Has the government and media overlooked the severity of the recent weather?

So over the last few days I have noticed there has been a lack of focus from the government and from the media on the severity of the weather conditions that have stormed across the Northern half of the United Kingdom. At times it is as if the government and media central bodies found in Southern England feel that if there is no bad weather around their locations and its not worth being too bothered about. However, the situation from Fridays blizzards has been very severe, nothing like this has happened over the last few years. I mean yes we have had numerous severe winters with prolonged cold temperatures, but the sheer amount of snowfall and strong winds produced from last Fridays storm seems to have been seen as yet another crazy winter.

 

 However the depths of the snowfall and the size of drifts are of immense size and it is not just affecting one area but large parts of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Northern England, Wales, Scotland, Isle of Man and Ireland. Even today three days after the snow fell, there are hundreds of roads closed and these are the major ones. There are hundreds of homes still without power. In places the 4 x 4s are getting stuck, in others the snowploughs, tractors and even the JCBs are no match against the depth of some of the drifts. Its going to be numerous days if not weeks before there will be significant melting and be a further few weeks for these drifts and piles of snow the size of houses to fully disappear. There are still people cut off and are surely to be running low on supplies of food and water by now. With the onset of further cold weather and possibly more snow the situation is not improving fast enough.

 

 

Another major issue is the loss of livestock. Farmers fear that there are thousands of cattle and sheep that have been killed by this bad weather. There are hundreds of sheep buried in snow drifts and in the Isle of Man one quoted that he had managed to save 50 of his 70 flock of sheep with others saying of "Catastrophic Losses". The meteorological office at the Isle of Man said it was the most significant snowfall event since 1963. Farmers that managed to get some stock into farm buildings said that in some cases the weight of the snow had caused them to collapse and they were fighting a battle they could not win.

 

Last year was the warmest March since 1962, this year it seems it will be the coldest March since 1969. It may sound like the start of The Day after Tomorrow, but it seems that the recent weather has been overlooked by the government and media and maybe when the snow has melted and spring finally arrives the costs, impacts and the extent of the bad weather will become clear.