BS: That's a lot of water!

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: Dazbo
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 06:43 AM

According to wikipedia metaled comes from the latin for quarry or mine refering to the stone used to build a good surface for the road.

It's interesting to note that one of the housing developments near Sheffield that flooded is called "The Water Meadows", didn't the name give them a clue?

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: Mo the caller
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 02:10 AM

So JohninKansas drives on the pavement? Here in the UK we drive on the road and leave the pavement (which is usually 'paved' with 'paving slabs') for pedestians.
Another case of "divided by a common language". (I suppose I had heard of 'sidewalk')
Our roads aren't paved, they are 'metaled' (or unmetaled). Though why we call tarmac 'metal' is a mystery.

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Jul 07 - 12:14 AM

"Keep the fishes happy, and use a wee bit for desalination."

Actually, I'd prefer to use the bit they DIDN'T wee in...

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 06:24 PM

"...with water up to the bottom of the windows on my 2T van..." JohninKansas

Wow. Where is the engine kept?

Seriously, didn't the engine quit?

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 06:18 PM

"Water, water everywhere,
And how the boards do shrink,
Water, water everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink."

In MY not-so-humble opinion, we'd better look to the health of all that salt water...we're gonna need it. Keep the fishes happy, and use a wee bit for desalination.

If we do that, coping with a bit too much for brief periods will be tolerable.

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: Peace
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 05:43 PM

"That's a lot of water!"

Have you looked at the various oceans lately? Just a vast collection of individual raindrops. Makes a guy wonder about this beautiful world.

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 05:41 PM

We seldom get water moving fast enough in my immediate area to wash a car off the road, unless it is quite deep and due to a recent failure of a levee, although it does happen. Most of it just sort of "oozes in."

The most common hazard is that the road goes in on one side and comes out on the other, but in the middle the road is GONE. In open country, the INVISIBLE missing part of the road can sometimes be to a depth of several feet.

In Arizona, on a cloudless day, we came upon a "gully" that was about 6" deep when we saw that there was water there, but was about a foot deep by the time we got to it.

I stopped and waited.

Three cars that went around me and tried to drive across ended up downstream in the middle of the desert - one about an eighth of a mile away.

One other car that "stuck" and stayed on the road demonstrated the speed of the flow, as you could see pavement beside the tires on the downstream side (maybe 3" deep), but water was coming in the windows on the upstream side.

I waited about 45 minutes and drove across on DRY pavement. (Wet pavement does dry quickly in the Yuma vicinity.)

The rain that caused it was a small shower about 15 - 20 miles away, not visible from where I met the runoff. A later check with the weather guys indicated that the water didn't arrive at the road until about 45+ minutes after the rain stopped. One of our chopper guys claimed to have followed the "front" about half way to the road, and had radioed a warning back to the base, so there were pretty good descriptive records of what had happened.

Amazingly, all the cars washed downstream stayed right side up, and were operable once we dried a few things out. They were incredibly lucky.

John

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 05:05 PM

"...a short stretch with water up to the bottom of the windows on my 2T van ..."

wow..That's WAY too deep for me! Did you know it was going to be that deep?

I once tried to go to the store during a rainstorm about 1959, from my apt. on Shadybrook (shoulda been warned by the name), near WSU, and had the engine flooded within a block...the moving water pushed the dead car for several blocks to a slightly higher spot, where I was able to restart it.

Then about the same time..(maybe the same storm) I read in the paper that a HS classmate of mine(a VERY nice guy) had tried to help push a car out of water flowing across Kellog, and been washed into a culvert....they didn't find him for hours.

I have been extra careful of moving water since those days.

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 02:23 PM

She's weeping due to the smog in her eyes.

John

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: Bert
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 02:15 PM

It's them metres that are doing it. We didn't have rain like that before the metric system!!!

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 02:02 PM

Bill D. -

I'm not sure that the Big Ditch actually did much for the North High area. There still seem to be lots of "local accumulations," and are still "Watch for Water" signs up on the streets.

The worst local flooding still seems to be on the west side, where I was forced to drive through^** a short stretch with water up to the bottom of the windows on my 2T van a few years back, and lost the engine briefly when a semi pushed a bow wave over the top of the van. (On S West street, just S of Kellogg.) Lesser flooding has been reported in the same area quite recently.

^** Under most circumstances one does not drive through standing water, but I'd driven through less than an hour earlier when the pavement was dry, it was a "no flow" condition, and there was a steady stream of other traffic mostly making it through so the condition of the pavement was evident. I also had about 1700 lb of payload to help keep the van from floating. (It would have floated without the payload.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: Folkiedave
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 01:42 PM

I really think it is difficult here in Sheffield where we have had floods like never before even now to conceive of 18 inches in a 48 hours. Wow....

And when I was in the States in summer a few years ago, some parts of Texas never had a noon-day temperature below 100 degrees.

You do get weather there!!

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 01:39 PM

John...I used to have the paper route across the street east from North High and over to Fairview...I 'have' walked that route barefoot in 5-8 inches of water.(about 1951..before the Big Ditch)

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 01:35 PM

Almost a lifetime ago, I ran tests to confirm that a few US military vehicles would function in the "maximum expected rainfall rate" for use of the vehicles in "expected worldwide environments."

The "spec" value was 3 inches per hour. It was remarkably difficult to obtain even that rate in a small "test rack" just big enough to get my 8x8 truck wet. (Some "tropical use" tests required 7 inches per hour.)

I haven't heard of places where flooding is being reported now, where the rate has been quite that high, but at least one station in Texas reported 18 inches in 24 hours a day or two ago, and several have reported 18 - 20 inches in 48 consecutive hours, with rain over wide areas including those places almost continuous for several weeks.

I've seen numerous times in my current area when we got as low as 30 inches in a year, although "annual averages" are reported as 48 to 60 inches, depending on which station you get the data from. Some reports say we passed 30 inches here for a cumulative for one month last month.

It's been dampish.

John

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 12:13 PM

Juneau in southeast Alaska gets a lot of rain - depending on where you're standing, it ranges from 69 inches to 96 inches a year. Most of it comes down in the form of just barely more than mist. You can frequently walk for three city blocks, say, without getting your hair *wet*.

On occasion we've gotten 2 inches of rain in a 24-hour period. We consider that a *lot*. I can't even fathom 18 inches or more. My heart goes out to those in harm's way.

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 12:00 PM

This is Florida's water, Kat. I wish they'd retreive it. :)

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 11:46 AM

Send it up here, please!! HOT, hot and dry in western Colorado!

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 11:42 AM

Texas is usually hot and dry in the summer, but this year we've had so much rain that everything is rotting and plants are leggy and fruit is odd or not there. My xeriscape is growing like crazy but will rot pretty soon if we don't get a break. Total rainfall last year was 14" (we were in an extended drought, typical annual rainfall is about 24"). Rainfall so far this year is around 30".

Subject: RE: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 10:36 AM

With regard to the recent Aussie rains:

The shooting of the Movie about the WWII attack on Darwin etc has finished in the Queensland town being used as a stand-in (Well a certain cyclone in the 1970s killed pretty much any chance of anything 'period' being left standing there!) and are about to move to the West Australian Homestead that was to be used for certain scenes there...

Well, not only can they not get in because the roads are impassable - and that often means for months at a time... but where the homestead was (and which was drought stricken for several years), is now a lake - a ****ing BIG lake...

They started keepimng rianfall records in that area sometime in the 1860s, and the rain that fell in under a fortnight is double the highest monthly rainfall EVER recorded...

"Australia - land of droughts and flooding rains"...

Subject: BS: That's a lot of water!
From: Dazbo
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 10:10 AM

Heard this on the telly the other day and didn't believe it so I worked it out.

one acre = 4046.8564224 square metres.
one inch of rain = 0.0254 metres of rain
so one inch of rain over one acre is 102.79 cubic metres of water
so one inch of rain over a square mile is 102.79 x 640 = 65,785.7 cubic metres of water which is about 65,786 tonnes of water.

Who'd a thunk it!