Hold on to Your Ass

[Ostfriese]

Originally Posted by Eichhörnchen

Have you been severely damaged by the weather yet?

"Climate" and "Weather" are two different things

Fortunately, I was lucky so far, and apart from tree torn up during a storm that hit the garden fence a few years back I never suffered direct damage.

But as I have been a volunteer firefighter for nearly 40 years by now I've been called to a large number of emergencies caused by extreme weather. And the general trenda can simply not be ignored. While the overall amount of rain per year has remained round about the same for the last 30 years the number of rain days has decreased considerably (from about 240 days with precipitation to about 180 days). Rain comes less often, but if it comes, there's more of it. This means longer dry periods (which have dramatically increased the risk of wild fires, which of course are much smaller than those in California or in Australia, but endager far more people due to the high population density of central Europe) as well as more days with heavy rain.

Last year, we had a rainy night which gave us bout 75 l/m² of rain in about three hours, that's about 3 inches of water on a level surface. Doesn't sound much at first, but it's about 1/10th of the amount of rain we get in a year on average. Natural seepage simply can't get rid of such amounts of water in a short time (despite the fact that our soil is pretty sandy, which usually allows surface water to seep quite quickly), and of course we don't live on level surfaces, so the water floods lower areas, basements and so on, and overflows the rivers.
Rain like that (that much water in a short amount of time) has only happened three times during the 20th century - but it was already the third time in the 21st century and the fifth time in the last 50 years.

[August]

Not a bit. Ain't no climate change around here.

[Eichhörnchen]