Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.

The weekend's destructive wave surges make the front page of the Guardian again today, & dominate the news pages of the Express (according to this Express story, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management "dispatched emergency first responders to villages affected by the pounding waves" yesterday--two days after the crisis. Good to know they're on top of things). But here's a story that doesn't seem to have made the papers yet. Surfers around the world use the website of the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Centre--a division of the US Navy--to plan their surfing trips, because the site provides forecast maps of wave action around the world. Days before the sea ate up Maracas & smashed King's Wharf, there were surfers who knew what kind of waves were coming--& at least one, I'm told, called the Met Office & suggested they issue an official warning--only to be rebuffed.