The drought is bad but sloppy journos are taking licence with dramatic photos. Example 1: Daily Mail - "The river Rhine is pictured with low water ... threatening German industry."
Its a small tributary leading into the Dutch Waal. NB the barge in background on the main river🧵
Yes you could stretch the point, the Waal IS a Rhine feeder river but the dramatic bike is not in the dried up Rhine. Here's the river in winter flood (Dec 18) and an aerial view of the backwater the Mail photo implies is the Rhine. It isn't.
For WWII history buffs - this was one of the two bridges fought over and captured in the Battle of Nijmegen in Sept 1944 as part of Operation #MarketGarden. Here are British troops crossing it.
But back to my subject - drought pictures.
They've done it with the Loire too...
This photo has been shocking everyone - purportedly the Loire dried up. It had 14k likes and really created waves (sorry...)
What they don't say is that actually this is where the river splits into two. This is the lesser branch which normally rejoins the river further down.
Google earth shows there are normally extensive sandbars on that part. It doesn't mean the Loire as a whole has dried up. Here's a view in the other direction - the one that doesn't get so many retweets. That's the main river at the end.
It IS bad, no denying. But...
Here are the two branches in Aug 2018. Lots of sand on the N branch, S branch clearly deeper. Just check everything before jumping to conclusions. Google lens took me straight to Waalbrug - the bridge. Anyone posting or writing articles can easily do that if they want to. IF...
And then this. Apparently unconnected but it isn't.
Check everything that has to to be true because I believe it already".
We all do it. This FT guy blocked the person who showed him his data was wrong. Didn't fit his preconceptions.
And here's the next one. This is crazy.
Armageddon fantasy vs reality
Its bad enough without this deception, why do they need to do it?
h/t
@Werner_A_Kuhn
And the next one. The drought reveals a Roman camp which says @BBCweather "is usually underwater". Well... no. The *lesser part* of it is.
Which is why the tourist photos often show so much grass. Google Earth summer 2020 for comparison
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