Storm Frank batters large parts of UK thousands left without power on New Year's Eve

[Meatpie]

[SUB]Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire

[/SUB]
Storm Frank has battered parts of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland leaving more severe floods in its wake.

Scotland bore the brunt of the bad weather with hundreds of homes evacuated in the Borders towns of Dumfries, Hawick and Peebles.
Thousands of homes are without power in Yorkshire and 31 flood warnings remain in place across Cumbria and Lancashire.
Forecasters said the worst of the rain had passed but more flooding was likely as water moved down from higher ground.

In Dumfries and Galloway, the River Nith has burst its banks causing flooding in the town of Dumfries. A severe flood warning, indicating danger to life, has been issued for the Whitesands area. The villages of Moffat and Carsphairn have been cut off and fire crews have been rescuing people from properties by boat.


The River Tweed in Peebles also has a severe flood warning in place and more than 300 homes have been evacuated in Hawick.
Emergency services are responding to reports of a missing kayaker on the River Findhorn in Moray, while in south Ayrshire 12 passengers had to be airlifted from a bus stuck in flood water near to Dailly Cemetery.

In Northern Ireland, thousands of homes have experienced power cuts, air passengers have been delayed and fallen trees have caused problems on the roads.

 

[steveo1955]

I see they have decided to give their storms names now like they have been doing for Hurricanes and Typhoons.

 

[Meatpie]

Up to the second half of the 19th century, European windstorms were named after the person who spotted it. Usually, they would be named either by the year, the date, the Saint's day of their occurrence or any other way that made them commonly known. This has meant that the same storm could be named differently from one country to another.

Inspired by the practice of the U.S. National Weather Service to assign names to hurricanes and typhoons, a student at the Free University of Berlin (FU), Karla Wege, suggested in 1954 that all high- and low-pressure systems affecting Europe should be given names in order to make tracking the systems simpler. Lows were given female names and highs male names, and the names of notable extratropical cyclones were retired after each event. This practice was soon adopted by the German media.

In 1998 the system changed to alternating male and female names for highs and lows each year. In November 2002 the "Adopt-a-Vortex" scheme was started, which allows members of the public to buy names that will then be assigned to storms during each year. The money raised by this is used by the meteorology department to maintain weather observations at the Free University.

The FU names became gradually known across Europe through the media. Even though these are not sanctioned by any official organizations, like the World Meteorological Organization, they are commonly used. However, a storm may still be named differently in different country. For instance, the Norwegian weather service also names independently notable storms that affect Norway.

Several European languages use the word Ouragan or cognates thereof (Huragan, Orcan, Orkan) to indicate particularly strong European windstorms. This is not in reference to the tropical cyclone of the same name but to the Hurricane strength of the wind in the Beaufort scale (winds ≥ 118 km/h or ≥ 73 mph).

 

[Darkside]

So glad I live at the top of a hill,water all around and most of roads closed and still bloody raining, not stopped for more than a couple of hours in three weeks. With a bit of luck roads may still be closed next week , so will not get back to work... always an upside.