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The change to electric cars will not impact the enormous emissions from commercial vehicles, jet aircraft, diesel locomotives, and the huge worldwide fleet of commercial shipping which belches out its pollution far from the eyes of land lubbers. There may well be a reduction in local air pollution in cities where electric cars become the majority but the manufacture of millions of electric engines and batteries will cause untold additional pollution in other countries where the mining of rare earth metals is carried out. It’s not the answer to climate change, that’s for sure.

I know I am not alone in wondering whether the electric car is going to be the salvation for our climate, not least because of the damage to the environment which is being widely caused by extraction of the minerals needed to build them. The number and volume of rare metals needed to build an electric car far exceed that for a conventional car but these rare metals are also needed to build wind turbines and manufacture solar panels. For example, (by one estimate) to satisfy the world’s increasing demand, the same volume of copper which has been mined by the human race since the metal was first discovered thousands of years ago will need to be extracted from the ground again in the next thirty years. The worlds largest open cast copper mine in Chile (2 miles wide, half a mile deep) is having to dig deeper and deeper to find the ore but all the while the surrounding countryside is polluted by spoil and precious water resources are depleted. But it’s not just copper. Rare metals such as indium, gallium, germanium, selenium and tantalum are required not only to manufacture electric batteries and motors, but also wind turbines to produce the ‘green’ electricity. These metals are produced in faraway places like China and processed in remote industrial complexes in places like Mongolia where we are not shown the enormous amount of pollution being created by the refinement of these metals. Clean energy's dirty secret: How push for modern technology has made Chinese pond toxic NEWS.SKY.COM A tailings pond lies on the west of the Chinese city Baotou, one filled with a black grey sludge of toxic and radioactive material. And they’re called ‘rare’ for a reason - they are not common in the earths crust and they will become increasingly difficult to extract as more and more electric vehicles are produced. I doubt that these metals will be efficiently recycled at the end of every battery’s life and there may well be increasingly harmful pollution resulting from scrapped cars and batteries in the future. If you are interested in this issue it’s worth watching this documentary: The Dark Side of Green Energy WWW.ALJAZEERA.COM As the world moves away from fossil fuels, we look at how greener energies are creating new environmental challenges. So I believe that although petrol and diesel engines have a detrimental effect on our environment and our climate, electric cars may not be any better when we take account of the damage being caused to the worlds environment far from our own country. In due course this headlong rush towards the use of electric cars will come back to bite us.

We are currently enjoying a gorgeous Spring-like day here with almost cloudless skies and, earlier, +13C. Likely to cloud over later but a sign of things to come?

Another pretty sharp frost here - -4C is 5C lower than the forecast yesterday, but skies cleared overnight and allowed the temps to fall again. In many ways it’s good to see these frosty mornings at this time of year but I must say I’m now looking forward to warmer days again. January seems to have flown by and it’ll be February in a few days. Snowdrops and daffs already starting to show and we’ll soon have some colour around to cheer us up. I’m hoping that the number of garden plants lost to the severe frosts will be less than feared as new growth appears as if by magic….

Forecast for tonight is minus 5C! Nothing to worry about as the last frosts killed off everything they could in the garden so what’s left should all survive! Haven’t had so many deep frosts in one winter for a few years - must be global warming..

Cold start this morning but at least it’s dry with clear skies - for now.

Meanwhile there are many reports of flooding and disruption around Wales following the heavy rains and wind this week…. Sports pitches turned to lakes, cars written off, and roads unrecognisable: how Wales looked as a month's rain fell in a day - Wales Online WWW.WALESONLINE.CO.UK The wild weather caused widespread disruption, which is captured in these powerful images Take care if you’re travelling and avoid flooded roads if you can.

A couple of snow depth charts for next Wednesday….. ECM GFS It will be interesting to see how close to reality these are or whether it will all melt away before next week…..

Can’t let the morning go by without mentioning the winds last night - what a noisy few hours we had and couldn’t get to sleep until well after midnight. At some point in the night a tree came down next to us but luckily didn’t do any damage. It was dead anyway but unfortunately my satellite dish was fixed to it so I’m going to have to relocate it now. I can’t believe there’s no other damage in the area judging by the strength of the gusts but there’s nothing being reported locally.

Am I dreaming…..…. 'Heavy snow' forecast to hit large parts of Wales next week BBC weather forecasts snow for large parts of Wales next week as Met Office extends yellow warning for Wales - Wales Online WWW.WALESONLINE.CO.UK 'Heavy snow' could fall in parts of the country

Intense rain overnight kept me awake for a while but this morning we have a genuine sunrise occurring! Lovely to see the sun again, which has been cloud covered since Monday. It’s a great start to the day but showers and more rain forecast for later. Oh well. It is January after all…..

Looks like we’re going to be plagued with a persistently wet and windy month as far as the models can see right now. It’s been a very wet morning here as a long line of heavy showers formed over the Celtic Sea and relentlessly targeted Pembrokeshire. Rain has stopped in the last half hour so hopefully we might get a chance to dry out a bit! Having got over Christmas and New Year I’m now getting impatient for Spring to appear but I guess we’ll have to endure some more winter weather first…..

Yesterday we saw the sun for a few hours although it remains very low in the sky this time of year and the light morning frost hung around for most of the morning where the shadows remained. It’s hammering down this morning with the prospect of a very wet day ahead. Local roads might see some flooding in places today after a generally wet start to the year. Looks like we could be in for a lot more of this in January as the prospect of cold, dry weather has disappeared off the charts for now.

Fascinating gif which highlights a continental winter contrasted with our own maritime winter, warmed by the Gulf Stream. It will take a significant shift in the climate to bring the UK snow of these proportions!

Understandably, many on here continue to look for signs of an imminent arctic blast accompanied by widespread heavy snow which remains possible for at least another 10 weeks. However, this is also the time of year for Atlantic driven wind storms and with the increasingly turbulent atmosphere and warming seas we could see record breaking storms in the same way we have seen record breaking high and low temperatures in very recent times. I will be keeping an eye out for the earliest signs of Atlantic storms over the next few weeks, like these charts from the GFS (way into FI but worth watching….)

Only 26 days to go before the CFS has this in store for us…. Just for fun, of course….. Now only 26 minutes to go before 2023 so Happy New Year to all you lovely weather nuts out there - may the new year bring you all the snow you’ve dreamed of. Love all the posts and I’m looking forward to many more next year.

Well, the arctic temperatures delivered by December 2022 have managed to kill off at least four garden shrubs including an old and cherished lavender bush . Others are damaged but might recover. The exceptional frosts managed to penetrate the unheated potting shed where the 30 year old money plants were sheltering over winter as usual. They’re all dead now. My fault, but I never imagined it would be able to get to them inside…. Pembrokeshire is normally a fairly mild area as it’s surrounded by sea on three sides but this year we must have broken a few records for cold. Just goes to show you can never second guess Mother Nature - she will always have a surprise or two up her sleeve to deliver just when you least expect it.

Heavy rain here all morning and now the wind is gaining strength with some hefty gusts. No snow. All the frost has disappeared. Not nice.

Bitterly cold overnight - heavy frost on everything this morning. For those that can, don’t forget to put a little food - and water - out for the birds. They will be grateful as it’s difficult to find food in these temperatures.

Fab pics!

The sun is up now and the landscape is frozen…. I think they’ll be some treacherous back roads around this morning.

It’s looking very very cold outside - could be -6C or -7C. Now I’m worried about the outside taps - I’ve lagged them in layers of bubble wrap but I don’t know it’ll be enough. Don’t want a bust pipe.

Very cold all day here, too, with any ground not seeing the sun remaining icy and frozen. Had to de-freeze the bird bath twice to make sure they had something to drink - the pond is frozen solid. I’m trying to eke out the oil supply until after Christmas so the thermostat is set at 16C indoors but it’s on 24 hours a day to maintain a steady temperature. I’m not a Scrooge but it’s perfectly comfortable if you wear enough clothes and the living room is nice and toasty with the log fire.

Well, at least it’s looking very Christmassy…. Just need a few reindeer to complete the picture!

The forecast for my location predicts a very unusual 7 more consecutive nights of frost, which will make 10 nights in a row if it happens. I’m pretty sure the last time that happened was February 2018 (BFTE), so it’s getting more uncommon to see this sort of entrenched cold here. If we get a little snow into the bargain, that’ll be a great start to Winter given that we still have all of January and February to go yet! ️🌨️🌨