.in living memory. The Ocean can be a dangerous place,
:13:07. > :13:10.especially if you are not fully equipped for it. This is the North
:13:11. > :13:14.Sea. But it is the Mediterranean that has been the focus this year as
:13:15. > :13:19.hundreds of thousands of migrants have crossed it into Europe. Some
:13:20. > :13:26.have not made it, falling victim to high winds and Roth sees.
:13:27. > :13:32.-- rough. Strong winds batter the Greek island of Lesbos as more
:13:33. > :13:38.bodies are swept ashore. More than 130 people drowned in October alone.
:13:39. > :13:42.Despite the bad weather, the boats kept coming, their occupants helped
:13:43. > :13:49.ashore by volunteers. Some were overwhelmed. Others were shocked,
:13:50. > :13:53.soaked and shivering. This constant flow of people may have slowed in
:13:54. > :13:58.the last 24 hours as the winds have picked up. But this shows women,
:13:59. > :14:01.children and men are prepared to risk their lives whatever the
:14:02. > :14:04.weather. Once into Europe, the onward journey
:14:05. > :14:10.for these people is becoming increasingly difficult, as autumn
:14:11. > :14:12.and now winter weather sets in. This is the scene from Macedonia in
:14:13. > :14:18.October. Very hard, the weather. Abdullah and
:14:19. > :14:25.his family escaped from Syria. They left everything behind. Very hard
:14:26. > :14:35.for children, hard for women, hard cover old men, old women. Sometimes
:14:36. > :14:38.I cry. And for those that remain in Syria, winters can be harsh. This
:14:39. > :14:42.was last winter with snow and freezing temperatures. This winter
:14:43. > :14:49.Damascus has had a record cold night. But it is heat and man's
:14:50. > :14:53.contribution to the warming of the planet that could affect us all, say
:14:54. > :14:57.scientists. In the media, the ground turns to dust from three years of
:14:58. > :15:05.drought will stop 2015 will likely be proclaimed the hottest year on
:15:06. > :15:10.record. From one extreme to another. A
:15:11. > :15:13.warmer atmosphere can be a better one, too. I am here in the
:15:14. > :15:19.Netherlands to understand the force of a flood they spent ?20 million
:15:20. > :15:25.making. The waves are travelling the length
:15:26. > :15:29.of this tank, 300 metres. They are and 9 million litres of water. That
:15:30. > :15:33.is what you need to create the world's largest artificial waves,
:15:34. > :15:42.reaching a height of more than five metres. Waves mimicking sea
:15:43. > :15:46.conditions can be made to order. For any part of the world it can create
:15:47. > :15:54.a horror came racing army. -- hurricane. The fightback against
:15:55. > :16:00.flooding starts here. These man-made waves will help engineers design the
:16:01. > :16:04.very best sea defences. If scientists are correct, our future
:16:05. > :16:11.could be a much wetter one. The prospect of a different future
:16:12. > :16:14.lead to this. Nearly 200 nation treating a
:16:15. > :16:18.landmark agreement in December to work to limit global warming to less
:16:19. > :16:26.than two Celsius by the end of the century. Sometimes when you want to
:16:27. > :16:31.make a change, it is necessary to turn the world upside down. It is
:16:32. > :16:36.not for the better but it is simply for the best. This agreement should
:16:37. > :16:41.be the turning point in our story, a turning point for all of us. Thank
:16:42. > :16:44.you. Climate change brings the
:16:45. > :16:49.possibility of bigger, more frequent storms, and the prospect of
:16:50. > :16:55.increased coastal erosion. The UK and Scotland has a lot of coast that
:16:56. > :16:58.could erode. One man interested in that is Tom from St Andrews
:16:59. > :17:03.University. Why have you brought us here? This is one of many hundreds
:17:04. > :17:09.of sites around the coast being threatened by erosion. You can see a
:17:10. > :17:14.medieval castle. In the cliff face you can see some of the buildings.
:17:15. > :17:19.You have two imagine a whole range year that has fallen into the sea.
:17:20. > :17:23.This is one of many hundreds ranging from prehistoric sites to the
:17:24. > :17:30.remnants of the Second World War. We are working with local communities
:17:31. > :17:35.to record some of these sites. This is accelerating because of bigger,
:17:36. > :17:39.more frequent storms? We hear stories from locals that there is
:17:40. > :17:43.more damage but we find it hard to measure this. We know that with any
:17:44. > :17:47.one single storm there is the potential for great damage. That is
:17:48. > :17:51.why we are asking people to keep their eyes and ears open and report
:17:52. > :17:57.to us. This could keep you busy for many years? Yes. But it is an
:17:58. > :18:00.opportunity as well. It means we have the chance of getting some
:18:01. > :18:04.fantastic information about our past.
:18:05. > :18:07.We are talking a lot about how we are influencing our weather on
:18:08. > :18:15.earth. What about natural weather variability? One of the main aspects
:18:16. > :18:19.of that recently has been El Nino. Seen from space, Patricia, the most
:18:20. > :18:24.powerful hurricane ever recorded, heads towards Mexico in October. But
:18:25. > :18:32.Mexico was ready and lucky, as the storm made landfall where relatively
:18:33. > :18:36.few people live. The severe flooding swept into the USA. It derailed this
:18:37. > :18:45.train in Texas as water engulfed the tracks. Unprecedented rain hit
:18:46. > :18:50.Japan. Dramatic rooftop rescues in September as a Tropical Storm Issac
:18:51. > :18:58.hit an area north of Tokyo. Tens of thousands were left homeless. The
:18:59. > :19:03.power of the flood is there to say. Stronger tropical cyclones are one
:19:04. > :19:07.weather outcome from El Nino. A natural occasional warming of the
:19:08. > :19:10.Pacific ocean. This El Nino is one of the strongest we have seen. The
:19:11. > :19:18.ripple effects have been seen around the world in weather patterns. China
:19:19. > :19:23.and Beijing's skyline in September, barely visible through the smog. The
:19:24. > :19:28.city and its first ever red alert for pollution. El Nino means fewer
:19:29. > :19:37.weather systems to help clear and clean the air. In India, El Nino is
:19:38. > :19:39.blamed for a drier south-west monsoon. But the opposite in Chennai
:19:40. > :19:45.in December as the north-west monsoon produced several days of
:19:46. > :19:50.rain and flooding. But in Africa El Nino is being blamed for a drought.
:19:51. > :19:57.Here in Ethiopia the reins are have failed again, leaving parched
:19:58. > :20:02.scrawny cattle and millions of people in need of food aid. At this
:20:03. > :20:04.well things are getting desperate. People travelled here from miles
:20:05. > :20:11.around to give their livestock a drink. But the water table has
:20:12. > :20:19.fallen to almost nothing. 30, maybe 40 metres down, it is full of silt
:20:20. > :20:25.and mod. The well is almost dry. And South Africa is suffering, too.
:20:26. > :20:31.The worst drought since 1982, with millions facing water shortages.
:20:32. > :20:35.This is rather unusual. Under normal circumstances I would be waist high
:20:36. > :20:45.in water. This reservoir has completely dried up. It goes to show
:20:46. > :20:49.how severe the drought is. Back at St Andrews. I'm about to go where
:20:50. > :20:52.the public does not say. The slightly less glamorous side of
:20:53. > :20:56.things but very important. We talked earlier about wind. Now we are
:20:57. > :21:02.looking at what happens to the rain. A lot of it falls and a lot of it
:21:03. > :21:07.finds its way from the course into this water tank. 750,000 gallons of
:21:08. > :21:10.water. Some of that will find its way back onto the course through
:21:11. > :21:15.what happens here. Gordon Mcquay is in charge. Where are we and what are
:21:16. > :21:22.we doing? This controls the water that goes onto the golf course. The
:21:23. > :21:30.water goes through these five pumps. A maximum capacity of 500 cubic
:21:31. > :21:34.metres of water. It goes through the pipe work and head out through the
:21:35. > :21:40.wall onto the golf courses to give us the irrigation we require. At the
:21:41. > :21:46.Open Championship you had a deluge. As that caused big problems? Yes, it
:21:47. > :21:50.caused us a wee problem as it came in such a short space of time. We
:21:51. > :21:55.are experienced enough. It's that up pretty well. Sometimes when the
:21:56. > :22:00.weather arrives like it did you have to deal with it. Thank you very
:22:01. > :22:01.much. Before we go, here are a low-cost -- here is a look at some
:22:02. > :22:38.of your weather pictures. All of these photographs were taken
:22:39. > :22:42.by BBC weather Watchers, a new online club telling the story of the
:22:43. > :22:49.UK weather. Here is how you can join. Simply sign up for a BBC ID
:22:50. > :22:54.and give yourself a Weather Watchers username. Add your home reporting
:22:55. > :23:00.location and away you go. You can or pure -- upload a photo of the
:23:01. > :23:01.weather. And even add rainfall amounts if you're feeling
:23:02. > :23:15.particularly scientific. Sometimes even the worst weather can
:23:16. > :23:18.produce something breathtaking. The same storm Desmond that brought
:23:19. > :23:23.devastating floods to north-west England brought life to this
:23:24. > :23:29.waterfall in the Yorkshire Dales, thought to have been dry for
:23:30. > :23:36.centuries. That is something that none of us in the village have ever
:23:37. > :23:44.seen before. Wow! From very wet to very dry. A dust
:23:45. > :23:48.whirlwind in Australia, where this one was caught on camera at a music
:23:49. > :23:56.festival. A sort of blue sky tornado. And finally, with winter
:23:57. > :24:01.now well under way, spare a thought for the American groundhog, called
:24:02. > :24:07.upon by tradition each February to predict whether spring might come
:24:08. > :24:11.early. Last winter in Wisconsin this may govern and tree was not
:24:12. > :24:19.expecting, from Jimmy, now a hero among groundhogs. That is it from
:24:20. > :24:20.wet and windy St Andrews. What will 2016 bring?
:24:21. > :24:48.Keep checking the forecast. Hello. A spell of heavy rain is
:24:49. > :24:50.bushing eastwards across England.