Just Before Dawn

Check the EA website TRL - the water courses in your neck of the woods went onto a flood warning as of twenty to seven this evening, as has the River Lud in Louth.

It's the same across large parts of Northern England - the water levels in our rivers and main drains are lower than they've been for weeks on the back of some concerted pumping, however our aquifers are brim-full and the highland catchments are completely saturated. On the back of that we have to get pumps off-line at some point in order to maintain them - they're not designed to be constantly working for weeks on end. There's literally nowhere for water to go except the drains and rivers and it gets there extremely quickly.

Ups and downs, John - like everybody's job. Could do without days like today - even my bones feel wet. I do have a question though - what's the wind direction likely to be around midnight tonight (high water for this part of the world)? - we've got a 6m tide progged for midnight tonight - with a E, NE or ENE, this might present us with a few problems relating to tidal lock. Might not be an issue tonight but could be tomorrow if the damned rain doesn't stop.

Good afternoon folks (though it really isn't for a lot of people and as John says, the worst in terms of water levels might not be for hours or days yet). I've been out again with the local drainage board - rain started here around 4pm and has been relentless since, moderate or heavy and looking at the Met Office radar we only just on the northern edge of the heaviest band. There was also a couple of rumbles of thunder in the last ten minutes. Telemetry data on a few of the drainage board main water courses is showing that the Wolds is obviously getting a soaking and we're starting to see a small rise in water levels in the highland catchments. This is alarming when considered in conjunction with the Met office warning for rain here until perhaps 2 or 3 tomorrow morning. I'm out again at 8 pm and back at around 11 for what could be a pretty unpleasant night.

Still dry here, though looking at the Met Office rainfall radar, I'm on the northern edge of the eastern 'arm' of it.

It's been a decent, if breezy morning here this morning (windy enough to throw my golf game all to hell), though the last thread brought back all the memories of last month here. Remember, the EA website updates every 15 minutes - severe flood warnings started to appear in our area 3-4 hours after the heaviest rain began falling last month, so they should be appearing soon. Whereever you are, stay safe.

Lincolnshire and Notts too. Good news, given last month's events.

The EA Warnings only in part relate to the weather - they also relate to the amount of water these catchments already contain (a lot locally), the state of the defences (which haven't had time to be shored up yet in places) and the ability to move water about the system to produce extra capacity. If these elements are unfavourable, it takes only moderate amounts of rainfall to present problems. The Agency are probably erring on the side of caution, but rightly so IMHO.

It would have to be quite extraordinary to be more severe than June 25th, which was extremely grim (and, lets not forget still is for a very large number of people). Hopefully it won't be quite that severe, though the synoptics and the messages coming out of the Met Office do sound pretty grim. I'd also second the comment about John's compelling commentary - If you can find time John, I know it would be very much appreciated by a whole load of us.

Glad to hear it Viking - I'm off to Southern Indonesia in May next years, so I'll be reading this thread avidly

Out with the 'scope this afternoon in miserable weather along the Lincolnshire Coast. It seems that the poor June weather has put paid to a lot of the breeding Reed Buntings - dozens of territories in April now reduced to one male seen - they are hit hard by poor weather in June. The redshank seem to be doing OK and we had small numbers of both little and sandwich terns feeding off-shore. Nothing of any interest on passage, but will be doing quite a lot of sea-watching from next weekend onwards - there's often decent skua movement in good conditions in late July.

Three huge storms in a row between 1 and 3pm here - reduced traffic to 20mph on the A16.

As a resident of the Lincolnshire Wolds, we do extremely well for storms - cant remember the last summer where we didn't score at least several thundery days/nights. Here in Grantham, rain has become heavy again after a period of lighter stuff, very large amounts of surface spray. As I've said in another thread, colleagues from a local drainage board are very concerned as they had run out of water storage capacity before today's downpours. Now it looks like this could go on for a few hours yet, then they could be in trouble.

Here in Grantham it's belting it down and has been for the last 30 minutes or so. Temp is around 16c, wind light SE. Just had an interesting telephone conversation with one of our Local IDBs, they're fast running out of water storage options. In June. First time in living memory.

Cool day with intermittent showers and drizzle interspersed by heavier rain showers since around 4pm. 10c, wind NE 11mph.

This is interesting research - I'd be interested to know who carried it out. a 25 kilotonne explosion at or near ground level would create a crater roughly 500m in diameter and 25 metres deep. That's a lot of material thrown up into the atmosphere, though probably inconsequential, even given a major exchange, compared with large volcanic eruptions. Didn't St Helens throw up the equivalent of 20 500 kilotonne groundburst nuclear explosions in ash and other debris.

Quite right. It was Carl Sagan in an article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in the 1970's that coined the phrase 'nuclear winter' and described what he meant in these terms. It's still a controversial subject - and one with which some nuclear physicists still have some problems with.

The Greenpeace figures certainly concur with the non-classified security literature (up to this point - India has undertaken 1 further test since then, as has Pakistan, in the Chagai hills. Also, a high-atmospheric radiation spike picked up over the Indian ocean in 1979, here credited to India was more likely a joint Israeli/South African test). Since the 1963 Partial test ban treaty, all nuclear tests have been underground, although some of these have resulted in 'venting' (where explosive by-products have escaped into the atmosphere. Therefore atmospheric by-products in the atmosphere should be concentrated during the period 1945-1963.

There are a few Hoopoes knocking about at the moment - we had one turn up just south of here on Thursday last week. Weird looking things if you've never seen one before!

This winter has seen nothing at all of any note, thanks in large part to the North Sea SSTs - so that makes it probably the poorest 'cold' winter in my memory for snow, going back to 78/79.

Try here http://www.fifeweather.co.uk/metars/index.php?icao=EGXW dew point for Waddo at 15:50 was 1c. -1c at Coningsby same time.

Here too. Starting to worry a little bit about those N Sea SSTs again. Shouldn't be a factor here though the Easterly breeze might be moderating air temps - currently 3.7c - 4.2c along the Lincs Coast with 11-16kt easterly winds. Timing could be in our favour - the sun going down will no doubt help.

Not so good news to your south - still rain with a little sleety muck here in Grantham - we should be right on the edge of the heavier ppn now, so I'd be expecting any change to snow imminently, if it's going to change.

Having watched the evolution on the MO rainfall Radar from 10:00 this morning, I agree that it's still moving vaguely NE, but I think it is clearly pivoting round to move perhaps ENE - the interesting thing is that it seems to have intensified and it's fair to say it's track has been erratic, so all to play for yet.

Looking at the MetO rainfall radar - (I know - I'm about to subscribe to NWExtra) - there's a band of heavier ppn running in a line roughly from Loughborough via Corby and Bury St Edmonds to Ipswich, so it's only a few miles away from you....