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The Friday Five
Aug. 12th, 2022 08:16 pm Here's a recent set of questions:
1. Have you ever been in a hurricane or typhoon? Which one, when and where?
I live in the south east of England and our weather can best be described as temperate. We rarely get it excessively hot, excessively cold or excessively violent. We get heavy snow maybe once every five years, and heavy – in our terms – lasts for about a week. However, only once in my life I’ve experienced a storm which was genuinely classed as a hurricane, and if you ask anyone in England about the big storm of 15th October 1987, and they will know exactly what I’m talking about.
We had a weather man at the time called Michael Fish who read a letter from a viewer who was worried because she’d heard talk of a hurricane, and he reassured her on national TV that there would be no hurricane. He’s about ninety now, and he’ll still never be allowed to forget it. That will be his epitaph.
The main thing we remember about the big storm was that 18 people sadly died, most of England south of London was paralysed for days by loss of power and downed trees/fences etc and the beautiful and historic Kent town of Sevenoaks lost six of the seven ancient oak trees that gave it its name.
2. Have you ever been near an erupting volcano? Which one, when and where?
Not an erupting one, although I would love to experience that. I have flown over a smoking volcano in a helicopter (Mount Ruapehu in Tongariro National Park, New Zealand), but apparently it snorts constantly.
3. Are there tornadoes where you live? Has a tornado come near you?
No, we never get tornadoes here. I believe we have seen the occasional little waterspout in coastal waters from time to time, but they're just occasional little flukes that never cause any problems thankfully!
4. Have you experienced severe flooding? When and where?
The only ‘severe’ flooding we have experienced is when we had a burst pipe in our front garden about twenty years ago and our lawn was completely underwater. The water got to within a few inches of our front doorstep, but thankfully we got it fixed before any major damage was done.
5. What is the most extreme weather you have ever experienced?
Excluding the 1987 storm above, the most extreme weather I have ever experienced was a blizzard in the Shetland Islands in January 2004. We were stuck on the Island for three days because the airport was closed due to heavy snow, and when we were trying to get back into town from the airport, our hire car got buried up to its headlights in a snowdrift. We were stuck inside because of the weight of snow we couldn’t open the doors. I thought I was going to have to climb out of the window Dukes of Hazzard style, but a particularly hardy local rescued us and towed us back to our hotel!
1. Have you ever been in a hurricane or typhoon? Which one, when and where?
I live in the south east of England and our weather can best be described as temperate. We rarely get it excessively hot, excessively cold or excessively violent. We get heavy snow maybe once every five years, and heavy – in our terms – lasts for about a week. However, only once in my life I’ve experienced a storm which was genuinely classed as a hurricane, and if you ask anyone in England about the big storm of 15th October 1987, and they will know exactly what I’m talking about.
We had a weather man at the time called Michael Fish who read a letter from a viewer who was worried because she’d heard talk of a hurricane, and he reassured her on national TV that there would be no hurricane. He’s about ninety now, and he’ll still never be allowed to forget it. That will be his epitaph.
The main thing we remember about the big storm was that 18 people sadly died, most of England south of London was paralysed for days by loss of power and downed trees/fences etc and the beautiful and historic Kent town of Sevenoaks lost six of the seven ancient oak trees that gave it its name.
2. Have you ever been near an erupting volcano? Which one, when and where?
Not an erupting one, although I would love to experience that. I have flown over a smoking volcano in a helicopter (Mount Ruapehu in Tongariro National Park, New Zealand), but apparently it snorts constantly.
3. Are there tornadoes where you live? Has a tornado come near you?
No, we never get tornadoes here. I believe we have seen the occasional little waterspout in coastal waters from time to time, but they're just occasional little flukes that never cause any problems thankfully!
4. Have you experienced severe flooding? When and where?
The only ‘severe’ flooding we have experienced is when we had a burst pipe in our front garden about twenty years ago and our lawn was completely underwater. The water got to within a few inches of our front doorstep, but thankfully we got it fixed before any major damage was done.
5. What is the most extreme weather you have ever experienced?
Excluding the 1987 storm above, the most extreme weather I have ever experienced was a blizzard in the Shetland Islands in January 2004. We were stuck on the Island for three days because the airport was closed due to heavy snow, and when we were trying to get back into town from the airport, our hire car got buried up to its headlights in a snowdrift. We were stuck inside because of the weight of snow we couldn’t open the doors. I thought I was going to have to climb out of the window Dukes of Hazzard style, but a particularly hardy local rescued us and towed us back to our hotel!
