Sunday's Low

[snowray]

Dont know, but on the site Im using the Gascogne buoy data lags behind other data in that area, creating a slightly misleading impression, as the low is actually now beyond that bouy. New data from that buoy that Ive just seen shows that pressure has shot up from 969.4 at 11GMT to 979.4 at 00GMT!

A couple of sites on the French coast are reporting 971mb as of about 10 minutes ago.

Yes your quite right of course, after all it's moving along at a fair clip. It seemed to have been centred right in the Middle of the Bay of Biscay about an half an hour or so ago. Brest had a Nly, Bordeaux a SWly, and Bilbao a Wly veering WNWly in N Spain and weekening slightly.

latest sat image. 1245am

There we have it, eye of the storm Biscay. Not for long though!

[West Sussex Kate]

Poor France!!

Edited February 28, 2010 by Westsussex1

[Icebox]

Thanks for that link Yamkin.......the very first page told me that its about protecting London from Tidal Flooding and internal flooding from tributaries and flood water runoff from within London, two very different things, which is why I asked the question. The threat, such as it is from this low is from river flooding, not tidal surely, so it would make more sense to keep the barrier down and let any possible floodwaters flow into the Thames and out into the sea. Raising the barrier would hold that back. Doesnt make sense to me.

The barrier BB is designed for both eventualities........

A) To prevent tidal flooding........ Storm surge together with high especially spring tides normally coupled with N/E winds.

B)To prevent flooding caused by spring tides combined with high river flow.

We have the possibility of the later at the moment in which case they close the barrier at low tide creating an artificial reservoir for the flood water flowing down the Thames, in turn the barrier keeps out the spring tide keeping levels to the west of the barrier much lower than normal.

I personally think there is a chance the barrier could close at some stage this weekend IMHO of course.

I hope this helps. :wacko:

[winter watcher]

Huge increase in winds now across central-western France, with Bordeaux recording mean winds speeds to 47mph and a gust of 69mph. Winds should increase further as the steepest presure gradient passes over this region and further northwards.

Any idea what time scale are we talking for the storm making landfall here?

[snowray]

Huge increase in winds now across central-western France, with Bordeaux recording mean winds speeds to 47mph and a gust of 69mph. Winds should increase further as the steepest presure gradient passes over this region and further northwards.

Yes the worst of the winds are now along the coast North of Bordeaux which just had a gust of 120km/h.

Other reports coming in:

Chassiron - 127 km/h

Cap Ferret - 126 km/h

Blaignan - 110 km/h

Pointe Baleine - 144 km/h

[cyclonic happiness]

Doesn't it seem weird to you guys that, that storm is in biscay at this time of year?

I've always thought that this sort of storm at this time of year would be eitherin the english channel of off the northwest coast of our isles?

Is this another sign of the synoptic shift south of the jetstream winter and summer maybe?

[West Sussex Kate]

[kold weather]

As others have said, got a pretty big increase in winds over central western France over the last couple of hours, many places now seeing gusts between 45-60mph with a few places now between 60-70mph.

[West Sussex Kate]

posted all these charts so people can see what was happening. When they wake up in the morning!!

[weatherevents]

It really is quite frightening watching these windspeeds:

This station is at Les Portes en Ré

http://perso.numericable.fr/lesportesenre/

The graphs further down the above web-page show the approaching low and the frightening wind-speeds that have accompanied it. I'm not sure if this station is still updating, as the WeatherDisplay Live timestamp now seems stuck at 02:06am.

[West Sussex Kate]

The channel islands getting a lot of rain.

winds still touching 70.

[Zephyr]

Greenwich Lightship Buoy as of 3am.

Atmospheric Pressure (PRES): 978.3 mb

Pressure Tendency (PTDY): -5.3 mb (Falling Rapidly)

[West Sussex Kate]

Edited February 28, 2010 by Westsussex1

[West Sussex Kate]

It's 420am I quit. Night night all. :-)

[slb97]

Very strong winds across central-northern regions of France with 60-75mph gusts being the typical strongest gusts to come out of this system. Meteociel does show a station to have recorded winds of up to 90mph. Very severe winds indeed. Though I am surprised there aren't recordings (that I know of) of winds into the high 70s or low 80s.

Back to here, and it does look pretty wet towards the southern coast and across the south-east currently. Winds steadily increasing as the Low pushes further north and east throughout this morning.

Lots of rain here - puddles everywhere! Wind relatively calm at the moment............

[tinybill]

Lots of rain here - puddles everywhere! Wind relatively calm at the moment............

lashing it down here suffolk water water looking here its going to be a very wet sunday

http://www.raintoday.co.uk/

[essex coast matt]

nearly 8mm rain so far from midnight, dont think wind will be as bad now maybe gusts to 45 to 50mph early arvo.

[BarnetBlizzard]

Getting windy here withconstant heavy rain. My rugby has just been called off, as the pitches are extremely waterlogged.

[Ben_Cambs]

Yeah looking at the radar there is some very heavy bursts of rain, mainly concentrated across the SE though, light-moderate rain here with gusty wind

[sniffermark]

16mm so far near Maidstone in Kent, 10mm of that in the last 2 hours. Looking at the radar, the rain (which was coming up from the south) has pivoted round to come from the north-west.

[yamkin]

Environment Agency have increased the Flood Watch areas http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/31618.aspx

[nick sussex]

Trust me to speak too soon! I knew trouble was on the way when it went eerily calm here around 8pm last night, the temperature rocketed to 24c! the most amazing foehn effect but then it looked like the Pyrenees funneling effect went into overdrive, the 147kmh gust recorded 40km to my south near the Spanish border was a very bad sign, then from complete calm severe winds picked up, to my se i could see a huge fire raging I suspect cables were brought down setting fire to woodland to the south of Tarbes, then of course the power went!

Having spent the whole week looking at the models i thought i was going to be lucky and miss yet another power cut! thankfully this morning I got the generator going and so won't be bored into submission like the previous storm! My advice if you move to France get a generator as it really doesn't take much to end up with zero power!

[Coast]

Raining since the early hours with 16mm already since this time yesterday, the garden has become a lake, but unfortunately I can't do any swimming in it. Currently 2.5mm/hr but the radar is showing more to come and a big area over the Thames Estuary that looks like it could give a dumping on central Essex.

The winds have not been significant so far, in fact apart from a few gusts it's remarkably quiet. Currently 977.8 mb.

[sniffermark]

Now reached 20mm. Radar suggests the heaviest rain is now moving away east, as the storm passes, but still plenty of it about. River Medway, which runs past the bottom of the garden, will be in it later today I'm sure. Luckily the garden is steep, so house OK.

[yamkin]

Environment Agency have increased the Flood Watch areas http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/31618.aspx :help: