Weather Banter - ......and on this day in 1952

The small coastal town of Lynmouth became known throughout the world
for the disaster which struck in August 1952. On the night of the
15th, after continuous rain throughout the day, the rivers of the East
and West Lyn rose suddenly and filled with the waters from their
Exmoor catchment. Large boulders and rocks were carried in the flow
towards the village, destroying houses, roads and bridges. Many lost
their lives during that dark and terrifying night. The whole of Exmoor
was affected and considerable damage was caused on the Barle, Exe,
Heddon and Bray but the worst effects were at Lynmouth. This is
because the water draining from most of the northern side of Exmoor
ends up in the East and West Lyn Rivers, which join at Lynmouth.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago these rivers used to run to the sea
much further to the west but during the Ice Age the side of their
valley was eroded by the sea and, as a result, they fell to the sea
along a much shorter and steeper course. As a result the waters
descending on Lynmouth are particularly fast and erosive.

The flood was one of the most spectacular and most studied in Britain.
Interest was shown in the small scale as well as the larger effects on
the landscape. Green studied the effects on river courses, erosion and
deposition and Gifford and Kidson studied landslipping and its causes
in the upper reaches of the Exe. Whilst it is still possible to see
landforms created by the flood and to calculate its flow from
remaining flood channels, most of the evidence of the flood has now
disappeared. At first it seemed that the flood confirmed the theory
that most of the shaping of our landscape occurred during such violent
events which were perhaps hundreds of years apart. However, work by
Anderson and Calver on how the great scars and piles of boulders left
by the flood have largely been removed by commonplace fluvial activity
has changed our view of the shaping of landscape. Few now remember the
disaster but its study has had far reaching effects upon our
understanding of erosion and the way we deal with floods.