I am sorry if this sounds a bit obsessive but I like dealing in facts, that is to say what has happened, hard data. Those in the Global Warming GroupThink, the followers of the Doom Goblin Greta Thunberg and employees of the BBC engage in wild speculation. And so I return to my specialist subject of reservoir levels here in Wales.
This all started when the cultists and the media GroupThink insisted that August resevor levels at Lake Vyrnwy about an hour from me here in Wales, were a sign of global warming. In a picture podcast last weekend I showed what nonsense that was. Today we have more data in.
Across the 1200 lakes and reservoirs of United Utilities the stock of water rose in one week by 2.8 percentage points to 90.1%. that is 1 percentage point below the long term average and 0.7% below this tme last year. That reading was taken on Sunday 8th and with there being heavy rain in Wales, at least, since then, I’d expect another catch up when the next readings are announced in seven days.
But what of the Dee and Vyrnwy reservoirs? The water tables are well and truly saturated. My fields on the dee are flooded and you can see the waters stretch for miles. And so any further rains in this region will, be heading into the reservoirs and rivers. So it is no shock to see the Dee/Vyrnwy reservoirs rising by 2.1 percentage points to 83.1% in the week to 8th January. That, I give you , is 10.4 percentage points below the long term average and 10.2 percentage points below last year’s level. But it has tipped it down since Sunday and the forecast is for even heavier rains ( maybe snow) going into next week. So that gap will close.
And none of this data points to the narrative of “you better get used to severe droughts” with which we were besieged last August. The data shows that was bunkum as do my photos from Vyrnwy on Sunday.
The cultists will say “but it always rains in Wales in Winter.” They are right. I agree. And it sometimes does not rain here in the summer. It is called weather. It is seasonal. It is not me who was making dramatic predictions about ongoing droughts and water shortages last summer it is the cultists. And already they are shown to have been talking bunkum.