Untimely storms

First Citizen:

Come, come, we fear the worst; all shall be well.

Third Citizen:

When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks;
When great leaves fall, the winter is at hand;
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?
Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.
All may be well; but, if God sort it so,
'Tis more than we deserve, or I expect.

Second Citizen

Truly, the souls of men are full of dread:
Ye cannot reason almost with a man
That looks not heavily and full of fear.

Third Citizen

Before the times of change, still is it so:
By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust
Ensuing dangers; as by proof, we see
The waters swell before a boisterous storm.
But leave it all to God. whither away?

Some Shakespeare as night falls and I write this, in trepidation of what chaos the gathering storm may bring.

The website https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/ explains why the weather is getting worse. Although based on USA statistics, some of that covers tends visible to ourselves as well.

“Some extreme weather and climate events have increased in recent decades, and new and stronger evidence confirms that some of these increases are related to human activities.”

“Heavy downpours are increasing nationally, especially over the last three to five decades. The heaviest rainfall events have become heavier and more frequent, and the amount of rain falling on the heaviest rain days has also increased. Since 1991, the amount of rain falling in very heavy precipitation events has been significantly above average.”

“The mechanism driving these changes is well understood. Warmer air can contain more water vapor than cooler air. Global analyses show that the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere has in fact increased due to human-caused warming.,,, This extra moisture is available to storm systems, resulting in heavier rainfalls.”

“Winter storms have increased in frequency and intensity since the 1950s, and their tracks have shifted northward over the United States., Other trends in severe storms, including the intensity and frequency of tornadoes, hail, and damaging thunderstorm winds, are uncertain and are being studied intensively. “

It is when the increased frequency matches the high tides that we get the floods, and not from (at the moment) rising sea levels. It is like throwing two dice, one of which is now weighted to come up with more sixes. The changes of two sixes are thereby not 1 / 36 but greater.

And that is precisely why we are getting so much more coastal flooding.

Postscript

I left early today at 6.30 am, got to La Haule around 6.40-6.45. High tide was at 7.02 am. The waves were already starting to come across onto the road, and later at the end of Victoria Avenue, not only sheets of spray but surges of water - much as you see travelling across the sand at a Spring tide - were coming across the road surface even on the Eastbound lane. This is fast moving water, foaming, and about three inches deep. I rapidly took a small road to the Inner Road.