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British prime minister David Cameron has sparked outrage by blaming Britain’s flood crisis on global warming while admitting defences are not fit for purpose. Cameron said more frequent ‘extreme weather events’ driven by climate change were the main driver behind the floods in Cumbria and the north of the country. Experts blame the massive cuts in flood defence budgets for the disaster and point to historic flooding which pre-dates ‘global warming’.

The Tadcaster bridge in North Yorkshire has collapsed, with concerns that a nearby gas pipe has ruptured. The historic bridge collapsed into a swollen river Wharf just before 5pm. A 200-metre exclusion zone has also been set up around the bridge as authorities inspect a possible gas leak. People living around the bridge in Tadcaster have been told to evacuate from the area immediately, with the military drafted in to help.

Having collapsed to record lows last week, NatGas futures have soared almost 40% as record warm temperatures in the Northeast (and a record glut) have given way to forecasts of a "big weather pattern change" in January.

As The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts notes, January will see a huge flip in temperatures compared to December...

From 'Hot' to 'Not' 

h/t @DanLeonard_wx

And it appears February Nattie is pricing that demand in...

David Cameron says climate change is to blame for the UK floods as ministers are accused of using global warming as an excuse for failures. Cameron has been accused of blaming the UK flooding disaster on climate change rather than the fact that Britain’s flood defence budgets had been massively cut. The Mail Online reports: David Cameron admitted that flood defences had not been sufficient, but suggested that the greater frequency of ‘extreme weather events’ was to blame.

It was just 10 months ago that Boston smashed its all time snowfall record, and the US was blanketed in freezing weather from west to east as the Polar Vortex unleashed cold air for the second year in a row. It was so cold, the GDP report for the winter period had to be double-seasonally adjusted as the sharp economic slowdown simply did not make sense otherwise.