A random thread for weatherish things that don't warrant a thread of their own.

[Pingu]

...Yr.no are the masters of windy understatement...

Keeping shtumm 

[mcshroom]

It certainly is. You can tell how windy it is cos yr.no says 'near gale'.
Yr.no are the masters of windy understatement. Yr.no says 'breath of an angel' when I say too feckin windy to cycle!

They've got us on full 'Gale' so you can imagine of windy it is outside

[Ruthie]

Looking a bit scary in Northern Cumbria there 

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Still very blowy and wet here.

[T42]

Just seen a report from Kelso mentioning snow, floods, and trees down all over.

[Chris S]

So. Quite a mild month in November. How mild? Well, this sentence from elsewhere summed it up nicely:

"...my garden had more cool nights (below 10C) in July, than November and [so far] this December combined."

Lordy!

[Canardly]

Red warnings issued for Scotland NW and Cumbria.

[Deano]

It is a bit breezy, and seems to have gotten worse through the day - this morning was very windy, but manageable. This afternoon, a gust of wind just about blew me off my bike while I was riding through town. It was next to (what, in Darlington, passes for) a tall building, and the gusts were swirling about all over the place. As was I.

[billplumtree]

Yr.no are the masters of windy understatement. Yr.no says 'breath of an angel' when I say too feckin windy to cycle!

They have competition from the outdoor shop in Ullapool, who once claimed the howling headwinds that reduced my riding speed to walking pace were "light airs".  Light airs, my airse.

[billplumtree]

It's a tad wet here, thanks to Desmond.  We've had about 100mm of rain today, with the same again forecast for tonight.  Cumbria Police have declared a major incident.  Keswick, amongst other places, is completely cut off and the river has breached the flood defences.  Appleby main street is submerged.  Kendal is pretty well unreachable, roads and railways are closed, and an evacuation centre has been opened in the town hall - "hundreds" of homes have been flooded.  RNLI flood rescue team is on the way, all coastguard and search & rescue teams are busy.  Oh, and the lights are flickering, looks like the power's on the way out an'all...

[matthew]

It's a tad wet here, thanks to Desmond.  We've had about 100mm of rain today, with the same again forecast for tonight.  Cumbria Police have declared a major incident.  Keswick, amongst other places, is completely cut off and the river has breached over topped the flood defences.  Appleby main street is submerged.  Kendal is pretty well unreachable, roads and railways are closed, and an evacuation centre has been opened in the town hall - "hundreds" of homes have been flooded.  RNLI flood rescue team is on the way, all coastguard and search & rescue teams are busy.  Oh, and the lights are flickering, looks like the power's on the way out an'all...

A small but important correction from the radio reports I'm hearing.

Breached implies structural failure resulting in the river returning to it's full unconstrained flood plain.

Over topped means defences are still standing but the water volumes (and therefore levels) are too high, typically this results in limited volumes of water behind the barriers and pumps may be able to shift this downstream.

Either way, I wish the residents of Cumbria a safe night and a dry morning. I suspect we are going to see substantial damage to bridges where they constrain the rivers. Hopefully they may be rebuilt to be less of an obstruction to flow though that may mean less pretty bridges for your photography.

[mcshroom]

A few bridges have gone but nothing like 2009 so far. Cockermouth is under water again

Seen reports of flooding in Workington, Wetheral, Maryport, Warwick Bridge and Aspatria. Also looks like Carlisle is going to get very wet soon.

I think my plans for being on the other side of the Pennines tomorrow are going to need a rain check.

[mcshroom]

Well I'm still in the West. Fine here but it looks bad inland. Could have had more rainfall in total than in 2009 when we had the last big floods

[Jurek]

Worryingly (albeit in a small way compared to the above^) in the last 48 hrs, on around three or four occasions, the speakers connected to the iMac have declared a loud Zzzzzzztttt! accompanied by a flicker of the lights, but not sufficient to kill what is on-screen.
Historically, this sort of behaviour is a precursor to a power-cut

[billplumtree]

I suspect we are going to see substantial damage to bridges where they constrain the rivers.

Pooley Bridge (the actual bridge, not the village) has been destroyed:  pic.twitter.com/ntIkMBZIHs

[Ruthie]

That's really sad 

[madcow]

Quote from some Environment Agency bigwig on the BBC News-
"The flood defences in Keswick did the job. They stood up to the force of the water until it went over the top."

The BBC reporter didn't understand the essential difference between building quality and the basic design criteria which somewhere along the way must have used some notional figure for rainfall in the river catchment area-or not.
Seems like Carlisle has had "once in a hundred years" style floods on 3 occasions in the last decade.

 

[mcshroom]

List of bridges affected by flooding from the Police: -

B5295 bridge at Braithwaite – washed away.
Fitz Footbridge, Keswick – washed away.
Pooley Bridge – washed away
Miler bridge, Kendal – damaged remains closed
Greta Bridge B5289 – damaged remains closed
Hawes Bridge, Natland  – damaged remains closed
Clappersgate, Brathay -closed
Gowan bridge, Stavely – damaged remains closed
Bridge over River Eden in Appleby (Bridge St) – report that a section of this bridge has collapsed.
Botcherby Bridge, Warwick Road, Carlisle – bridge inspection due shortly.
Langwathby Bridge –  bridge inspection required before opening.
Scroggs Bridge (North of Staveley over R. Kent) – closed.
Gote Bridge, Cockermouth –  Road closure at this location, inspection required.
Jubilee Footbridge, Appleby –  Reports of very high water level potentially impacting on bridge.

[mcshroom]

I think that top one must be the A5292 (Whinlatter Pass) bridge though, Braithwaite isn't on the B5295, that road's over here between Whitehaven and Cleator Moor

[David Martin]

Seems like Carlisle has had "once in a hundred years" style floods on 3 occasions in the last decade.

Not unreasonable.

[ian]

There was some chap on the news complaining about the Environment Agency's apparent lassitude because they'd said the defences were intended to resist a 1-in-250 year floor and it had happened after just three years.

Erm.

[matthew]

I suspect the 1:250 is wrong, when I was at the EA* the typical design standards for new defenses** were river 1:100, coastal (tidal flooding) 1:200, critical national infrastructure e.g. power stations etc. may be higher but most water works and substations will be at 1:100.

And these are excedence probabilities, e.g the probability that the flood level will exceed Xm in a given year is 0.01 not that it will only occur every 100 years.


* 5 years ago now so may have changed but Carlisle was in construction then.
** older defences on smaller rivers could be as low as 1:30 and 1:70 was quite common.

[mattc]

e.g the probability that the flood level will exceed Xm in a given year is 0.01 not that it will only occur every 100 years.

Sadly that is a subtlety that the layman ( and most journos) often misunderstands 

(see also: "The Law of Averages" )

[ian]

I suspect the 1:250 is wrong, when I was at the EA* the typical design standards for new defenses** were river 1:100, coastal (tidal flooding) 1:200, critical national infrastructure e.g. power stations etc. may be higher but most water works and substations will be at 1:100.

And these are excedence probabilities, e.g the probability that the flood level will exceed Xm in a given year is 0.01 not that it will only occur every 100 years.


* 5 years ago now so may have changed but Carlisle was in construction then.
** older defences on smaller rivers could be as low as 1:30 and 1:70 was quite common.

I may have misquoted – it was the principle that he took 1-in-a-lot to mean it wouldn't happen for a lot of years, which was an impressive double mangling of the logic.

I appreciate people aren't happy to be flooded, but there are limits to be what can be done, and well, they do insist on living by rivers and on flood plains. Frankly, if you've been flooded once, you're more likely to be flooded again...

[matthew]

I appreciate people aren't happy to be flooded, but there are limits to be what can be done, and well, they do insist on living by rivers and on flood plains. Frankly, if you've been flooded once, you're more likely to be flooded again...

Though if someone has built a nice shine new improved defence I'd be a bit miffed to get flooded again so soon. I suspect that the population of Carlisle may be forgetting that the new defences held in 2009 despite construction being incomplete at the time.