Richard Lake

Well everywhere is flooded again... seems like back to square one! We need some serious warm up and dry weather otherwise the land is going to remain saturated until Mid-summer at this rate.

How the heck did the forecast go in the opposite direction at the very last minute? From a dry and mild weekend outlook on Friday afternoon to absolute washed out roads and water courses back at dangerously high levels.

Oh yeah the sunshine made a very brief visit, but gave you a sense of Spring being around the corner - but the cold wind reminds you we are only in mid-winter.

Another badly forecasted weekend.. Saturday was meant to the best of the weekend, rode my bicycle all day from AM to PM and got wet on and off, nothing more than drizzle but pretty much as forecasted. By Saturday evening, about 7.45pm and about 5miles from where I parked my van at Woodhall Spa, were I would be spending my evening; it began raining, more than it had all day. From the moment I got in the van till maybe 6am in the morning it just rained continuously, nothing especially heavy, just constant! After getting up and out the van many times for a wee; rain does this to me I finally woke next morning to more dullness and with another few hours of riding I expected the weather to be even wetter than the day before. Much to my surprise it didn't rain a drop further, in fact the sun came out near Belton, Grantham and I enjoyed a lovely tail wind all the way back to the van. As an outdoorsy person the lesson I have learnt quickly from the weather forecast is a) expect the unexpected so always take a rain jacket and b) the weather is never nearly as bad the weather forecasters make it out to be or your mind thinks it's going to turn out.

Well forecasted temperatures for today were way off. I was riding my bicycle around Lincolnshire, mostly in the Wolds and I can tell you I would not describe the weather as "mild" at all, the wind was very bitter indeed. There was an hour of very-early Spring-like weather in the early afternoon and then the wind picked up again and it was bloody cold once again. But at least it was dry!

I noticed last week the website raintoday.co.uk is down. It was a really useful rainfall radar that was perfect for using on a mobile in terms of zooming and moving around. Does anyone have any free websites or apps that I can use that was just as good as raintoday.co.uk ? Please don't suggest metoffice it's pinch and zoom and not mobile optimised.