North of England Floods

Boxing day is usually a day of recovering from or continuing with the excesses of Christmas Day.  For many parts of the UK the month of December has been one long nightmare.  First Desmond and now Eva have dropped their rainfall onto large parts of the UK with the North of England causing widespread flooding.

The two maps below show live flood warnings for December 26th at around 10pm.  These are taken from the Environment Agency and you can see below just how many warnings were in place.

Obviously there is a huge amount of news coverage, making it difficult to sum up everything. .  The BBC introduction gives you some idea of the devastation.  Below you will find some news sites below to get a real understanding of what is happening

BBC Live reports Sunday December 27th
Guardian Live reports Sunday December 27th
Pinterest Board about the floods

UK Floods - Storm Desmond

Desmond caused huge amounts of damage across parts of the UK this December, particularly in parts of Cumbria which has now experience several large flood events over recent years, this has now developed further with Storm Eva which I will post about soon.

Before the holiday students had the chance to research the flood to explore the impact of peoples lives.

Anisia found out the following information along with some footage of the flooding.

The UK flooding is a recent problem that people face daily now in some parts of the UK. This damage was caused over the last 3 days and had made it harder for everybody in the UK (parts that are affected) to travel from place to place and even difficult to get out of the house, if the house is still in good shape. Schools, hospital services and travel have been disrupted after Storm Desmond brought winds, terrifying rain and flooding to the UK, making them towns of rivers. In Cumbria and Lancashire more than 43,000 homes are suffering from power cuts, while an estimated 5,200 homes have been affected by flooding.








Meilin found used a Guardian article and found out...

The flood and rain in the UK has made headlines in most newspapers. Thousands of homes and businesses have been consumed by the flood, across northern England and Scotland.Weather forecasts say that the heavy rain and wind will persist for the up coming weeks. Luckily, people will not have to pay council taxes and business rates until they are back to their properties.

The rain keeps on coming and just last night December 23rd more flooding was taking place.

Pompeii

If you have not yet found the time to visit Pompeii then I suggest you put it on your list of places to visit.  Whilst you're there check out Napoli for some of, if not the best pizza you will ever eat, and the stunning Costiera Amalfitana (Amalfi Coast), just try and explore more than the standard tourist places for a far more interesting experience.

Pompeii itself is an incredibly interesting place to visit, all the time you are in the shadow of Vesuvius, which hopefully you can find the time to visit.  Then imagine that the volcano you are seeing was once much taller and one giant feature on the landscape.  Take the time to explore and in the summer be prepared for the heat.  

Pompeii the film is set in the last days of the now famous town.  The plot is, much like Titanic is very predictable and so it should be no surprise to you that the Volcano erupts and the town is destroyed.  The effects put into the film are certainly impressive and give you some idea of what it could have been like.

"A slave-turned-gladiator finds himself in a race against time to save his true love, who has been betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator. As Mount Vesuvius erupts, he must fight to save his beloved as Pompeii crumbles around him." IMDB

If you haven't seen it yet it will be one of the first films in next terms Geography Film club, you can write your own review if you like to be shared here.  In the meantime have a look at the movie trailers below.

Star Wars Weather

You can't have failed to notice Star Wars, the Force has well and truly awakened.  Even the streets of Bucharest are adorned with the faces of Storm Troopers.  Can you find all the Storm Trooper locations?  This one was lurking near Unirii.

Even the weather presenters are getting in on the act.  Check out this effort from the UK.

If you wanted to continue exploring more of Star Wars you could think about the different environments encountered in the films, what are they like?  How are they formed?  How would you survive there?  There is even a Star Wars app which right now is telling me the weather in Retford is like Kamino, so what is the weather like for me?

Desert Survival Video

As part of a unit of work on the Middle East year 9 students explored the desert environment.  One of their tasks was to present a survival guide for the desert.  The video here shows one students work, what do you think?  Would you survive following the advice here?