I can't believe it's not better

Tiny gradual improvements manifest on the ECMWF I think. (ECMWF computers are so powerful they actually lend out half their computer processing capacity for other non-weather related projects! B) - no really, I did read this somewhere. ) But, before that, not looking so good if your growing hay. Rice on the other hand... http://www.ecmwf.int/about/computers.html

I'm guessing it's 5 mins exposure, but I don't know anything about photography, so don't know if that's even possible in daylight. Interesting pictures.

Thanks Tony. I did have a quick look at the archived charts just after I posted and could see we had probably been getting a fair bit of rain in the few days before. I didn't get a chance to go look at the Teifi yesterday, so not sure what it looked like at Llechryd. By the way, if anyone comes in here to post current conditions, this is actually yesterday!

I measured getting on for 2 and half inches this morning, pretty much the whole rain event. Tony, what did you get on 14th Jan 08, if your still online. This was Llechryd bridge the next day.

Rain looks like easing in Wales now - 7 flood warnings issued. It looks grim up north!

Windy from the north and chucking it down. It looks cool.

I knew this would happen. All i wanted to say was welcome 'Croeso' to this rediculous fiasco and point Alex in the right direction. There is no need to have official data. Just carry on as you were, doing what what you were doing. For what it's worth, I used to measure my rainfall in a container with straight sides and a flat bottom. But, oh no. That isn't official. Now I just use a stinking old frying pan I found in a skip. (about 4mm last night, if anyone's interested. Not quite the scary amount of rain the Met Office were warning me about).

Hello Alex. You might want to post your reports in the Today's Weather and chat thread, in Summer Discussion . Not any reports from your area in there I don't think. This section is for reports outside of the UK. More people will see your reports in there.

That will probably disappear and then reappear in a few days time running along the channel. (oh god is that the time - I forgot about my proper job!)

Wow. Some great photo's. Just rushed off across the fields to see this, but too much normal coud about here. Could see a little North, but not much. Amazing photo's.

Looks like pressue may be on the way up in about a weeks time, hopefully. It's silly to forecast more than a week out, but I'm expecting a pretty dry August. Not so sure about sunshine though. October, suprisingly dry too, probably quite cloudy though, or rain quite often but not much of it. Winter = wet :lol:

Hi Len, I still use my old computer sometimes, it's a P4 with 128K RAM running windows ME :lol: It's running Opera browser and just about (if you don't mind waiting a while!) Avast anti virus (free) software. It works, but just very slow. I haven't yet tried to hook my Atari ST up to the internet. Stupidly I sold my C64 for a pittance.

I'm no horticultural expert, but it looks a bit like GM asparagus.

Generally I think where government is going wrong with respect to extreme precipitation, is housing and putting houses in the wrong places. It's pretty obvious that some places will flood, because they always have. I guess the reason being is money. Sometimes of course, there's just too much tarmac and too many roofs. Last year or maybe the year before, there was something in the news about a council somewhere, possibly in south Wales, encouraging or maybe forbidding tarmacing driveways to prevent run-off. They wanted gravel only, makes sense. I can't remember where that was. I noticed some flash weather warnings of heavy rain recently from the Met Office, which were 'forecasted' rather than during the event, which is new I think.

I'm watching the IoW lightning detector, not sure how accurate it is in this respect, but it's showing about 50% CG's. Seems pretty dangerous!

Oh my lord, this is very dissapointing.

Glad to hear that Kookylou, really looking forward to some heavy rain. I've kept thinking it will happen for the past couple of days Very sorry to hear what happened to Peter F's nursery earlier. Saw on the news about the torrential rain in that location. Don't want it that bad.

rosgar, that knob at 800hPa is drier air, so the rain falling is evaporating before it reaches the ground. I guess that the radar operates at a higher level than this. I just made that up, maybe an expert will be along in the morning to correct me. Nobody on netweather, knows what level the radar operates at - so don't hold your breath. :ph34r:

GFS showing a 70% chance of storms centred about Hertfordshire or Cambridgeshire area tonight. Doesn't look like anything will reach as far west as here. Shame, because the water butts need a refill.

I noticed a 70% storm risk around Cardiff area for late afternoon. Not much precipitation showing to go with it though.

Couldn't edit my post? Flash warnings also for NE and NW England. Good luck, back for lunch.

Flash warning for heavy rain issued for N Wales from 12.00pm by Met Office. Unusual to see that - they're normally issued during the event.

I think I understand now, with a clear circuit diagram. It is quite simple after all (I think - it's a long time since I did any electronics). If the fan was running at full speed at night, it would give a wrong temperature, because it would add the small heat from the fan. The fan is blowing into the radiation shield? Or is it another reason?

It seems like quite a complicated design. If I did this I would try to match the size of the solar panel, to the capacity of the battery. So that it was impossible to make the battery go higher than ~14.5V with the fan running. Very occasionaly you could give the battery an equalising charge by disconnecting the fan and let it go to ~15V for a short while. Also I would let the fan run full speed overnight (though it would slow down with lowering voltage) just by using enough capacity (Ah) so that the battery wouldn't drop below ~11.5V. But yeah, you need a way to stop the battery from discharging too low and causing damage, (if there was a very dull cloudy day/s, like in Wales) so I would make a circuit that shuts off the power when the battery is very low <~11V using a simple circuit with a zener diode. Even better would be to make a simple zener diode circuit that limits the voltage to the computer fan at ~12V, because that is it's design rating, maybe.

I prefer MCT's film. I can at least play it!