Red Heat Emergency week of 18th July 2022

[Pandora]

Heat emergency declared in England as temperature expected to hit 40C

 

Trains may be restricted to 60 mph maximum speed commencing 18th July 2022.

NR advising passengers not to travel.

 

Has this ever happened on the BR network since WW2?

 

[31A]

There have been Heat Speed Restrictions in various areas in recent the past.

[Wheatley]

Blanket speed restrictions are not uncommon in hot weather, 'Do not travel' advices  for heat less so but not unknown. 

 

A lot of kit just wasn't designed to operate in hot weather, an example is the 25kv AC OLE to Hadfield and Glossop, which re-used the DC masts. It isn't tensioned so in very warm weather there's a bridge somewhere on the route where the wires sag a bit to low for comfort, so the route is deisel traction only from Sunday. 

 

Interesting discussion on R4 earlier between some MP accusing the Met Office of overkill because it gets hotter than this in Spain so it's just like being on holiday, and the lady from the Met Office pointing out that it does, but Spain is used to it and geared up for it, unlike us. Followed by a report from China where they've shut parts of the country down because of the heatwave . ..

Edited July 15, 2022 by Wheatley

[Trog]

Anyone who has ever worked on track in the summer will be able to tell you that the feeling you get when you bend down to look more closely at a rail is akin to opening an oven door.

 

Rail expansion under heat is really impressive if you have a few hundred yards of rail unclipped and on rollers and the sun comes out you can actually see the end of the rail moving. This is why it is vitally important if you are working with CWR as the day warms up that the ends of the rail are left turned out so they can pass each other. Because if you leave the rails between the housings and they butt up as they expand for every degree C the temperature rises after that point a compressive stress of a tonne builds up in the rails. I once took over a relaying job on a Sunday morning went out to look at it and saw the rails had been left in the housings and touched as I looked at them. I thought oh s**t and dashed for the nearest crowbar, it probably took me 30 seconds to snatch up a bar, put it under the rail and push. When I did so about 60 yards of rail sprang into the 4' even when excited I am not usually strong enough to move over three tons of rail with one push.

 

So if any of you reading this are P-Way remember that unclipped CWR is potentially deadly and to be careful with it. If you work for H&S don't worry as these are the ramblings of some old bloke who did more overtime than was good for him before H&S were invented to protect him from himself, as after all what could be dodgy about a bit of rail just lying on the ground.

[RFS]

And this is what can happen if it really gets hot - as here in Australia!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LoXgN1QWZM

[Boris]

You just know the SSI modules are going to red over somewhere

[31A]

2 hours ago, RFS said:

And this is what can happen if it really gets hot - as here in Australia!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LoXgN1QWZM

 

Change of trousers called for??

 

[John M Upton]

I am just astounded by the panic "National Emergency" nonsense at the perfectly normal fact its the height of Summer and its hot weather...

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, John M Upton said:

I am just astounded by the panic "National Emergency" nonsense at the perfectly normal fact its the height of Summer and its hot weather...

We're British.  It's supposed to rain in this country.  Especially if you're on holiday.

We'll not be allowed to water the garden soon because the reservoirs are empty.

[The Pilotman]

8 hours ago, John M Upton said:

I am just astounded by the panic "National Emergency" nonsense at the perfectly normal fact its the height of Summer and its hot weather...

Whether it turns out to be a “National Emergency” depends on the behaviour of the public over the coming days. We shall see.
Yes, it’s the height of summer and the weather is hot but what you may have missed is that we are likely to see the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK on Monday or Tuesday. If predictions turn out to be correct, the record will be broken, not by a fraction of a degree, but maybe by one or two whole degrees. That certainly isn’t perfectly normal. 

[kevinlms]

4 minutes ago, The Pilotman said:

Whether it turns out to be a “National Emergency” depends on the behaviour of the public over the coming days. We shall see.
Yes, it’s the height of summer and the weather is hot but what you may have missed is that we are likely to see the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK on Monday or Tuesday. If predictions turn out to be correct, the record will be broken, not by a fraction of a degree, but maybe by one or two whole degrees. That certainly isn’t perfectly normal. 

Parts of Australia have had 'Once in a Hundred Years' floods, 4 times in the past 18 months.

There was an article about a woman who had her house raised 5 metres or 16ft to be flood proof.

Yes, she got flooded again!

 

Anyone who claims this is normal, has their head where it shouldn't be. 

[Jonboy]

10 hours ago, John M Upton said:

I am just astounded by the panic "National Emergency" nonsense at the perfectly normal fact its the height of Summer and its hot weather...

Just thinking back to July 2007 almost to the day, when I as part of a first aid organisation was assisting at an emergency evacuation centre, full of the residents of an old peoples home due to the flooding…the home in question hasn’t been evacuated since (at any other time of year)….good old predictable Consistent summers…

[KingEdwardII]

1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

Anyone who claims this is normal,

I'll claim it's pretty normal for Australia. A land of droughts and floods, to some extent driven by the El Nino/La Nina system. When it's dry its really dry and when its wet, they get more rain than they know what to do with.  

 

My introduction to Oz was in one of the wet patches and we were warned to keep off the roads as cars were getting swept away.

 

Yours,  Mike.

[lmsforever]

I  can rember the 1976 heat wave didnt get all this stuff on tv then we just got on with life maybe people now molecodeld to much .

[Wheatley]

20% excess deaths in 1976, 59% in the 2003 heatwave. "Significant" increases in A&E admissions both years. I don't know if you've tried to phone an ambulance recently but we were quoted 4 hours last week for a compound fracture of the femur, they eventually took 40 minutes after someone phoned back to say the patient had gone cold and passed out. 

 

Yes it gets hotter than this in a lot of places but the warning is there to try to avoid people doing stupid things and treating it like just another British working day. If you're planning to spend the day relaxing in the garden with a jug of chilled water you'll be fine but if you need to spend it humping home delivery furniture about you'll need to take extra precautions. That's all its there for. 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Wheatley

[RFS]

35 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

I  can remember the 1976 heat wave didn't get all this stuff on tv then we just got on with life maybe people now molecoddled to much .

 

I remember it too as we moved house in the middle of it. The main issue was the long dry spell which caused serious water shortages, but although it was indeed a hot summer it was nowhere near 40C.

Edited July 16, 2022 by RFS

[Darius43]

54 minutes ago, lmsforever said:

I  can rember the 1976 heat wave didnt get all this stuff on tv then we just got on with life maybe people now molecodeld to much .

Cuddle your own mole thank you very much.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[kevinlms]

3 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

I'll claim it's pretty normal for Australia. A land of droughts and floods, to some extent driven by the El Nino/La Nina system. When it's dry its really dry and when its wet, they get more rain than they know what to do with.  

 

My introduction to Oz was in one of the wet patches and we were warned to keep off the roads as cars were getting swept away.

 

Yours,  Mike.

Moving or water of unknown depth and unknown condition of the road below the water level are the problem areas. Some people think that their 4WD is immune. Authorities warn that water above axle height could get you in big trouble.

 

Here's some data for Lismore, one of the worst areas in the country.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lismore,_New_South_Wales#Floods

 

Here is the historic data up to 2017 - a gap between 2017-2022. But note the 14.37M for this year is way above the highest of 11.59M in this graph.

https://lismore.nsw.gov.au/files/Lismore_Flood_Events_1870-2017.pdf

 

I wouldn't live there if you paid me.

[Boris]

The problem we have with warm  weather in this country is that, aside from not being prepared for it is the humidity.  Hot days in the UK are generally accompanied by higher humidity than the continent which reduces the speed our perspiration evaporates, making the bodies cooling system less effective.

 

For example Madrid is forecast to have temperatures similar to the UK in the upcoming days, their humidity is forecast to be 10-20% ours is forecast to be 60-85%.

[Allegheny1600]

6 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Anyone who claims this is normal, has their head where it shouldn't be. 

Exactly!

 

According to the fart (who used to be in the White House), this kind of thing is nothing to do with global warming?

Huh?

 I too remember 1976 and it seemed to be a summer that went on for ages but it was never what I call “searing” heat.  I suspect that, following that summer, my family and I spent the winter in Morocco (as we did every year) where probably around late February 1977, we recorded temperatures of around 130F (54C) now - THAT’S hot! I remember walking in the sun between the shade of palm trees and it was absolutely shrivelling heat, terrible. Even the locals were complaining.

Last summer in Greece, I was working (gently) in up to 45C but I’d acclimatised to it so it was quite okay until the hot wind came over from Africa! These were rare temperatures in Greece as in, it doesn’t hit that high very often.

So, for anywhere in the UK to hit 40C is truly exceptional and don’t try to say it is anything other than human impact causing it.

The planet is heating up and it’s bad.

[Halvarras]

3 hours ago, Jonboy said:

Just thinking back to July 2007 almost to the day, when I as part of a first aid organisation was assisting at an emergency evacuation centre, full of the residents of an old peoples home due to the flooding…the home in question hasn’t been evacuated since (at any other time of year)….good old predictable Consistent summers…

 

Would that have been Friday 20th by any chance? My 15-mile 25-minute commute home mainly through Wiltshire countryside took me 2 hours 45 minutes that day and it turned out I did well compared to some. I worked for my employers for 34 years and never saw flooding like it before or since. Sat stationary in the car watching the water flowing through the fields alongside the A419 I was wondering if I should follow Noah's example when I eventually reached home and start work on an ark in the back garden......

 

It was also the weekend of the International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford, all of the aircraft had arrived from around the world in preparation, presumably at massive expense, only for a flooded runway to scupper the event. It hasn't been the same since.

 

1 hour ago, lmsforever said:

I  can rember the 1976 heat wave didnt get all this stuff on tv then we just got on with life maybe people now molecodeld to much .

 

Me too. None of today's constant fearmongering, we were told not to wash our cars (one job less then) and given tongue-in-cheek advice to "Save water - bath with a friend!" Well, I think it was tongue-in-cheek......!😉 Humour, eh? How things have changed......back then we could see what was happening, took it seriously and took sensible precautions until it passed.

 

I can also recall the moment I realised something was up that summer. On 22nd June I'd travelled from Truro to Penzance behind 45023 'The Royal Pioneer Corps' and was walking back along the sea front towards Long Rock, photographing a passing D1048 'Western Lady' and 08840 as I went, when it occurred to me that it was getting rather 'warm'......and it went upwards from there! So the following day I decided to cool off by going surfing at Newquay's Fistral beach using my father's heavy-duty marine ply surfboard, thinking I'd be OK in the water......and got sunburned (what was that about "sensible precautions"?!) The next day I went back to photographing Westerns near Tresillian, east of Truro, to recover from cooling off......😎

 

I still have the surfboard - being a carpenter by trade my father made it himself in the early 1960s so I regard it as a family heirloom, especially as he died young (41). It hasn't got wet since 1998 but now has so many layers of yacht varnish on it that I reckon it's nigh-on indestructible!

[KeithHC]

Ah the summer of 76…….. I spent the whole summer surveying the bottom of a chalk pit near Gravesend. No problem to me then but the guy I worked with was very fair skinned and blonde. He suffered but for me at the time it was a breeze. Mind you I had just come back from a year surveying in the Middle East (Oman)…….

 

Keith

 

[kevinlms]

2 hours ago, lmsforever said:

I  can rember the 1976 heat wave didnt get all this stuff on tv then we just got on with life maybe people now molecodeld to much .

In 2009 I did a job for a customer on a Friday and next morning I realised I'd left a tool behind, so arranged to go back to pick it up.

When I got out of the air conditioned car (which I thought it wasn't working well!), I was amazed at the searing heat outside along with strong gusty wind and I thought it was dreadful out. The next thing I thought of, was that 'people are going to die'.

 

They did indeed, much worse than I had thought possible. I was about 30km away from the nearest fire point - so definitely no personal experience.

 

https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/black-saturday-bushfires

 

Mollycoddled indeed! How dismissive can you get?

[boxbrownie]

I spent most of the summer of ‘76 photographing Hadrians Wall for the DoE, wouldn’t have been so bad but I had to do it on a 5x4 sheet film MPP camera and equipment, luckily back then I was young, fit and made mostly of rubber and magic, now it feels like I am made of cast iron and bad luck! 😉

[kevinlms]

57 minutes ago, KeithHC said:

Ah the summer of 76…….. I spent the whole summer surveying the bottom of a chalk pit near Gravesend. No problem to me then but the guy I worked with was very fair skinned and blonde. He suffered but for me at the time it was a breeze. Mind you I had just come back from a year surveying in the Middle East (Oman)…….

 

Keith

 

The heat in southern Victoria is different to that of a desert location. In winter and spring, it's usually wet enough for plenty of grass, bushes and trees to grow. This means that in a hot summer, the growth will significantly dry out and in successive hot summers and low rainfall winter/springs means that everything can become tinder dry.

These conditions can be significantly dangerous, if fire breaks out, as it can be difficult to extinguish - it certainly isn't like a notorious politician suggested, that it's merely a matter of raking leaves in the forest!

 

The most dangerous time of the year for Victoria is February, but for NSW it's December.