The Met Office's Prediction for winter 2010.

In October 2010, National Grid published its Winter Outlook 2010/11




It bases its purchasing and transmission commitments upon many variables, perhaps the most important being the weather.





The country's energy supply, and, reliable security-of-supply therefore depends upon the accuracy of weather forecasts.


This is particularly important for the Nation's gas supply because sufficient gas has to have been previously committed to storage; and, contracted to be withdrawn from storage [whilst the distribution system remains topped-up].

Unlike electrical power supplies which can be temporarily interrupted & then switched back on again, the Gas Transmission System MUST remain pressurised.




Perhaps the organisation which was responsible for those weather predictions ought to invest in a more accurate computational model?

Met Office Global long-range probability maps [Enter 'Issued' - Oct 2010; 'Period' - 2-4 months; 'Region' - Europe to see how warm they thought it'd be.]

Because that forecast also heavily influenced local authority road-salt purchasing & storage decisions, it perhaps explains why so many councils were 'unprepared' for the prolonged snow + ice conditions.

A guest post by Joe Public.

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Don't They Look Silly Now?

Up until last year climate change sceptics were vilified as 'non-believers', 'flat earthers' and much worse.

Doesn't the drivel that has been produced in the past decade look quite pathetic now?  If last winter wasn't enough to encourage people to take another look at the propaganda, this year again promises to provide white landscapes.  South of the border hasn't escaped either.

The photo is the first with my new camera and was taken before I went to bed. Not the best time of the day/night to be trying it for the first time.

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Safer Winter Roads Courtesy of Oz

click to enlarge

Britain is surrounded by seas full of salt.  We even have mines which produce the stuff, with our biggest mine, operated by Salt Union in Cheshire capable of producing 30,000 tonnes a week.

Yet, when it comes to salting the UK's roads this winter to keep us all moving, there's only one solution available to the UK's transport chiefs.  Ship it in from Australia.  We are importing 120,000 tonnes of salt from 12,000 miles away in an effort to avoid a repeat of last year's fiasco when depots ran out of supplies during the long winter.

The cost of the Australian salt is said to be around £60 a tonne to buy, ship and store - double the price of domestic salt from mines in Cheshire, Cleveland and Northern Ireland and about the same price per tonne as coal.  The salt, after its seven week journey on the high seas, will be split between Redcar, Teesside and Avonmouth, Bristol.

The shipments will help create Britain's first national stockpile of gritting salt, a 250,000 tonne reserve - costing £15.5 million - designed to bail out local authorities which find themselves short of salt should the country be gripped by another hard winter.  In 2002 total world production of sodium chloride was estimated at 210 million tonnes, the top five producers being the US (40.3 million tonnes), China (32.9), Germany (17.7), India (14.5) and Canada (12.3).

I never thought I'd see the day when rock salt cost the same as coal.  Did you?

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