UK - Floods - A flooded street

Residents of Catcliffe Village survey one of the flooded streets of their village. This was one of the communities flooded when a freak tropical storm unleashed a deluge of rain on parts of northern England in which more than four inches of rain fell in 24 hours. They had been given just fifteen minutes to leave their homes, in the middle of the night, because of fears that the dam wall at Ulley reservoir above their village might break so they were returning now two days later, as the floodwaters were starting to recede, to assess the damage. Questions have been asked about why this village was built beside land that would normally act a floodplain. This devastation was caused by extreme and unpredictable weather and it is this kind of event, which climate scientists have been predicting, will become more frequent as a consequence of global warming. (Photo by Gideon Mendel/Corbis via Getty Images)