Natural Hazards
Cornwall is not known for being prone to natural hazards, although they do happen. The county experiences droughts and heatwaves with the rest of Europe as they happen, but its location close to the ocean dampens their severity. Also, European Windstorms in the winter usually make landfall on the west coast of Europe, including Cornwall, resulting in severe gales and flooding. Cornwall's large amount of valleys also make it prone to rapid flooding when an unusually heavy amount of rainfall occurs, as seen in the Boscastle flood of 2004.
Although not lying on any plate boundary, Britain occasionally experiences intraplate tremors as a result of the Eurasian Plate's motion, reactivating weak points in the rock. The west coast is more prone to these tremors than the east. The strongest tremor so far recorded in Cornwall was in 1815, measuring 4.4 on the Richter scale with its epicentre near Penzance.
The 1755 Earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal which measured 9.0 on the Richter scale sent a tsunami towards the south coast of Cornwall. Historical accounts describe the waves of 3 metres (10 feet) in height and significant loss of life and property.
Read more about this topic: Geography Of Cornwall
Famous quotes containing the word natural:
“No Vice or Wickedness, which People fall into from Indulgence to Desires which are natural to all, ought to place them below the Compassion of the virtuous Part of the World; which indeed often makes me a little apt to suspect the Sincerity of their Virtue, who are too warmly provoked at other Peoples personal Sins.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)