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A Wet Winter in Southern England

Pauline

Forums Admin
It started raining just before Christmas and really hasn't stopped (even though there have been some lovely days). The MET Office announced today that southern England and the Midlands had a very wet December and January has had twice the usual rain and is the wettest January since they have been keeping records!

We stopped going on the walking trails a month ago and now do our walking on lanes and in the villages.

And more rain is on the way tomorrow!
 
Pauline,
Hope all that rain is done and gone by the time we are there for our 3 month sojourn. Oxford Sept-Dec 2014.
Looking forward to walks in the beauriful countryside.
 
And, Pauline, while you're at it, if you could arrange for it to be dry the second week in April in London, I'd really appreciate it!
 
London and the southeast get the best weather in England, so fingers crossed for a good week! We will be in Sicily that week - looking for some sunshine (and missing the spring flowers and birds).
 
It is just getting worse.

One of the areas worst affected is the Somerset Levels (the area along the River Parrett, east of Bridgwater at Burrow Bridge) . People are being evacuated from villages. Farms are taking their animals away to higher ground.

The Devon and Dorset south coasts are also being hit hard.

The main trainline that runs to Cornwall has been washed out at Dawlish, a seaside resort town in Devon between the River Ex and Torquay. The rail runs right along the beach and the strong waves washed away the sea wall, the rails and into the houses.

Over 5,000 homes have been flooded.

Some weird sea foam enveloped a bus in Cornwall.

Videos and news coverage on BBC.

In November 2012 we were living beside the Painswick Stream and it came within an inch of coming into our house. We moved last year and now live on the top of the hill in Painswick. The Painswick Stream has not flooded this year, but nearby river levels are rising.

Tomorrow (Friday) is supposed to be nice, but another storm hits Friday night.

February is frequently a very nice month in England - not this year.
 
Today we had one of those days that makes me realize how much I love England (I was starting to have my doubts). Crisp but not too cold and SUNNY. I posted a photo on Instagram taken on our morning walk to the Painswick Beacon (a nearby hill with prehistoric earthworks and a modern golf course - plus lots of walkers and dog walkers).

We drove along the River Severn, north of Gloucester, this afternoon and it looks like you are driving through an area of lakes. Farm fields are flooded with deep water.

A big storm is coming in tonight and they are saying a month's worth of rain will fall in 48 hours.
 
Two photos of the glorious Somerset Levels from a hike we did there in May 2005.

somerset-levels-4572.jpg


somerset-levels-4582.jpg
 
Oh dear, all looking very much less beautiful at the moment. And, as they were saying on the radio today, the water isn't really cold enough to act as a preservative for what's below, so when it does eventually drain away, they'll be left with a smelly mess.

I'll be driving over some of it tomorrow - I'm working in Exeter, and heading down the M5, which crosses the river Parrett, source of much of the flooding. As far as I know, the M5 is still clear, but what it will be like on my return journey, after another day of heavy rain, is something else...
 
More bad weather yesterday (Saturday) and more train line washed out. Trains no longer running past Crewkerne in Somerset. Problems also with the Thames flooding near Reading.
 
It is horrible! The landslide (Brits say landslip) at Crewkerne has been determined to be okay, so trains are running there again. But today's news is all about flooding along the Thames.
 
Still horrible. Two storms coming in this week with a lot of rain (today was dry). The Thames is flooding communities between Oxford and the
London outskirts. More houses being flooded. Problems with the trains heading west out of Paddington (the ones that come to our area, Stroud).
 
I been watching this Pauline ~ how horrible! I saw those pictures of the Thames flooding. It's hearbreaking.

This is interesting. As I have been apartment searching for a rental in London for early June, this page popped-up from Airbnb. It appears they are trying to throw out a help line for folks displaced by flooding...
 
The problem with the trains between Swindon and Paddington is ongoing and they think it will take a week or two to clear after the rain stops. The switching equipment is flooded. Trains are running but slowly and only 1/5th the number. This means we might not be able to go into London next week to see Amy!

The flooding in the towns along the Thames is horrible and it seems like they are not getting the help they need from the local councils (the local government) - at least not in all towns. More homes, businesses and people are affected with this than in the Somerset Levels (which is still a crisis).

Locally our river, the Painswick Stream, is fine but there are warnings for the River Frome that goes through Stroud and Chalford. A friend in Chalford who was flooded last year is not flooded, but the water is rising.

Some roads are closed north of Gloucester and into Tewkesbury. The news said the city of Worcester was affected also.

Heavy rain this morning, then beautiful sunshine all afternoon, but raining again now and it is cold (or "wintery" as they say here).

Interesting to see that AirBnB page. I heard people are checking into hotels.

The house we rented before the one we are in now was in a converted mill on the Painswick Stream and the 5 attached houses, each on 3 levels, were badly flooded in the July 2007 flood. Each family lost everything in their lower levels and had to completely redo them (most were kitchens - it was covered by their insurance). They all lived on the levels above, making temporary cooking areas, while the work was going on - for months. The water came in, went to four or five feet high, then left in a few hours. With this flooding along the Thames it seems like the high levels of water are staying in the house for days already.

What a wet island this is! I read that these storms that have been hitting since before Christmas are coming from the US storms that are creating the cold conditions there.
 
Pauline, I've been reading a couple of articles that suggest that the flooding of the Somerset Levels is at least in some measure attributable to government policies--refusal to dredge local rivers, that kind of thing. What do you make of all the conspiracy theories floating around (oops)?
 
Heavy rain this morning and the wind is blowing. The articles are coming out now trying to put the blame on the government. We arrived in England in May 2010, the day the new government took charge (coalition between Conservatives and Lib Dems, but mostly a Conservative government) after many years of a Labour government (Blair and then Brown). The current government is in power until 2015. They did bring in cutbacks to local governments (called Councils) and I have read that there were cutbacks to the Environment Agency.

Some people say that dredging is the answer, some say it is not a good solution. They did not dredge the Somerset Levels rivers after the flooding last winter (which was bad, but not as bad as is happening now). I think it was not dredged because the Environment Agency did not have the money to do it. They have a formula about how money is spent and it has to do with how many people and households are affected. The Somerset Levels are not highly populated.

There are several parts to these current problems. Coastal flooding from the sea. River flooding because of all the rain. And groundwater flooding because the water table is saturated. They showed on the news yesterday how they measure the groundwater and it is very high.

There was a big flood here in 2007 and after than many flood defenses were put in, which seem to have saved many houses now. So work has been done. But they continue building on flood plains, which seems stupid. I saw something on the news about Holland where they put in amazing flood defenses and do not get flooded any more.

I think a lot will change after this disaster. Sitting here in England it feels like this is our Hurricane Katrina. Steve and I are not personally affected, but my heart goes out to people who have to leave their homes and it may be weeks until they can get back to them.
 
Our electric was off for 3+ hours tonight because of the high winds. Now the winds are doing damage. Many people without electric in Wales and N Ireland. And in the US!

What weather everywhere!
 

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