Saturday 3 November 2018
Freak Weather
Huge storms have devasted regions of Northern Italy and Southern Austria. Whole forests have been laid flat. It's as if some hand had taken a giant matchbox and shaken the matches over the land. The newspaper photos remind me of the devastation caused in the forests of Siberia by the Tunguska meteorite.
The most complex meteorological situation in the last 50 or 60 years is responsible. Firemen, soldiers and rescue teams have been battling valiantly against the effects of the storms; the fallen pylons, the blocked roads, the mud slides, the broken dams and the floods. Many communities in valleys can only be reached by helicopter. It's like the scene after an earthquake, said an Italian official.
In Italy the death toll so far stands at 20*. This 4th November Sunday morning in Vienna (7am) the temperature is 14 C and rising. It will reach 19 C today say weather forecasters. There's an eerie stillness in the air. The only sound the cawing of crows. The headline in the morning paper: Nature is Playing Crazy Games.
Sadly I cannot watch the Italian news on my TV as I used to do daily. All Italian channels on A1-TV were suddenly closed down a few months ago here in Vienna without explanation. Nobody has commented on this peculiar action in the Austrian press or other media as far as I'm aware.
Mind games, perhaps? The wind of change? Very sad, anyway.
I wish all my friends in Italy well. Ciao e saluti!
*Tragically now 30.
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It is very widespread affecting many parts of Southern and Coastal Italy too together with freak heavy snow in the Central Massif in France and many people cut off or stranded. The coastal flood in Genoa was described as like a tsunami the likes of which have never been seen before, and a dam has also burst.
ReplyDeleteRomes, Naples, effected, Corsica, and weather warnings for Sicily. Clearly a storm that will go down in history.
It certainly will and it's not over yet. Another depression is already forming off the coast of Tunisia. Nine people were reported drowned in Sicily this morning.
DeleteNot on the same scale but interesting nevertheless there was a storm near Slazburg the other day. Something like 100 boats moored on Lake Attersee were wrecked by a 'mini-tsunami' as someone described the 6 foot high waves that suddenly arrived and threw many of the boats onto the land.
And winter hasn't even started yet! The high pressure over Russia that usually dominates much of Europe is described as 'weak'. The Mediterranean lows are having it all their own way.
These events when and wherever they occur are really very scary aren't they? They do serve to bring us down to earth and make us realise that we are in no way in control of things. About once every thirty years we have a flood here in the village (please don't think I am in any way comparing it to the present events in Italy and elsewhere) when two thirds of the houses ae flooded. Afterward there is always a wall built here or the beck diverted there in an effort to stop it happening again, but it never does. Nature always wins.
ReplyDelete"Nature always wins." Well, the water has to go somewhere. And in the great scheme of things it goes downhill. If someone builds a dyke to stop the water reaching the 30-year flood plain it'll find its way there or somewhere and no-one will stop it. It's hard to believe now, but long ago the River Danube flowed not into the Black Sea as it does today, but into the Adriatic. It's the same on a smaller scale in Alnmouth, Northumberland, where the river its course after a great flood. Nature is nature and man is man and nature is the mightier.
Deletein Alnmouth . . . where the river 'altered' its course
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