The United Kingdom is not a place which people usually associate with extreme weather events or severe climatic patterns. Having said this, twenty fourteen has been quite an interesting year in terms of weird or rare weather occurrences. Extreme cases of weather usually wreak havoc across cities and towns, most of the time resulting in extensive property and infrastructure damage. The overall cost of unusual weather events in the UK for twenty fourteen totals more than fourteen billion pounds in damage repairs and insurance payouts. Twenty fourteen presented UK residents with a full flared selection of strange weather phenomena from tornadoes to sinkholes and all in between!
Here are some facts and figures which describe twenty fourteen’s weather:
January, being the wettest and rainiest month in the UK saw three times more rain in twenty fourteen than normal. Last January has been listed as the rainiest month on record so far.
At the same time, twenty fourteen turned out to be the hottest twelve months since temperature records have been kept.
Lightning is an awe inspiring natural phenomenon which is both mesmerizingly beautiful and highly dangerous. In twenty fourteen, a record breaking three thousand lighting strikes hit within the space of two hours on eighteenth of June.
Sinkholes are another unexpected and dangerous natural phenomenon caused by extreme weather patterns and events. In twenty fourteen, a total of twenty two sinkholes opened up in different locations around the UK. The biggest one on record was the sinkhole in Derbyshire – it was hundred and thirty feet deep, and one hundred and sixty feet wide.
Tropical rains and floods are definitely not common in the UK, however in twenty fourteen both floods and torrential rains were brought to the British Isles by two tropical hurricanes – Gonzalo and Bertha.
In twenty fourteen, the UK’s southwest coast witnessed something never before seen – a ten feet wall of dense sea foam made of dead algae, the phenomenon besieged the coastal line for a brief period of time.
A total of fifteen hundred trees were uprooted by adverse weather and then tipped over railway network lines throughout the UK.
During the last twelve month period, thirty one tornadoes struck in different locations around the UK. A freak five tornadoes struck on the same day – eighth of October, twenty fourteen.
The UK was blanketed by sands blown two thousand five hundred miles, all the way from the Sahara Desert in Africa.
February twenty fourteen, saw a total of sixty four flood warnings issued throughout the United Kingdom.
A huge swarm of giant six feet barrel jellyfish were drawn to UK shorelines by unusually warm water currents.
The damage tally:
- 180 million pounds spent on government road repairs;
- 88 million pounds spent on coastal infrastructure repairs;
- 22 million pounds in insurance claims for 21 thousand destroyed cars;
- 112 million pounds paid in insurance claims for farmers;
- 500 million pounds paid in insurance claims for destroyed homes;