The effects of weather extremes on the railways of Britain past, present and future.
May 4, 2015
The winter of 1963. In November 2014 I visited The National Archives (TNA) at Kew in London to undertake a period of focused research concerning the impact of the extreme winter of 1963 on British agriculture. Whilst considerable attention has been paid to the winter of 1947-8, less work has considered the effects of subsequent …
Marking the anniversary of the eruption of Tambora
April 16, 2015
1815-2015 As detailed in our previous post, last week I attended the ‘International Conference on Volcanoes, Climate and Society: Bicentenary of the great Tambora eruption’ in Bern, Switzerland. It was a fantastic event with speakers drawn from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds and from all over the world. Throughout the week I was able to …
Sources in focus – Newspaper reports of extreme weather in the Western Isles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (part 2).
February 10, 2015
Sources in focus – Newspaper reports of extreme weather in the Western Isles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (part 2). ‘Sources in focus – Newspaper reports of extreme weather in the Western Isles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’ part 1 (https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/weatherextremes/2014/11/28/sources-in-focus-newspaper-reports-of-extreme-weather-in-the-western-isles-in-the-nineteenth-and-twentieth-centuries-part-1/) explored the impact of extreme weather on ferries and shipping. Following on …
Sources in focus – Newspaper reports of extreme weather in and around Stornoway and the Western Isles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (part 1).
November 28, 2014
Sources in focus – Newspaper reports of extreme weather in and around Stornoway and the Western Isles in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (part 1). Since the project started in December 2013, blogs have highlighted several categories of historical sources which can provide evidence of past extreme weather events, for example, diaries and parish registers. In …
St Kilda: Extreme Weather on the Edge of the World
August 4, 2014
St Kilda: an island community’s perception of weather St Kilda is an isolated archipelago forty-one miles west-northwest of North Uist in the North Atlantic Ocean comprising the islands of Hirta, Soay, Boreray and Dun, as well as several sea stacks, and are the westernmost islands of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. It is an interesting …
Getting into the archive – The Buildwas Earthquake of 1773: an earthquake or a landslip?
June 30, 2014
Cartographic and textual sources Early in the morning of the 27th May 1773, a remarkable earthquake or rather landslip occurred at a place called ‘the Birches’ located on the hillside above the River Severn between Buildwas and Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, not far from the site of the present day Ironbridge power station (see featured image above). …
Getting into the Archive – The Hingham Town Book (part 2)
June 9, 2014
The Hingham Town Book A few weeks ago, Lucy reported on her recent visit to Norfolk Record Office. A source which I alerted her to following discussion with members of the British Agricultural History Society at the annual spring conference was the Hingham Town Book. As Lucy noted in her blog, the Hingham Town Book, …
Historical perspectives on extreme weather
May 8, 2014
This week I wanted to use my blog post to explore historical perspectives on extreme weather whilst also publicising a couple of activities and events involving members of the project team. Our project aims to build up a database of information relating to extreme weather events of the past that we hope will be of …
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