Climate Catastrophe

The tornado belt has without any doubt shifted north - tornados were virtually unknown in Eastern Ontario/Western Quebec a generation ago, they are now an infrequent but annual occurrence, including the 2018 cluster that took out electrical service for much of the city of Ottawa. I suspect Indianapolis is now right in the heart of that belt - which is the 2nd worst area in the US, after Oklahoma-North Texas.

Sad business.

That was probably the same system we got later on at night in Indiana.

Yes, it was. Warmer than normal temperatures from the Gulf Coast all the way to Northern Ontario.

Back from our visit to the Italian side of the Alps. I took my one off snowboard lesson as planned to correct some bad habits that Iā€™ve undoubtedly collected over the years. My Instructor was complaining of this being the Winter with no snow. Piste coverage was there as was off piste but it was all rock hard and deteriorated as the week progressed down to the base ice that they form when creating the runs at the beginning of the season. It made for tough, defensive snowboarding to be honest. Top of the resort is over 2700m above sea level. It was desperately cold at times but no fresh snowfall. Down at the village level temps were at 12 Deg C on a couple of days.

Another excellent article by George Monbiot.

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One for FT subscribers here:

The article focuses on India but it highlights a global problem. As temperatures rise, more people will use air conditioning and this needs electricity, the generation of which which is often coal-based. So people counter increasing temperatures by adding to the carbon in the air.

Bravo :clap:

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Finally got electricity back after 8 days out of service after the storm front that hit May 21. Possibly a tornado in some areas, but a wide front of powerful (190 km/h) downdrafts destroyed electricity connections for 190,000 household at the worst point.

Eleven killed, some people like these kids had a very close call.

A generation ago we never saw tornado warnings in this region, we now see several every summer. Not even summer yet.

And still people deny it.

Got one at work. Full on Brexit supporter, Blue blooded Tory, Royalist, Trump supporting climate change denier

Also looking into alternative heating options for my parents home. They currently have very little heating other than a couple of storage heathers and an electric Aga. All run on a cheaper night tariff (Economy 7) but even that is going to be crippling now. Over 90% of their electricity consumption is from the Aga. I think Iā€™ve managed to convince them to ditch that but they will need something to replace the warmth it offers to that half of the house. Iā€™ve seen some grants available from the government that would cover part the cost of one of air source and ground source heat pumps or a biomass boiler. Leaning more towards the biomass to be honest as I dont know enough on the others.

Eight days? Thatā€™s a lotā€¦ did you use a generator or something?

Yes, it was rather a lot. Bought a 8.5 kW generator on Day 3 when the timeline repair was still opaque. There are in fact still some households not connected, although now less than 5,000.

Friend sent me this, from the Ottawa River about 60km east of Ottawa.

Sheesh. Wind has blown most of those cars onto the wrong side of the road.

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We were out for 4 hours ā€œonlyā€, but the incident brought back the horrible and vivid memory of 2013 icestorm cutting our electricity for 3 days (2C inside the house after 3 days).

Very impressive indeedā€¦ glad you and your family made it in one piece! :+1:

We actually had a 5 day outage in 2018 due to a confirmed tornado. At this point, having bought the big-ticket item, I will continue to rage at the cost-benefit analyses that are offered up suggesting these were once-in-a-century events (2 in less than 4 yearsā€¦). These studies keep suggesting we donā€™t need to invest in more resilient infrastructure, so I will. Transfer switch to isolate from the grid, probably a natural gas connection for the genset, and next time we should be better prepared.

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Iā€™ve thought about solar and a Tesla powerwall, but TBH I just donā€™t know if we get enough sunlight during the winter to make it feasible.

Nope, and in BC your electricity is really cheap too. Economics arenā€™t that good at all.