In fact, despite warnings of biblical proportion from an increasingly frit Met Office, there were no dead at all, and I did wonder whether that rather irked the media outfits that had spent £zillions sending news teams to north-west Scotland to cover what only amounted to crashing waves, bending trees and stranded ferries – that is, a typical winter storm. Hurricane Alec, it wasn't. Channel 4 News even send a hapless character to Blackpool; a first, I think.
I watched it all unfold, quartered safe in Wiltshire. Thanks to Chris Townsend, I was able to look at the swirling air masses on-line via a link to a graphic of Earth wind and ocean currents. If you click on 'Earth' at the bottom left of the page you can change a range of perspectives and parameters – and you can rotate the earth image as well. I wish I'd had this when I was failing to learn much geography at school.
As for the UK's prevailing westerly wind and weather, happily, until the laws of physics governing angular momentum are repealed, all this will go on and on and on.
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