Britain's Most Extreme Weather

Episode 1/4 - Storms, Monday 27 April, 8pm

In this four-part series weatherman Alex Beresford investigates why Britain’s recent weather has been so severe and asks if we are facing the worst weather in recorded history.

Alex trawls through centuries of British history to compare weather from the past with our weather now, and examines the very latest scientific discoveries to discover if our weather is getting worse.

In the first programme, we look at Britain’s most fearsome floods. This winter has been our stormiest for decades, with 13 major rainstorms that caused extensive flooding. Using moving personal accounts and astonishing footage from smart phones and cameras, we tell the story of our stormy past.  From the tidal surges that flooded North Sea coasts and the hurricane force winds that battered our western shores.

Further back we revisit the most destructive storm in our history – the Great Storm of 1703 that killed over 8,000 people and destroyed a fifth of the Royal Navy.  Are there patterns in our past that might reveal clues about our future weather?