Today:

Express Front Page: Four Inches of Snow on Way

Daily Star Front Page: Killer Floods on Way

So i think we can pretty much rule out both of those

I'm just wondering if the editors know that physical papers are getting less popular

The internet is killing them off, so they resort to more and more outlandish headlines, to try

to keep selling the papers

The really depressing thing is that we all know people (and most whom we think are quite intelligent) that actually keep believing this rubbish. For example, there was someone at work today who mentioned the Daily Star story about the the killer storm and geniunely took it seriously.

I agree, this was an utterly ridiculous story, barely a step away from the old Sunday Sport "WW2 bomber on the moon" headlines of the 1990s....  The fundamental difference is that at least the latter was tongue in cheek.

It seems the editor must have thought.... "Typhoon - big story, but we need it to have direct relevance to our readers - let's ask our "weather experts" to make a link.....  The "weather experts" duly comply, the fee removing any qualms about the fact they are writing fiction. 

What I don't get is just how frequent these "weather panic" stories are, as surely any regular reader of these papers, even if of very low intelligence, must be fed up by the constant "crying wolf".

Andrew

Daily Express equally ridiculous today with quotes from some nutty 'forecaster'.

However, I remember reading in several well respected journals that the course of winter 1984/85 was abruptly changed from exceptionally mild conditions in early-mid December to severe conditions in early January by a late Hurricane that swept into the North Atlantic just before Christmas. This storm injected masses of warm, moist air into the atmosphere that 'bent' the Jet Stream north across Greenland but south across Western Europe.

January and February 1985 were very cold and snowy particularly in the south.

Andy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvB-i3t7vsY

The Irish Met Office hit out at LRF... see just at the end of this YT clip... 1:15 onwards!