By Mike Collett-White Reuters News Service
LONDON - A
sodden cyclist fighting through the London traffic during a familiar
torrential downpour looked up at a bus conductor with a resigned
look.
"Does
it ever stop raining?" he asked with a shrug, before ploughing
through a huge roadside puddle.
It is the
question on the lips of millions of Britons, already renowned
for their fixation with bland conversations about the weather
and their pets.
Now they can
do both at once - it has been raining cats and dogs.
It is hard
to recall three days in the last three months when there has been
no rain in the British capital.
Across the
country the limited number of parks and public pathways not closed
by the foot-and-mouth livestock disease are often impossible to
negotiate for the swamps and bogs they have become.
One young
couple who were married in late April in central London had not
one drop of rain to spoil the day. They put the miracle down to
divine intervention.
But the heavens
look likely to continue to open on a regular basis for a long
time to come.
"There
are climate predictions indicating that the frequency of flooding
in the south of England will increase," said a spokesman
for the Meteorological Office in London, referring to long-term
forecasts.
In the short
term, though, things are looking a little brighter, with settled
weather across much of Britain expected soon and a drier, warmer
summer than average.
COSTS,
HUMAN AND MATERIAL, ARE HIGH
There is a
serious side to all this.
The human
cost of the worst flooding for 50 years during the winter has
been high.
Torrential
rain and gales that battered Britain in December killed four people
and brought further misery to thousands of people already devastated
by flooding less than two months earlier.
The October
deluge left at least seven dead in northern Europe and thousands
had to be evacuated from their homes in low-lying areas. The bill
for that downpour in Britain alone was over one billion pounds
($1.4 billion).
Environmentalists
say that the unusually wet winter and spring in Britain is consistent
with predictions by scientists studying the impact of global warming
on the region.
"Researchers
anticipate hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters in Britain,"
said Roger Higman, senior climate campaigner for Friends of the
Earth.
"We have
not had an extended cold snap during the winter for 15 to 20 years."
Higman said
that the knock-on effects could be huge, ranging from changes
in planting cycles and wildlife habitat to higher insurance premiums
and even parts of the country simply disappearing into the sea.
Last month
the cliffs at Beachy Head in southern England, lost a coastal
landmark when the famous 200-foot (70 metre) Devil's Chimney outcrop
collapsed.
A few miles
west, staff at a supermarket had a lucky escape when the chalk
cliff above them gave way and thousands of tonnes of falling debris
stopped just short of their building.
"Then
of course there is the psychological factor - those crisp, clear
winter days are important to people's moods. They love to see
snow," said Higman.
Another environmentalist
said he was tempted to call the police when he saw clear blue
skies for the first time in weeks on Thursday. Threatening clouds
had arrived by midday.
IT REALLY
DOES RAIN IN BRITAIN
London may
have rid itself of one of its stigmas - fog or smog is now relatively
rare.
But when foreigners
jibe that it always rains in Britain, who can argue?
Official weather
records go back to 1766 but no winter during the last 235 years
has been as wet as the one that has just ended.
The Meteorological
Office said that 1,299 mm (51 inches) of rain fell across England
and Wales between April 2000 and March 2001, just pipping the
previous record set in 1872.
April this
year was also wet, with 1.6 times as much rain falling as the
average taken between 1961 and 1990.
The British,
with their stiff upper lips, are expected to just grin and bear
all of this. But there are signs that even their patience has
run thin.
Rain, rather
than foot-and-mouth disease which put much of rural Britain out
of bounds, was cited as the main factor behind a record 1.75 million
Britons taking Easter breaks abroad this year.
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