Sentinel

SunSean For balance, I refer you to the years 1990 - 1994 when Essex had below average rainfall for five consecutive years. I remember 1990 when we had just 10.5 inches of rain in Southend, by 1994 the whole area was parched and my rugby pitches were painful to play on. All we are getting now is a redistribution of nature but over many years. I normally swim in the sea off Thorpe Bay but have only swum twice this year due to the cold and the constant south / south-westerly winds. I have never known so much of our sailing to be cancelled. Having said that 1990 - 1994 we sailed almost every week all through the year. Swings and roundabouts as far as the weather is concerned.

Arch Stanton Where I swim there is an overflow pipe but we get very little sewage from it. To be honest, you can smell and sewage discharge from about 200 yards away and the last one was about five years ago. Whilst I don't doubt the problems of sewage being released into the sea, it is at specific locations and my one is not one of them.

I feel your pain, as a fellow resident of Southend the last 12 months have been pretty turgid. The constant south-westerly winds have meant loads of my sailing has been cancelled and I haven't even been able to swim in the sea. I'm hoping things warm up a bit and I can start swimming but things still don't look great. Having said that, I can remember in 1990 when we got just 10.5 inches of rain in the whole year. In fact 1990 - 1994 were very dry and we had severe concerns about drought. Not anymore we don't!

What's causing the constant SW-lies?

What I don't understand is why the weather pattern has changed. Normally the wet weather goes west - east across southern England, but for the last 12 months or so it has been going SW - NE. What starts off over the Channel Islands six hours later goes over my home in Southend. Does anyone know what's caused the change?

Same here, on the spectrum. Maybe we need a thread for people like us as I'm always fascinated by the weather!

Yep, standing water on Hadleigh marshes and winter has barely started. I wonder what it'll look like after Storm Ciaran.

Standing on Southend seafront half an hour ago there was an easterly wind coming off the North Sea. I looked up and saw clouds moving in from the west. Within ten minutes the wind had changed direction and it had got very dark as rain clouds moved in. Now awaiting the rain.

Horrible thick cloud down here in Essex, i'll be surprised if we see the sun before midday.

Down here in Essex it's just started to rain. There's been some rain form over SW London, north Kent and Essex which I hadn't expected to see. Plus with the wind it's cold along the seafront.

They can call them what they like, I just want to see some storms!

Huge downpour on Canvey Island at the moment. I was hoping to find some geocaches before watching Concord Rangers play, but I'm stuck in the car watching huge rain drops bouncing off the bonnet. First really meaningful rain for a couple of months round here.

What on earth is lingering twilight, can anyone explain please?

The wind is increasing on Southend seafront and is more constant than Eunice.

Snap, same as me! I'm going for 80mph with all the boats in the TBYC boatyard scattered over Shoeburyness!

I would try somewhere down on the coast. Brighton, Southend, Portsmouth, any of them will give a decent view and give an opportunity to see a swell.

If I remember correctly, part of the problem in 1987 was that the Met Office used weather ships to take observations and then send these back to HQ. The storm went between the two ships hence the reason they didn't pick up on it until it was nearly on us. Today they have a network of weather buoys which do a similar function and have a ship which goes round servicing them. This means we are getting far more data than before.

I did Saltash Utd's ground when I was a student in Plymouth, I enjoyed going there for the Western League games. As for tomorrow, I think it would be better if they just called he game off now.

It is getting battered. From my office on the edge of the Olympic Park I have watched it get darker and darker as the cell has approached. An earlier cell a couple of hours ago left quite a mark but this is far bigger. Expect some pictures of flooded tube stations!

Just been watching the sky from the seafront at Southchurch and there's still nothing...yet.

Not hearing anything in Southend yet but there's plenty of time.

Some are clear but a lot of them are blue and they're the ones that sting. It's like a slow burn - so I'm told - and lasts for about half an hour and best treated with salt water (!) or vinegar (proper stuff that has been brewed). There are thousands of them in Southend at the moment, they came in on the tide last week and have been around ever since. It's stopped me from swimming in the sea which is frustrating as I was sea swimming in January and then again in March in my wetsuit but not in June when it's really warm and beautiful.

Looking at the models it's a case of go east. Having said that, lovely weather down here in sunny Southend but we could do with some big waves to chase away those pesky jellyfish that have stopped me swimming for a good ten days now. Jelly fish, first World problems!

Last Thursday - 19th November - we experienced a massive storm surge around the east coast of England. It was one of the highest tides ever seen in Southend where I live and flooded some lower level marshes and came onto the quay at Leigh-on-Sea. But the thing is, the surge seemed to come out of nowhere. The pressure in the area was 1029 and fortunately it was a very calm day, had it been windy or gale force like it was a few weeks ago it would have caused severe flooding with loss of life. But the question is, how did it happen? I didn't get a text alert about it until 10am on the day and high tide was at 1507 so where did it come from and what caused it?

Just been reading about this. I was working on a bridge over the River Swale near Leeming and between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning the river rose 15ft in just 36 hours. It dropped just as quickly but it showed the amount of rain we had.