News Archive
05/02/21Major incident declared as Christoph heads to UK
A major incident had been declared in South Yorkshire as Christoph was set to visit Yorkshire.
The Meteorological Office warned that the extreme phenomenon would likely cause floods and road closures and could be extremely dangerous and also that Yorkshire would be 'particularly' hit.
Well, what an entrance and a rise to fame eh, Christoph?
However, whilst we wish to extend our 'Big Barnsley Welcome' to Christoph Bertenrath to his new post - responsible for Barnsley in the Verein Städtepartnerschaft Schwäbisch Gmünd committee
re -shuffle, I should add that this particular warning was caused by his namesake 'Storm Christoph' which hit the UK this last week.
Christoph Bertenrath
VSP Schwäbisch Gmünd
Following on from the melting of the first snow falls in 2021, an Amber warning for rain and severe flooding, with possible "danger to life," we greeted the first named weather storm of 2021.
Thankfully Barnsley mostly escaped without serious incident.
The Met. Office started naming storms about six years ago to "aid the communication of severe weather through media partners," naming a storm means it's easier to talk about.
Together with its Irish counterpart Met Éireann and the Dutch weather forecasting service KNMI, the Met. Office chooses storm names by asking members of the public to send in suggestions.
Interestingly, only Christoph will be featured in 2021, with the next storm named Darcy, followed by Evert, Fleur, Gavin, Heulwen, Iain, Julia, Klaas, Lilah, Minne, Naia, Oscar, Phoebe, Ravi, Saidhbhín, Tobias, Veronica and then Wilson.
I don't think there is anyone with any of these names on the VSP Committee though.
So Christoph, we still wait to welcome you in Barnsley but in the meantime we think of the quote by American author Willa Cather: “There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm” …… we think we will be really lucky to have both!
