UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)

Subject: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 06:32 AM

Hi All,
The flooding got the cottage next door but one to us front and back. A young couple poor sods. The council fire brigade and every other service were flat out with life threatening situations here in Lancashire.
We are OK so far, and have options of refuge with family in Yorkshire if we can get through, or we will pull on with the Gypsies in Blackpool for a couple of days. If you believe in any greater power than ourselves offer up a thought or prayer that the bloody rain stops tonight. Not sure if the river can take much more, it's up 6 foot and coming over the bridge. It's a waiting game now so here's hoping. There are many many people worse off than us, so no moaning. See you somewhere soon. Hopefully without wet feet.
Nick

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: Will Fly
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 06:49 AM

My sister was without power for several days - along with around 55,000 other homes in the Lancaster area - at the start of all this. I hope the rain DOES stop, for everyone's sake in the north-west.

Bear up, take care, hope for the best and plan for the worst!

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 06:53 AM

We are in the middle of an amber alert area but, touch wood, have not been affected as yet. Keeping our fingers crossed for you, Nick and hope others will do the same for us.

Keep dry!

Dave

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 07:33 AM

Here in Cornwall the sun is out and it's 15.5°C. No doubt we'll get our turn again soon, as we did two years ago at this very time of year. The only higher power likely to help is the jet stream, who may just decide to swerve a bit further north or south. Good luck to y'all in God's own country, the north of Engand.

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 08:05 AM

I do hope the crisis passes soon. A flooded home is an awful thing.
Good luck to all at risk.

Subject: RE: Old dogs with new tricks
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 08:12 AM

The beck near us (100yds) has gone over the bridge and the road is now closed to traffic. Tried to get to Skipton but the main road is closed. Went to Keighley and the river Aire has burst its banks in numerous places. The underpass between Crosshills and Kildwick is only negotiable with SCUBA gear!

They do say it will start to subside this afternoon and, if the puddle outside our house is anything to go by. They could be right. Fingers still crossed.

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 08:19 AM

The beck near us (100yds) has gone over the bridge and the road is now closed to traffic. Tried to get to Skipton but the main road is closed. Went to Keighley and the river Aire has burst its banks in numerous places. The underpass between Crosshills and Kildwick is only negotiable with SCUBA gear!

They do say it will start to subside this afternoon and, if the puddle outside our house is anything to go by. They could be right. Fingers still crossed.

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 08:29 AM

We are just the other side of Keighley. Earby Trawden and Nelson are flooded,we're the other side of the valley next to the river. Cowling is blocked and Skipton is out of the question. It's stopped raining right now, if we can get some drainage we should make it through the night without mishap.

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 08:45 AM

We are not far from you then, Nick. Between Keighley and Skipton. Last time we bumped into each other you were guest compere at Skipton Folk Club.

Mrs G just spoke to a friend in Cowling and the road is now open. We checked because our son, daughter in law and grandsons will have to go that way on their way from Manchester. What we did notice though was the the M62 through the Irwell Valley was affected! Hopefully the SatNav will get them here.

We saw the Worth in full flood at the edge of Morrisons car park in Keighley. If it carries on I think they will have to close Morrisons there as well! The Environment agency have suggested it would peak around noon today and then start to subside. Hard to type with crossed fingers :-)

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: maeve
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 08:55 AM

Best of luck, from here, gentlemen.

Maeve

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 10:40 AM

The peak of the surface water flowing down the hill with us was at about 1:00pm today, but we are 1100 feet up in the catchment area for the Irwell. I reckon that the ground water can continue to emerge lower down for up to 48 hours.
It has been the wettest that we have seen in the seven years that we have been in this house.
I have a leaking Wellington boot:(

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: Joe Nicholson
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 10:43 AM

We hope things go well for you Nick

Maureen and Joe

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 11:07 AM

Thanks so far so good.

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 03:48 PM

It has now been made official that every river in Lancashire has exceeded its previous record level today.
Anyone still for climate change denial?

We have had another bout of heavy rain this evening, but can't see in the dark exactly how much is flowing across the fields.

Hope you are still OK Nick, see you at off the rails.

Robin

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: GUEST,Waddon Pete
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 03:53 PM

My thoughts are with you all. Very difficult times. Keep safe.

Peter

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 04:33 PM

All quiet here. 9.25 pm If we get enough time for drainage, then we should be allright to morning. We've got sandbags and wedged a flood door across the front doorstep. Mally is asleep bless her. She's been going flat out since 6.30 am feeding the neighbours and making brews. Thanks for your good wishes.
Nick

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 05:16 PM

I just googled "flooding lancaster" as I know somebody there who had a near miss last time.

And found there are two towns called Lancaster in the US that are also experiencing floods right now. And another American Lancaster that got flooded earlier in the year.

Anyone still for climate change denial?

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 05:26 PM

Just heard. York is in trouble. A pumping station has failed I think.

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: MoorleyMan
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 05:58 PM

Only just got onto this thread, really sorry to hear of your flooding troubles Nick and I'm rather praying for the waters to recede soon.
I wasn't sure exactly where you live, but I've been thinking of you and Mally, and been concerned at the suddenness with which this current spate has thrust crisis upon Lancashire and Yorkshire. 27 solid hours of heavy rain... agh!
We've had our own drama today, with Ilkley itself completely cut off and several vital roads-out still flooded and closed hereabouts as I speak.
I'll keep in touch, and I'll email you if our next-Tuesday's session gets in danger of being cancelled.
But hey, in any case, given your situation, I won't anticipate you making the perilous journey across.
Yours and Mally's safety is what matters above all else.
Keep the faith, keep strong and take care, friend.

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: Mr Red
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 06:07 PM

Global Warming is only a fraction of a degree, with that little increase comes Global Weirding.

Only 2 months ago a gent at the Bingly 5 Rise Lock was commenting that he loved the mild weather and wanted more. I pointed-out that as the world got warmer the sea would evaporate more and the wet air drop most of it as it rose towards the Pennines. GF thought I was being unkind. I doubt they would think so just now. Rumbold Moor was overly damp then!

I think ultimately we we all pay for it, it hits the economy and insurance companies will require higher premiums all round. Contingency plans have to include temporary evacuations, flood defences seem impossible to be adequately devized. In Gloucesterhire we have escaped so far, but remember when the domestic water pumping station got flooded and the sub station just about escaped? It is still protected with a huge ring of gambions!

I hope that butterfly in Brazil is not flapping its wings!

Subject: RE: Nick Dow flooding coming nearer
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 06:10 PM

i feel like a bit of a veteran now living in cockermouth. after the initial shock and the bonus of the genuine kindness and goodness of the community - well, it is just a bore and a lot of hard work, for months, and the worry lasts for years. very sorry for anyone (including myself) that has to go through all this shit. be ready to punch the next climate change denier you meet. and do you what you can to support our brilliant public service workers

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Dec 15 - 07:04 PM

Hundreds flee their homes as England's north is submerged

Stay dry, everyone. And stay safe.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 03:22 AM

The river has lowered and it has stopped raining. Don't think this is the end of it though. 8.30 am
nICK

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 05:51 AM

Nick, hope you are both ok.
its been fairly bad in parts of Ireland too for example between clare and limerick

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: banjoman
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 06:31 AM

Thoughts and prayers are with all those affected. Its about 14 degrees in Hampshire and a bit wet. Nothing to compare with what's going on in Northern England.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: maeve
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 07:37 AM

How is it now, Nick- and others in the affected area? It's raining hard here across the water.
Maeve

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 08:19 AM

Got through it - Highest river levels ever recorded here as well. Sunny and dry now and the floods are receding a bit. More rain forecast later in the week so I hope the dry spell gives things chance to dry out. I think the saddest thing I saw yesterday was some drowned sheep :-(

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 08:49 AM

As Dave says, it's receded for now. Like a pillock I posted that we might pull over to the Gypsies in Blackpool never thinking that they might be flooded as well. I called this morning to find that the power was out they had lost the stables and the kitchen block. I have never known it this bad. The river has dropped so hopefully it can stand more rain next week. The news from Sowerby, Hebdon Leeds and York is frightening. We have nothing to complain about here in comparison.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 09:34 AM

York getting close to 2000 A.D. water levels. Foss barrier was raised because water was threatening to go into electric pumps. This released water and submerged areas in city centre that were not flooded even in other very high floods. People on some streets have to leave their homes, mountain emergency rescue teams from elsewhere helping with evacuations; police ran out of road closed signs. Some habitats of rare Tansy beetle are submerged--the Ouse banks have almost the only remaining populations of this endangered creature which unfortunately pupates underground.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 09:54 AM

Water levels in York will continue to rise until Monday, with drainage from Vale of York. Pocklington, Tadcaster, Malton, Calderdale, Sowerby bridge also have serious flooding.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 10:21 AM

For something completely different, but perhaps equally strange, on Dec. 26 in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, area the temperature got up to about 80 and was very humid. This is unusual, typically we're in the 40s or 50s during December, with many nights dropping to freezing and occasional snow. When there is warm volatile weather and a cold front advancing from the northwest, the resulting "dry line" means thunderstorms and tornadoes.

Eleven (so far) dead in the region due to tornadoes last night, flash flooding, and more storms through the afternoon today.

Much of this is credited to El Niño here but I don't know if the ripple effect is, if this weather is bumping up against your normal weather patterns and causing the rain and flooding in the UK. As the article notes, El Niño "means The Little Boy, or Christ Child in Spanish. El Niño was originally recognized by fishermen off the coast of South America in the 1600s, with the appearance of unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean. The name was chosen based on the time of year (around December) during which these warm waters events tended to occur." Weather is global and doesn't respect political boundaries, but we tend to look at it as a regional thing, predicted by our local weather casters, not viewing the big picture.

Surprise, surprise!

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: MikeL2
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 10:35 AM

Hi

My thoughts go out to all of you affected by the terrible storms.

We are in Cheshire and have been OK so far.

Here we have had no rain today at all - I hope that the effected areas have not had any so that things can start to improve.

Fingers crossed.

Mike

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 11:01 AM

Water will continue to rise, at 5.1 m now may exceed highest ever recorded level, 5.4 in 2000. Other areas of Yorkshire and Cumbria also very badly hit.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 04:32 PM

There are a number of reasons for the flooding all of them man made.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 06:24 PM

Deforestation seems to be a cause that we can reverse quite easily. But planting trees on upper slopes does not make money so I suspect it will not happen :-(

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 27 Dec 15 - 06:27 PM

Unfortunately. As usual it's the poor sod with a few valued possessions and no insurance that loses out. No company will touch my area after this. Then again they always wriggle out of paying out anyway, as they found out in Somerset.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: HuwG
Date: 28 Dec 15 - 03:11 AM

Living a good hundred feet above the nearest brook, and fairly high up in the Peak District, I have been fairly dry and smug. However, I went to visit my little brother near Thirsk in North Yorkshire on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and had a few adventures.

My niece went to walk a dog and returned with a sodden animal and news that the road in one direction was several feet under water. So I went home in the other direction. After a mile, I came across another flooded section, perhaps a foot deep but with an Audi marooned in the middle of it. The driver was boiling mad. He had been carefully negotiating the flood when someone in a 4 x 4 had come charging through it in the opposite direction, throwing up a bow wave which had gone into the Audi's air intake.

I didn't have any means of towing him out, so he and I were prepared to wait for the rescue service to find him on an unnamed road in the middle of nowhere, but two of my nieces and the fiance of one of them turned up and summoned my brother and his son in law with another 4 x 4. They towed the Audi to the nearest village (Carlton Husthwaite), clearing the road. High five incidentally to whoever closed the main A19, which was negotiable with care, diverting cars into a maze of country lanes with only cryptic direction signs, half of them flooded far worse than the main road.

Once up into the hills, driving home was even more entertaining. The M62 (main motorway across the Pennines) was closed, so lots of drivers with no sense crowded the Woodhead Road, following each other barely feet apart, too fast, with brake lights blazing like Christmas trees at every hint of a bend. I was grateful to get onto another side road, even though that was flooded too (near the Torside reservoir).

Best wishes to all affected by floods, and let's hope the waters subside soon.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 28 Dec 15 - 12:22 PM

Creating floods with public money to make the rich richer:

George Monbiot in the Guardian a year ago

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Dec 15 - 02:35 PM

I was born in my current home, as was my father and grandfather before him. Neither never mentioned flooding. We have been flooded three times since 2010. A friend who is a builder said it is due to three new housing developments in the area, most of these have back gardens either paved or decked.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Dec 15 - 02:58 PM

I live at sea level on reclaimed bogland. Lots of dykes and channels leading to sluice gates at the tidal Trent.

We aren't under threat, despite misgivings when we moved here due to the potential. We are a few miles south of the bottom end of the problems that include York, and have friends who are mopping their ground floor as I type.

A bit of a bugger, no mistake. Hopefully starting to go down for most now.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Dec 15 - 05:16 PM

Worst part was when Camoron came floating into York like huge turd, and about as welcome.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Dec 15 - 12:45 AM

As i said there are a number of contributory factors all man made

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Dec 15 - 07:07 AM

That's an excellent article by George Monbiot, Jack - thanks for the heads-up.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Dec 15 - 08:57 AM

I agree, Will. I had seen it before but it is always worth reminding people that messing with nature causes nature to mess with us. And I know who will always win!

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Dec 15 - 11:17 AM

EU agricultural policies are partly to blame.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Dec 15 - 11:53 AM

That wind has started to rise this afternoon, seems rain arriving with it by morning. Well plenty of logs in, plenty of duck and goose left and three bottles of mead have my name on them and downloaded season six of Downton Abbey so hatches bolted down !

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: GUEST,Guest: theleveller
Date: 29 Dec 15 - 04:26 PM

Just watched footage of the 300 year old bridge in Tadcaster over the Wharfe collapsing and cutting the town in half. Now the only way across is via the A64. That really is a disaster for the town.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 29 Dec 15 - 05:52 PM

West Clare has had storm Frank passing over since this afternoon, not the worst as far as I can see but the prediction is the sting will be in its tail when a stronger one follows immediately behind it. That will be Gertrude I suppose. 40 to 70 mm rain predicted. Good luck to all you guys already flooded or on the brink, for when these two make it your way.

Subject: RE: UK flooding coming nearer (Dec. 2015)
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Dec 15 - 06:08 PM

""The UK Met Office has noted that this type of storm is not that unusual for this time of year, and stated "indeed this is when climatologically we would expect to have most of our storms," in their forecast discussion. This storm may not even be that unusual for Iceland at this time of year.

What is unusual, however, is the impact that this storm is expected to deliver to the Arctic.

Based on computer model projections, this storm is set to draw significant heat northward from the tropical Atlantic.

Dragged along with the storm as it tracks past Iceland and the UK, this influx of heat is highly unusual for the Arctic in December. While higher temperatures are unlikely to reach the northern extent of Canada during this brief episode, temperatures at the North Pole are expected to soar from -30 to -35 Celsius on Tuesday, to near the freezing mark on Wednesday."



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