On Jul 4, 9:03*am, Dawlish wrote:
Well, the first is certain, the second is already showing on the
rainfall radar and the third is moot, as regards the strength, but I'm
becoming increasingly concerned at the weather maps for Saturday and
the possibility of coastal flooding in the SW. Dawlish has already
suffered one bout of flooding this summer, due to exceptionally heavy
rain, but we were spared much worse flooding, as the storm which
brought down so much water, fortunately, brought it to the narrow
outflow at low tide. We might not be so lucky this time.

There are some steep pressure gradients being shown on those charts
and there is a high spring tide in the evening on Saturday. The
morning tide is not quite so high, but it is still a spring. As there
could easily have been half, to an inch of rain over the catchments by
Saturday evening and more rain is forecast then, the potential is
there for flooding, with a possible onshore gale. The Met office have
one of their advisories out, but only for strong winds; netweather
have no warnings, but mention strong winds and heavy rain and only
metcheck seem to have combined the winds, rain and spring tides to
talk about a sea flooding possibility.

In addition, the environment agency has no flood warnings in place.

There are people living on the South Coast who may face disastrous
(for them any flooding of the properties would be disastrous. For some
coastal tourist traders too, there is, IMO, a real possibility that
some damage could be done to their businesses.

Here's a case where two goverment agencies are missing the potential,
in my opinion. One, responsible for the weather, is only forecasting
possible gales and the other, responsible for flood warnings is
mentioning none and not making any mention of the weather. Surely, in
this instance, the possibility of flooding is enough to issue a
warning so people can begin to organise sandbags. If I was living at
sea level in Dawlish, I would be making sure I was prepared for that
possibility, even though, facing East, we may be spared the onshore
nature of the winds.

In this instance, I agree with metcheck and I feel that the risk is
higher than is being shown on the govenment sites and an early flood
possbility warning (advisory, orange warning, or whatever) should be
issued now and well before tomorrow.

Difficult decisions, as always, for the forecasters, but here is a
property and life-threatening possibility and there's not an official
warning of possible coastal flooding anywhere that I can find.

Paul

Finally a flood warning out and it's for my area.

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk...ime=1215182340

Still nothing about flooding in the SW on the Met site, though there
is now a flash warning out for heavy rain, for the SW at the same time
as there is an advisory out for severe gales and heavy rain??? See
what I mean?

Today has the potential for being quite a day, weatherwise!! think
I'll nip out and cut the lawns before it gets here!

Paul