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

Dawlish wrote in message
...
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

At least the jetstream maximum over the Channel Approaches has been downed 5
knots over the last days predictions
http://virga.sfsu.edu/gif/jetstream_atl_h36_00.gif

For anyone using shareware/free viewer IrfanView

This is my change of palette to colourise the otherwise undistinguishable
greyscalings for that site, ie going to
Image/Palette/Import

original palette pal file which seems to be just ordinary text file so
should be able to cut and paste into an exported and saved version of the
one representing these grey pics, excluding the final zeros

JASC-PAL
0100
256
255 255 255
0 0 0
76 76 76
0 0 179
158 158 158
163 163 163
168 168 168
174 174 174
179 179 179
184 184 184
255 76 76
189 189 189
194 194 194
199 199 199
204 204 204
209 209 209
215 215 215
220 220 220
225 225 225
230 230 230
235 235 235
240 240 240
245 245 245
250 250 250

Amended to colour up the greyscale, again minus all the zero elements
JASC-PAL
0100
256
255 255 255
0 0 0
76 76 76
0 0 179
255 0 0
255 170 170
236 236 0
255 255 191
0 255 0
170 255 170
255 76 76
0 255 255
170 255 255
0 0 255
170 170 255
255 0 255
255 170 255
255 128 0
255 213 170
0 128 0
0 210 0
128 0 64
255 53 53
200 189 60

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

On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 01:56:38 -0700 (PDT), Dawlish
wrote:

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

Hardly 'finally'. It was issued at 15:39 yesterday.

--
Alan White
Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent.
Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland.
Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.gt-britain.co.uk/weather

On Jul 5, 10:02*am, Alan White wrote:
On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 01:56:38 -0700 (PDT), Dawlish
wrote:

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

Hardly 'finally'. It was issued at 15:39 yesterday.

--
Alan White
Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent.
Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland.
Webcam and weather:-http://windycroft.gt-britain.co.uk/weather

First time I'd looked on there Alistair. Even someone with my interest
missed that warning, even though I've looked at the Met Office site
several times. I think that backs up what I've been saying about the
whole warnings system being a dog's breakfast and not working
properly, perfectly.

Paul

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...odwarning/2T1h...

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- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

The winds SW here in west Cornwall, not a direction (unlike SE) likely
to cause any flooding, it was actually worse along Penzance prom
yesterday afternoon when the wind in Mount's Bay was as strong but
from the SE. It is thoroughly unpleasant, but the winds generally
around a Force 6, only just touching gale force even at Sevenstones,
Scilly's a Force 6-7. Also the tides aren't particularly large.
Conditions were worse on the end of May Bank holiday, and the wind was
from a nastier direction.

Still, bad enough for a 6' surfable wave below the Gurnick at
Mousehole, which is common enough in Autumn/Winter, but unusual in
July. Several surfing there as it's blown out and dangerous on most
beaches.
Sadly, Mousehole Sea & Sails Day today, jut returned from a rather
windblown entertainment & refeshments tent in the harbour car park,
where Bagas Degol ( www.bagasdegol.com/ ) were playing. Also pasties,
fish stew etc, so the tent was busy, and a relatively warm place to
watch the rain sheeting across the harbour and the waves coming over
the pier. Still, I digress ..

Compare today (www.sennen-cove.com/todaysurf.htm - The lifeguard's
still haven't closed the beach, so it can't be too bad.) which is
miserable, but unexceptional, with www.sennen-cove.com/10march08.htm
..


Graham
Penzance

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dawlish"
Newsgroups: uk.sci.weather
Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2008 11:35 AM
Subject: Springs + Rain + Southerly gales for the South Coast on
Saturday = flooding?


On Jul 5, 10:02 am, Alan White wrote:
On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 01:56:38 -0700 (PDT), Dawlish
wrote:

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

Hardly 'finally'. It was issued at 15:39 yesterday.

--
Alan White
Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent.
Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in
Argyll, Scotland.
Webcam and weather:-http://windycroft.gt-britain.co.uk/weather

First time I'd looked on there Alistair. Even someone with my interest
missed that warning, even though I've looked at the Met Office site
several times.

Flood watches/warnings are currently only available on the EA site
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk.../floodwarning/

The Pitt review addresses most of what has been discussed on here recently
as Martin alluded to. Section 6 may be of interest if you haven't seen it
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/thep...al_report.aspx

Jon.

"Jon O'Rourke" wrote in message
...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dawlish"
Newsgroups: uk.sci.weather
Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2008 11:35 AM
Subject: Springs + Rain + Southerly gales for the South Coast on
Saturday = flooding?


On Jul 5, 10:02 am, Alan White wrote:
On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 01:56:38 -0700 (PDT), Dawlish
wrote:

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

Hardly 'finally'. It was issued at 15:39 yesterday.

--
Alan White
Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent.
Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in
Argyll, Scotland.
Webcam and weather:-http://windycroft.gt-britain.co.uk/weather

First time I'd looked on there Alistair. Even someone with my interest
missed that warning, even though I've looked at the Met Office site
several times.

Flood watches/warnings are currently only available on the EA site
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk.../floodwarning/

The Pitt review addresses most of what has been discussed on here recently
as Martin alluded to. Section 6 may be of interest if you haven't seen it
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/thep...al_report.aspx

Jon.



Keep up the good work Jon.

Will
--

On Jul 5, 2:37*pm, "Jon O'Rourke" wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dawlish"
Newsgroups: uk.sci.weather
Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2008 11:35 AM
Subject: Springs + Rain + Southerly gales for the South Coast on
Saturday = flooding?

On Jul 5, 10:02 am, Alan White wrote:
On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 01:56:38 -0700 (PDT), Dawlish
wrote:

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

Hardly 'finally'. It was issued at 15:39 yesterday.

--
Alan White
Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent.
Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in
Argyll, Scotland.
Webcam and weather:-http://windycroft.gt-britain.co.uk/weather

First time I'd looked on there Alistair. Even someone with my interest
missed that warning, even though I've looked at the Met Office site
several times.

Flood watches/warnings are currently only available on the EA sitehttp://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/subjects/flood/floodwarning/

The Pitt review addresses most of what has been discussed on here recently
as Martin alluded to. Section 6 may be of interest if you haven't seen ithttp://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/thepittreview/final_report.aspx

Jon.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I could cut and paste chunks of this to back my case for the dog's
breakfast! Recommendations 60-62 are particularly relevant, as is the
recommendation for further joint working between the MetO and the EA
and the personalisation of warnings for vulnerable groups. The joint
wrorking is certainly not apparent at present. There doesn't seem to
be any link from the MetO's Severe Weather warnings pages to the EA's
flood warning pages (though there is a link, under "helpful links"
from the EA site to the MetO severe Weather warnings site) and there
is absolutely no reference to possible coastal flooding on the Met
Office's warnings site, even though the number of SW flood watches had
been increased to 4 areas, this afternoon. I must admit I find that
incredible and very worrying. WHY does the MetO warnings page have no
easy link to the EA site and WHY doesn't the MetO have any reference
WHATSOEVER to the possibility of coastal flooding in Lyme Bay, this
evening??

It's not often I capitalise in my writing, but there are some issues
here that are so serious they could cost lives and livelihoods. It
begins to beggar belief that these links are not clear.

Like I say, I really hope there isn't a really extreme weather event
(extreme in the Pitt Report and to the Met Office, amazingly, is
defined as an event which happens no more than 6 times a year - A
YEAR!! Personally, I'd define "extreme" as something very different to
that, indeed "extreme" would be something I would not expect to see
many times in a lifetime. There's how people become used to the
warning site's "extreme" weather being something which is far short of
being really extreme; weather which people something they really need
to do something about.

The definition of "severe" events is this: "SEVERE – these events are
not uncommon particularly during winter months"............Well, I
just shake my head! Events that are not uncommon in the winter months
are simply NOT severe and there is no wonder that people don't take
the warnings seriously.

Paul

"Dawlish" wrote in message
...

snip

I'm sure all the review's recommendations will be followed up in due course
and the recent establishment of the 24/7 "Wet Bench" in the Operations
Centre, prior the reports release, will further help. BBC report on this
from June
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7453522.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7454388.stm

As before, keep the feedback/suggestions coming to
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporat...t/contact.html

In the mean time you might find the warnings panel here helpful
http://www.metbrief.com/obs.html

Jon.