Can fireworks change the weather? A new look at my new book

Can fireworks change the weather? When and where did they begin? When was Britain's first display? How did 5 November become a date that it was compulsory by law to celebrate but also a focus for anti-establishment disorder? What role has London played in the history of fireworks? How did an Islington fireworks disaster make history? These are some of the questions explored by Dan Carrier in his 'Islington Tribune' article on my new book 'A History of Fireworks from their Origins to the Present Day' (Reaktion Books)

https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/rocket-man

Our climate really IS getting stormier

Rainstorms really are getting worse. Examining how the UK's weather has changed, the Met Office concluded that heavy downpours were 17% more common in the decade from 2008 to 2017 than they had been between 1961 and 1990.

It also says that our climate is warming up, with hot spells lasting twice as long as they did between 1961 and 1990, and our hottest days nearly a degree warmer than they used to be, while our coldest days are more than a degree and a half milder than between 1961 and 1990. And the number of 'tropical nights' when the temperature never gets below 20 degC (68F) is going up too.

A stormier climate is precisely what scientists have been saying global warming would cause, and the United Nations is now calling for 'unprecedented' action across the world to slash carbon emissions to zero by 2050, and stop the temperature rising more than 1.5 degC above pre-industrial levels.

For more on how climate change affects storms, as well as the history of storms, the role they have played in religion, art, films and literature, plus the methods people have used to try to tame them, see my book Storm: Nature and Culture (Reaktion). https://www.amazon.com/Storm-Nature-Culture-John-Withington/dp/1780236611

Cold kills dozens in India

We tend to think of excessive heat as the main weather hazard in India, but every winter, people die of the cold.    This year the death toll is believed to have passed 170.

Most of the victims – at least 114 - have been in Uttar Pradesh, with others in Punjab, Haryana and Uttarakhand.    As usual, the old and the homeless are most at risk, with many of the dead found in parks or on the street.  

Last week, Delhi had its coldest day for 44 years.   Night shelters in the city are overcrowded, and those who cannot get in, have been lighting fires in the street to try to keep warm.

Meanwhile in the Ukraine, at least 37 people have perished from the cold.   (See also my blogs of 4 January, 2010 and 3 January, 2011.)

*Canadian review of new paperback edition of my book Disaster! - http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/51986

Really Cold Weather

We’ve just had the coldest December for a decade in England and Wales, and the icy weather has continued into January, but if you’re feeling a bit chilly, think for a moment what it must have been like to have been caught up in what became known as the “Schoolhouse Blizzard” which hit the Great Plains of the United States 121 years ago today on January 12, 1888.

It got its name because many of the victims were children being taught in the one-room schoolhouses that then dotted rural America. One teacher in Nebraska found hers running out of fuel and decided to take her three pupils to her boarding house just 80 yards away, but they immediately got lost in the blinding snowstorm and all the children died. Altogether more than 230 people perished.