Storm Bert

[Rammie]

 minus10

Indeed. Here in north Northamptonshire, it's one of the wettest days I can remember for a while. Would be interesting to see a total rainfall figure. Pretty sure the warning we had was only for wind. 

[Mapantz]

Here's Bert's data from my location

 

[Lauren]

All kicking off again here. Quietened down for a bit but now getting very strong sustained gusts again

[matty40s]

We are now up to 70mm for day, canal 8" up and had to go round marina to loosen boat lines.

Locally, a lot of flooding, A5, Weedon bypass, M1 between 15 and 16, and lots of flooded properties in many local villages.

[Nick123]

Storm Bert has finally said hello here. Winds getting gusty but nothing severe.

[Wold Topper]

Nothing really of any note around these parts, rain this morning and a tad breezy, but Nothing more than an average autumn day....

[alexisj9]

 Penguin16 who uses an umbrella in high winds.

Mean while still waiting for the cold front here, about to reach, hopefully winds  fi ally ease.

[Frosty hollows]

Lots of flooding here. Train chaos, roads impassable, rivers running very fast. Routes in and out of a couple of local villages blocked either by water or fallen trees

[Nick123]

Gusts really noisy here now. Does anyone know if it's supposed to be bad up here? No warnings from met.

[Roger J Smith]

Significant flooding at Tenbury Wells, n.w. Worcs. Video on line indicates water rose 2-3 feet in one min. 

... winds likely to stay very strong all night and tomorrow in n.e. England as gradient enhanced by lee wave downsloping continues. 

 

[richie3846]

Those stalled fronts yesterday dumped another 35 to 50mm across this area, ensuring we've had yet another wetter than average month. Very approximately, we're talking 350% September average rain, 125% October, 125% November. A fitting end to what has been an awful season. I'd be interested to learn if this is the wettest season on record for this part of the country. The season wasn't even that stormy, but for some reason, Bert followed the pattern of other weather systems this autumn, which seems to be very slow to push through, dumping huge amounts of rain. 

Edited November 25, 2024 by richie3846

[FlightlessWings]

 richie3846 down in West Wilts (to the east of Trowbridge area) we actually only registered 17mm yesterday and 10ish on Saturday but the lanes in the village still flooded more than last January. Lots of drains to unblock from the recent/Saturday’s leaf fall I guess

[richie3846]

 FlightlessWings also saturated ground as a legacy from September's record breaking rain. 

[matty40s]

 

[ThundersnowDays]

altogether 61mm fell here

[Derecho]

17 hours ago, Penguin16 said:

"I am amazed that it was only a yellow weather warning issued,"

The Met Office warnings do baffle me sometimes, but I'm sure some will immediately jump to their defence regardless...

[sunnijim]

There seems to be real anger at only yellow warnings being issued.

BBC reporting that the Met Office will hold a review on warnings issued for this event.

Many asking why a red warning was not in place rather than yellow.

Flooding and excess rainfall being somthing that seems to have caught them off guard, the long draw Azores airstream certainly helped make rainfall dynamic and the slow movement of frontal rain.

Gusts on the face of it seemed well observed but widely damage across England to trees and scaffolding seem on a level you might expect from an amber warning ( pictures from London of huge structures toppling and road closures)  Gentleman killed by a tree falling on A34 in Hampshire)

Inland issues with Wind very notable yesterday.

[webtone]

 

26 minutes ago, sunnijim said:

Flooding and excess rainfall being something that seems to have caught them off guard, the long draw Azores airstream certainly helped make rainfall dynamic and the slow movement of frontal rain

This! My station recorded 74mm  over the weekend from Bert, highest two day total I've recorded . Lots of minor roads were flooded and only one route into our village was passable yesterday evening. Bad flooding from River Avon in Malmesbury too.

Think it should have warranted an Amber warning in some areas. You could see from the models a couple of days before storm arrived that there was going to be a high chance of stalled fronts straddling the country.  

[Fiona Robertson]

Seems to be a lot of complaints about either warnings not being strong enough, not being issued in a timely manner or not being issued at all. I get that, but i think they're so cautious in putting out warnings because of the idea of familiarity breeds contempt - too many warnings and peeps will ignore them. Too often peeps get a warning, nothing happens and then they moan and whine that nothing happened instead of thanking their lucky starts. Also I think we forget that warnings are always couched in tentative language because there are so many variables that certainty is impossible.

My rule of thumb is to mentally expand each warning area by about 20 miles and if I fall inside that area then I consider myself under a tentative warning. We can choose to take notice of a warning or ignore it, but we can't make any choice if no warning is given. 

Having said that, I do think that for Storm Bert,the Met Office got this one wrong, as in they were a tad too cautious about giving warnings. On top of that the warnings map was woefully inadequate, as I mentioned before in this topic, possibly on Saturday. As a reminder, here's the screenie I posted then. That is a shockingly awful and useless graphic.

Currently the centre of Bert is sitting over Cape Wrath and the winds overnight and into this morning have been pretty strong, possibly the strongest so far and it lookslike they'll keep up until this evening.

[richie3846]

Given the flooding I've seen, I'm borderline on the suitability of a yellow warning. It's a sad fact that much of southern England is now well versed in record rainfalls, so it's not like we don't know what to expect. Speaking from experience, locals in prone areas already know what roads to dodge, and what to expect, so I think a yellow is more appropriate given the historic context of the last 2 years. The rain fell over a long period of time, unlike the amber warning we received earlier this year when huge amounts were being dumped in a shorter time.

The thing is with assessing rain, it's not just the amount, but the intensity and time passed that's important also. It wasn't particularly intense except for a couple of squall lines on Sunday. 

[Derecho]

1 hour ago, Fiona Robertson said:

eems to be a lot of complaints about either warnings not being strong enough, not being issued in a timely manner or not being issued at all. I get that, but i think they're so cautious in putting out warnings because of the idea of familiarity breeds contempt

The problem is they are too slow putting warnings out at times or not at all when there is a strong model consensus. For storm Eunice in 2022 as an example it was known for a few days in advance that gusts would widely reach 70mph-80mph across parts of Wales and southern England, yet there didn't issue a red warning for wind until 4am on the morning of the event itself.

It was clear that Wales was going to get big rainfall totals from this event, so why didn't they upgrade it? I can understand yesterday was perhaps a bit more uncertain over where exactly the band of rain would stall but these kind of setups usually deliver big rainfall totals for Wales.

Edited November 25, 2024 by Derecho

[Jo Farrow]

Aftermath of Storm Bert and outlook for the end of November

WWW.NETWEATHER.TV

---

Storm Bert brought heavy snowfall as torrential rain causing major flooding and wild conditions at the weekend. Some quieter days this week and frost.

 

[richie3846]

 Derecho the thing is Joe Public don't seek to understand the nitty gritty of the warning system. We're picking it apart in this forum,  because we know more on the subject. I don't think the exact details matter that much really, because people will have heard that bad weather is coming, and may look at their apps for further information, or follow news feeds etc, but may not necessarily read the exact details of the various warnings issued, or even truly understand them anyway. 

[Derecho]

 richie3846 Yup agree, the issue is I think is that decision making by councils, infrastructure etc is based on these warning thresholds so if the warnings come out too late it affects preparation.

[Jordan S]

Certainly been a significant event for many.

 

Rainfall..

The total rainfall accumulation from Friday late evening to early hours of this morning  (though not all areas where effected throughout this entire time of course) shows the wettest places well, widely 60-90mm in many places in the southwest of England and Wales and also parts of northwest England.

With high ground Dartmoor in the southwest recieving upto 193mm..

Maximum 174mm on high ground of south Wales.

 

Northwest England, lake district maximum 136mm on high ground.

Other parts further east over western/southwest England below shows the widespread nature of some high totals..

Also looking at other southern parts into the southern Midlands area below and you can see the relatively narrow band of high accumulation stretching upto Northamptonshire, with 60-75mm in quite a few areas, isolated possible 89mm recorded south of Daventry.

Rainfall amounts either side comparatively small especially to the northwest but still a fair amount of rainfall in the surrounding areas with 20-40mm quite widely in the south.

Eastern and southeast England escaped the worst to the east and south of the image above, generally receiving 5-15mm of rain.

*Note these are mostly accurate but some slight errors are possible.

*Credit goes to the site, Starlingsroostweather

 

Wind..

Here's the maximum wind gusts for England, Wales, Scotland and northern Ireland as a whole..

Focusing in on southwest England and south Wales below..

Very strong winds and in some places damaging, something I overlooked in my previous post was the potential for gusts to peak at 65-70mph locally for a time just ahead of the front over inland far southwest England, models showed the potential for an increase very close to the boundary bringing these coastal winds inland over the southwest, Yeovilton stands out as an exposed inland location which saw a very impressive gust of 76mph. Strongest gust their since February 1990.

Relatively nearby surrounding areas more widely peaking at 55-65mph inland for a time in the far southwest.

The GFS may of been picking up on this potential but incorrectly showed this extending far more widely inland northeast/east over much of England and Wales and for much longer than in reality, It is worth noting that those peak 65-75mph wind gusts locally inland southwest England lasted a short time <2hours nevertheless significant.

Here's the top hourly wind gusts for Yeovilton starting from 8pm Saturday evening shortly before winds increased.. particularly strong wind speeds are in bold.

20:00 42.6mph

21:00 36.8mph

22:00 42.6mph

23:00 46mph

00:00 55.2mph

01:00 58.7mph 

02:00 52.9mph

03:00 59.8mph

04:00 50.6mph

05:00 56.4mph

06:00 59.8mph

07:00 76mph

08:00 72.5mph

09:00 63.3mph

easing steadily after.

Gusts over central and southern England.

 

And for eastern/southeast England..

 

As expected wind gusts where 45-55mph more widely with isolated 60mph, interestingly gusts inland where comparable to some coastal locations or in a few cases slightly higher, these gusts of 45-55mph lasted for several hours in some places, causing some mostly limited tree damage ie branches, but some reports of trees down, probably made more likely by the saturated ground and more especially duration of gusts.

Certainly quite wild here for a time! approximately 52-53mph peak wind speed. It certainly looked significantly stronger than the 35-45mph we got just beforehand.

Top gusts that particularly stand out for central/southern/eastern England are..

Little Rissington 63mph

Bedford 59mph

Langdon bay 61mph

Holbeach 60mph

Boscombe Down 61mph.

Note these 60mph peaks where short lived and around more exposed sites but nevertheless significant, these sites recording 45-55mph gusts more generally.

Very windy for parts of the northwest of the UK too with peak gusts of 63mph for south Uist range, 60mph Stornoway, 68mph for Fair isle and 68mph at Lerwick. More generally 40-55mph, similar high peak values in exposed far north of Northern Ireland.

Hope this proves useful. Credit again goes to the site Starlingsroostweather.

Edited November 25, 2024 by Jordan S