32mm of rain in Penzance 11:15-12:15. A30 flooded at the entrance to
Penzance (just passable)

Much worse in the Carbis Bay & St Ives area, with a good deal of
flooding, probably nearer 50mm in the same 1hr period. (See 11:30
rainfall radar) EA figures should be interesting.

The consistent large swell this autumn has been bad news for the grey
seal pups, quite a few being washed up.
www.marinediscovery.co.uk/index.html

Graham
Penzance

In uk.sci.weather on Sun, 22 Oct 2006, Graham Easterling
wrote :

32mm of rain in Penzance 11:15-12:15. A30 flooded at the entrance to
Penzance (just passable)

Much worse in the Carbis Bay & St Ives area, with a good deal of
flooding

Damn - just missed it by 8 days!

The consistent large swell this autumn has been bad news for the grey
seal pups, quite a few being washed up.

There was a seal in St Ives harbour, but it didn't look like a baby.
--
Paul Hyett, Cheltenham (change 'invalid83261' to 'blueyonder' to email me)

In uk.sci.weather on Sun, 22 Oct 2006, Graham Easterling
wrote :

32mm of rain in Penzance 11:15-12:15. A30 flooded at the entrance to
Penzance (just passable)


Hi Graham,

Are you sure your raingauge is accurate, you must have imagined that figure.

The official highest 1800-1800 total was a mere 26mm according to Ceefax
page 407 who get their totals from the MO, don't they not! Perhaps if the
many stations weren't non-operational then rainfall records would be more
accurate.

Interestingly, since the start of autumn I have unofficially been wetter
than the official wettest in the whole of the country on two occasions. On
13th September, I achieved 45mm (1800-1800 13/14th) and Brize Norton was
awarded the max with just 39mm. The second occasion was on Friday 20th
October (1800-1800 19/20th) when I achieved 37mm and Lyneham got the award
this time with 33mm. It's got me thinking how many times a year is it that
each day is under-recorded in this manner. Obviously, there will always be
these situations (can't have sites everywhere) but if we're going to
understand the climate, we need to get it right. Alongside my two
discrepancies, the official figures show an actual error of in excess of
16mm and possibly much more over just three days of misquoted figures this
autumn alone.

Any thoughts?

Tony

in 210592 20061022 215555 "Tony Powell" wrote:
In uk.sci.weather on Sun, 22 Oct 2006, Graham Easterling
wrote :

32mm of rain in Penzance 11:15-12:15. A30 flooded at the entrance to
Penzance (just passable)


Hi Graham,

Are you sure your raingauge is accurate, you must have imagined that figure.

The official highest 1800-1800 total was a mere 26mm according to Ceefax
page 407 who get their totals from the MO, don't they not! Perhaps if the
many stations weren't non-operational then rainfall records would be more
accurate.

Interestingly, since the start of autumn I have unofficially been wetter
than the official wettest in the whole of the country on two occasions. On
13th September, I achieved 45mm (1800-1800 13/14th) and Brize Norton was
awarded the max with just 39mm. The second occasion was on Friday 20th
October (1800-1800 19/20th) when I achieved 37mm and Lyneham got the award
this time with 33mm. It's got me thinking how many times a year is it that
each day is under-recorded in this manner. Obviously, there will always be
these situations (can't have sites everywhere) but if we're going to
understand the climate, we need to get it right. Alongside my two
discrepancies, the official figures show an actual error of in excess of
16mm and possibly much more over just three days of misquoted figures this
autumn alone.

Any thoughts?

Tony

I consistently get about twice the rainfall that my son gets just over one mile away.

Tony Powell wrote:
The official highest 1800-1800 total was a mere 26mm according to Ceefax
page 407 who get their totals from the MO, don't they not! Perhaps if the
many stations weren't non-operational then rainfall records would be more
accurate.

Interestingly, since the start of autumn I have unofficially been wetter
than the official wettest in the whole of the country on two occasions.

snip

Obviously, there will always be
these situations (can't have sites everywhere) but if we're going to
understand the climate, we need to get it right. Alongside my two
discrepancies, the official figures show an actual error of in excess of
16mm and possibly much more over just three days of misquoted figures this
autumn alone.

Any thoughts?

Tony

Hi, Tony

This has concerned me for some years now. The Met O is very selective
with the obs for highest / lowest etc and needs to be in many cases.
There are lots of badly sited weather stations with inaccurate
instruments whose obs are obviously wrong (and some official ones also
btw!). However, there are many accurate sites (Graham's Penzance site
is a COL grade A) and lots of Met O climate sites who publish on the
web but are not included in the Health Resort type 18Z returns. Colin
Youngs does a great job with that and when he returns will continue to
do so, I'm sure.

My sites in Copley have been known to "beat" the p.407 readings on many
occasions but I really don't know how the Met O would collate all the
hundreds of climate sites in time for publication.

Best wishes,

Ken
Copley 253metres asl, nr Barnard Castle, Teesdale, County Durham
http://copley.mysite.orange.co.uk
Best wishes

Tony Powell wrote:

In uk.sci.weather on Sun, 22 Oct 2006, Graham Easterling
wrote :

32mm of rain in Penzance 11:15-12:15. A30 flooded at the entrance to
Penzance (just passable)


Hi Graham,

Are you sure your raingauge is accurate, you must have imagined that figure.

The official highest 1800-1800 total was a mere 26mm according to Ceefax
page 407 who get their totals from the MO


If you look at
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/...yesterday.html the wettest
place saw 64.8mm (never rely on Ceefax) The same page shows Camborne
with 22mm, Scilly 23mm, but they both missed the intense rainfall.
There are so few MetO stations now that they manage to miss just about
everything outside of the SE. Going by the amount of flooding, I would
be very surprise if the area just west of St Ives on the north coast
didn't exceed 50mm. There were white rainfall echos there.

In the past I've checked my figures against the EA gauge at Drift (2
miles away - same altitude) Over a 10 year period my total rainfall was
98% of that recorded at Drift, so it seems OK.

Interestingly, since the start of autumn I have unofficially been wetter
than the official wettest in the whole of the country on two occasions. On
13th September, I achieved 45mm (1800-1800 13/14th) and Brize Norton was
awarded the max with just 39mm. The second occasion was on Friday 20th
October (1800-1800 19/20th) when I achieved 37mm and Lyneham got the award
this time with 33mm.

I lived in Wootton Bassett for a while, and whilst there recorded my
heaviest ever rainfall - 91mm in 2 hours. Just 3mm fell at Lyneham, but
94mm just up the road at Purton. I had a visitation from the Met
Office, and this was included in their Hydrological Bulletin

"2nd June 1982 - 90.2mm bewtween 18:00 & 20:00 GMT at Wootton Bassett
caused damage and extensive flooding."

They also supplied me with sattalite images of the storm, a novelty in
thos days.


It's got me thinking how many times a year is it that
each day is under-recorded in this manner. Obviously, there will always be
these situations (can't have sites everywhere) but if we're going to
understand the climate, we need to get it right.

Any thoughts?

The MetO seem to have given up on a decent network of recording
stations.

Graham
Penzance

Ken Cook wrote:
Hi, Tony

This has concerned me for some years now. The Met O is very selective
with the obs for highest / lowest etc and needs to be in many cases.
There are lots of badly sited weather stations with inaccurate
instruments whose obs are obviously wrong (and some official ones also
btw!). However, there are many accurate sites (Graham's Penzance site
is a COL grade A) and lots of Met O climate sites who publish on the
web but are not included in the Health Resort type 18Z returns. Colin
Youngs does a great job with that and when he returns will continue to
do so, I'm sure.

My sites in Copley have been known to "beat" the p.407 readings on many
occasions but I really don't know how the Met O would collate all the
hundreds of climate sites in time for publication.

Best wishes,

Ken
Copley 253metres asl, nr Barnard Castle, Teesdale, County Durham
http://copley.mysite.orange.co.uk

Further thoughts,

I don't think any County Durham, Teeside or Tyne-and-Wear site, and
there are only a few of them anyway, is on the p.407 list! A large
population should be represented here!
According to this morning's news, County Durham is the 4th most
tranquil county in England to live after Northumberland, Cumbria and
North Yorkshire. Perhaps the Met O thinks the weather is tranquil also!

I have offered my obs to fill in the obvious large gap btw.

Ken
Copley

In message .com, Ken
Cook writes

Tony Powell wrote:
The official highest 1800-1800 total was a mere 26mm according to Ceefax
page 407 who get their totals from the MO, don't they not! Perhaps if the
many stations weren't non-operational then rainfall records would be more
accurate.

Interestingly, since the start of autumn I have unofficially been wetter
than the official wettest in the whole of the country on two occasions.

snip

Obviously, there will always be
these situations (can't have sites everywhere) but if we're going to
understand the climate, we need to get it right. Alongside my two
discrepancies, the official figures show an actual error of in excess of
16mm and possibly much more over just three days of misquoted figures this
autumn alone.

Any thoughts?

Tony

Hi, Tony

This has concerned me for some years now. The Met O is very selective
with the obs for highest / lowest etc and needs to be in many cases.
There are lots of badly sited weather stations with inaccurate
instruments whose obs are obviously wrong (and some official ones also
btw!). However, there are many accurate sites (Graham's Penzance site
is a COL grade A) and lots of Met O climate sites who publish on the
web but are not included in the Health Resort type 18Z returns. Colin
Youngs does a great job with that and when he returns will continue to
do so, I'm sure.

My sites in Copley have been known to "beat" the p.407 readings on many
occasions but I really don't know how the Met O would collate all the
hundreds of climate sites in time for publication.

Best wishes,

Ken
Copley 253metres asl, nr Barnard Castle, Teesdale, County Durham
http://copley.mysite.orange.co.uk
Best wishes


Strictly speaking, any highest/lowest wettest/driest statistics are
meaningless unless accompanied by a pointer to the list of stations from
which the statistics are derived. Perhaps the best/worst example of this
can be found in the Met Office Daily Weather Summary. In winter it
contains a chart showing spot values of snow depth. Often the chart is
merely overprinted with the slogan "NO SNOW" even when much of the high
ground in Northern England and Scotland has a complete snow cover. The
"NO SNOW" slogan actually means that there is no snow at any of the
stations used to compile the chart, which is quite another matter. The
stations used for the chart are not stated.

Norman.
(delete "thisbit" twice to e-mail)
--
Norman Lynagh Weather Consultancy
Chalfont St Giles 85m a.s.l.
England

On 23 Oct 2006 01:49:51 -0700, "Graham Easterling"
wrote:

The MetO seem to have given up on a decent network of recording
stations.


I have often wondered how official the figures are for the great
deluge at Martinstown (Dorset) back in,er, 1953. I believe there a few
figures given for other 'stations' in an article I once read.
Still, M is(or was) in the Guinness Book of Records and it is a mighty
record.

So much for the heavy rain this afternoon..the front seems to have
separated either side of me here just below Bul Barrow.
R

Hi,

Thanks to all of those who replied and Graham, intrigued by your original
post, I then looked at the radar for the time period concerned and yes,
quite an area of white echoes was working it's way along the North coast of
cornwall. One thing, I did not realise was that p.407 didn't use the
official figures so I suppose as some have mentioned, it's best to look at
Colin's figures.

Thanks again, an interesting debate indeed.

Tony
Rain recently started here in Newbury, Berkshire