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Arctic Hare

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Posts posted by Arctic Hare

  1. Yep, it's been a grim day in most of the W Midlands. Same here in N Worcs, just constant cold rain. Early on it was melting the dusting of snow from last night, later it's just been making the existing puddles wetter!

    I won't tempt fate and say it can't get any worse, especially since we *did* have that brief bit of whiteness overnight... but I would very happily take 15 °C in January over this!

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  2. Miserable here in North Worcs today. It's barely stopped raining (albeit mostly quite lightly) since I got up, and looking at the radar the hoped-for late brightness just isn't going to happen here. Cold, too: only 7 .6 °C right now. Pretty much exactly the kind of weather I've more than had my fill of this autumn. Hopefully a little more brightness between the showers tomorrow, but today is sadly a write-off.

    • Like 2
  3. 20 minutes ago, Azazel said:

    To do that kind of damage (physically lifting and moving vehicles and removing a roof entirely) it must've been really quite strong by UK standards. Possibly the strongest since Birmingham?

    I was just thinking of the 2005 Birmingham one when reading about this. That said, wasn't there a pretty strong tornado in London in 2006?

    (Pedantry alert: Jersey isn't in the UK, so this won't appear in UK stats anyway.)

  4. 4 minutes ago, Downburst said:

    Some extraordinary gusts at 08:00 northern France. 62 mph is 100km

     

    I'm assuming Pointe du Raz is a very exposed location, especially as it's one of the few in that first list that doesn't have "Record absolu" next to the gust... but even so, 207 km/h is 129 mph. I'm going off memory, but I think that would be an all-time record for England if it happened here. It's indeed extraordinary.

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  5. Looking over at the models thread briefly, the ECM 12z looks somewhat dire. This October started so well, but it looks like ending (and November starting) on a pretty miserable note. Sadly I suspect flooding will be a significant issue again in a week or so. I know I'm a broken record on this, but we really badly need a couple of weeks, continuously, of mostly dry weather. If that ECM is anywhere near, not a chance. 😞

  6. I'd probably give October 5/10 so far. Higher for the first part, lower for more recently. Yes, the recent exceptional rain was interesting, but I have had more than my fill of flooding now. If the end of this week turns out as unpleasant as it might, then it could go down to 3/10 or so. I am already starting to dread what a wet winter might bring. I would take any form of dry winter, even if it was snow-and-frost-free almost entirely, over yet more drenching.

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  7. The Severn at Bewdley is at 4.54m and rising, albeit slowly now, so it's a relief that the flood barriers are now up on the town side. A number of houses and businesses would be flooded by now otherwise. Unfortunately the Wribbenhall (east) side can't have its usual temporary flood defences because of the extensive works to install... permanent flood defences. Those will take 18 months, so people living there have two full winters to get through. It's going to be an anxious time.

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  8. 2 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

    The current synoptics are very similiar to what July produced. I've noted how we seem to exchange sustained dry periods with sustained wet ones. The July pattern lingered until Sept. This does appear an entrenched pattern for the foreseeable, wet and average temps with little variability. It is in no way inspiring my enthusiam, mind the Lake District has enjoyed a surprisingly dry 7 days with exception of Thursday. 

    Yes, this for sure. The traditional ever-changing weather we have in these parts seems to be moving to something rather different. If things continue like this then I imagine those whose jobs involve planning for such things (eg transport bodies) are going to have to change some of their long-held assumptions in the years ahead. Resilience will require the ability to cope with weather such as we've just had, or indeed heatwaves like 2022's, more than once in a blue moon. (Just as one example that comes to mind, rail track will need to be designed to be less prone to buckling in 30+ heat if that's going to happen quite frequently.)

  9. 1 hour ago, ANYWEATHER said:

    The only problem with the barriers is that they displace the water further downstream and flood somebody else’s house 😫

    They don't really seem to have that effect here, probably because just downstream of the town is low-lying undeveloped floodplain anyway.

  10. image.thumb.png.b45b416f3547de07baae0faaf3394248.png

    The sheer speed of the rises has been something very notable in many parts. This is the Severn in Bewdley yesterday. It rose something like 2 metres between breakfast and lunchtime, which is practically unheard of for a river this size. Run-off from the brooks was exceptional, but even so there's normally more time to react.

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  11. We desperately do *not* "need the rain" in these parts, we need some extended dry weather to let people clear up! I'm not bothered about temperatures, cold and dry would do me just as well as mild and dry. But sadly this doesn't seem on the cards any time soon, and weeks more of wet weather will mean yet more flooding, that's a certainty now.

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  12. Still raining here, but very lightly now, nuisance value more than anything. Down by the river it's a different story with the failure to get the flood barriers up in time (conflicting reports about why, but a lot of unhappiness in the town) but myself I'm fortunate to be well away from the river. A normal grey, murky, overcast, drizzly autumn day now. Stupendously boring, but I think a lot of people here will welcome some boring weather.

    An extraordinarily fast rise yesterday for a river as big as the Severn. Dave Throup (ex-EA) says that exceptional runoff from the surrounding brooks is the likely cause.

    image.thumb.png.897ee772433e546a18b424cc59d47e0f.png

  13. WWW.KIDDERMINSTERSHUTTLE.CO.UK

    Flood water from the River Severn is reaching close to Bewdley businesses on Severn Side. Former Environment Agency area manager Dave Throup said on…

    Not a great piece of news from my town... turns out the flood barriers (which are very effective when they're up) were not in fact deployed here. "The rain across the West Midlands area has fallen further south and with much more intensity than our models predicted," is how the EA guy is quoted in the article. Scroll down a bit and there's also a statement from the town council saying there were plant equipment failures.

    All in all, a bit of a disaster and the first time there's been flooding like that on the town side of the river since the flood barriers were first installed many years ago. They're great but only work if they're actually up, so I imagine people living there will want some proper answers about what went wrong and how it can be avoided in future.

    • Like 5
  14. 1 minute ago, MattStoke said:

    You’d think Network Rail would have had a contingency plan with this storm predicted well in advance, but apparently not. Hours waiting for a rail replacement bus to be arranged and still nothing.

    Buses are apparently a lot harder to source than they used to be. Some of the reasons are political so I'll skip over that aspect, but one factor is that there is a serious shortage of qualified bus/coach drivers in some parts of the country. No available driver = no rail replacement bus.

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  15. 17 minutes ago, laddie said:

    Today looks like a classic case, with us being constantly bombarded with so many red, amber, yellow warnings that when a genuine threat arrives like today it's widely ignored 

    To be fair red warnings specifically are extremely rare, but I do sometimes wonder whether the number of yellows we get for fairly everyday conditions (especially with the poor design of the map on the MetO website with so many overlapping warning areas) perhaps desensitises some people to the extent that they stop paying much attention. 

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