Stormy Weather

[gurnemanz]

I had driven past this Bazelgette Pumping Station on the Thames Embankment countless times without really noticing it until it featured in an edition of Who Do You Think You Are in which Sheila Hancock found out that a forbear of hers had been superintendent there.

[Richard Tarleton]

I refuse to believe that there has been anything unusual in the weather patterns in recent months and everytime there is a spot of heavy rain we see this flooding business. It can't be right.

Petrushka, my first reaction is to wonder where on earth you live! - I know it's within striking distance of the Proms but involves overnight accommodation The weather patterns this year have been truly exceptional - with the exception of a lovely (but short) spell in May, it's been exceptionally wet since April. You may be slightly less aware of this in the SE quadrant of the country.

Water levels have been unseasonally high all summer. In fact we've had a run of poor summers since 2008, so what used to be exceptional is fast becoming normal. Any farmer, or anyone involved with lake or flood plain management will confrm this. Flood plains which used to be dry in summer have been saturated for months and have long since lost any capacity to accommodate any additional water.

[Serial_Apologist]

Petrushka, my first reaction is to wonder where on earth you live! - I know it's within striking distance of the Proms but involves overnight accommodation The weather patterns this year have been truly exceptional - with the exception of a lovely (but short) spell in May, it's been exceptionally wet since April. You may be slightly less aware of this in the SE quadrant of the country.

Water levels have been unseasonally high all summer. In fact we've had a run of poor summers since 2008, so what used to be exceptional is fast becoming normal. Any farmer, or anyone involved with lake or flood plain management will confrm this. Flood plains which used to be dry in summer have been saturated for months and have long since lost any capacity to accommodate any additional water.

[gurnemanz]

I was surprised and delighted to notice a rather beautiful rose blooming in my garden this morning and others are in bud.

[Serial_Apologist]

I was surprised and delighted to notice a rather beautiful rose blooming in my garden this morning and others are in bud.

My dad, a keen rose grower (89 plants in his garden! ) used to say it was "unkind" to allow them to carry on blooming into late autumn, claiming it deprived them of strength for the next growth season. Many of those buds won't come out now, not just the waterlogged ones. The conventional advice is to prune by a couple of main shoots, then wait until April (or when frosts are over) for the drastic cutback to 1 or 2 shoots from the graft, as this will leave extremities exposed to frost and windchill that can then be cut off rather, than exposing the whole plant, and also make for less susceptibilty to strong winds. Some of those last buds may just about flower if you bring them indoors and put them in a vase of water.

[gurnemanz]

My dad, a keen rose grower (89 plants in his garden! ) used to say it was "unkind" to allow them to carry on blooming into late autumn, claiming it deprived them of strength for the next growth season. Many of those buds won't come out now, not just the waterlogged ones. The conventional advice is to prune by a couple of main shoots, then wait until April (or when frosts are over) for the drastic cutback to 1 or 2 shoots from the graft, as this will leave extremities exposed to frost and windchill that can then be cut off rather, than exposing the whole plant, and also make for less susceptibilty to strong winds. Some of those last buds may just about flower if you bring them indoors and put them in a vase of water.

It makes sense that it is not in their interest to be blooming now. Maybe I should get out there with my secateurs.

[amateur51]

There was a fascinating programme about Bazalgette and the London sewers earlier this year, part of a series of great engineering feats, but they were fronted by Eddie Butler which makes me think it was only on BBC Wales.
Ontopic, a nice dry day although chilly and the river level has dropped.

Now is he the Reg Varney character from On The Buses or Hilda Ogden's lodger from Corrie?

On topic, I travelled back from Hastings' Herring Festival by train this morning and there was so much standing water in fields, it was not a joke. The sheep had headed for the high ground and were looking very fed up

[Anna]

Now is he the Reg Varney character from On The Buses or Hilda Ogden's lodger from Corrie?

On topic, I travelled back from Hastings' Herring Festival by train this morning and there was so much standing water in fields, it was not a joke. The sheep had headed for the high ground and were looking very fed up

Eddie Butler is fast becoming a Welsh National Treasure! Apart from the engineering series he's also done some history and architecture programmes.
How spooky. That's the second time Hastings has been mentioned on this thread within the last couple of days. I briefly lived there and would buy fish off the boats, hope you enjoyed the Herring Festival which I see was the first they've held.
Ontopic, just caught a bit of video about the floods on BBC news live website, awful. I remember bad floods in 2007 and 2002 here and also recall seeing it bad in Tewkesbury and Worcester years ago, but this seems so widespread - but as S_A says, exceptional weather conditions.

[amateur51]

Daily Excess is forecasting a Siberian run up to Christmas.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/...l-last-a-month

What say our local forecasters, women with seaweed, fir cones and a new barometer and men with bionic bunions?

[JFLL]

Flooding is caused by people paving over front gardens for parking ....

Which has been much encouraged, alas, by councils extending on-road parking restrictions in the suburbs where they aren't needed. We live over seven miles from central London, but we now have a parking regime that allows only two hours parking during the day, seven days a week. If you're a resident and want to park in the road, you have have to apply for a permit costing several hundred pounds a year. (Of course it's really just a money-spinner, as everyone knows.) No wonder people pave over their gardens.

[Serial_Apologist]

Which has been much encouraged, alas, by councils extending on-road parking restrictions in the suburbs where they aren't needed.

True but often only in some cases.

Many of our suburban side streets were built in the 1920s and '30s, when car ownership was less and cars owned by the denizens mostly smaller models such as the Morris 8 than those we see today in the 'burbs. Much has been said about difficult access for emergency services. It's a problem only to be solved by decent public transport.

[JFLL]

True but often only in some cases.

Many of our suburban side streets were built in the 1920s and '30s, when car ownership was less and cars owned by the denizens mostly smaller models such as the Morris 8 than those we see today in the 'burbs. Much has been said about difficult access for emergency services. It's a problem only to be solved by decent public transport.

And also, SA, the fact that many large, once single-family, houses have been converted into flats, so that they may be three or four cars per house instead of one. Not sure that public transport, however, good, would ever entirely solve this problem. We, for example, hardly use our car locally (often only for the big shop at Sainsbury's once a week), but getting to the remote Welsh borders regularly to visit my mother (often with a good deal of luggage) would be pretty well impossible by public transport.

[Anna]

Daily Excess is forecasting a Siberian run up to Christmas.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/...l-last-a-month
What say our local forecasters, women with seaweed, fir cones and a new barometer and men with bionic bunions?

Seaweed Maiden says Daily Excess is, as usual, being excessive! I had a look at Simon Keeling's forecast posted yesterday for December, snow falling doesn't mean snow settling and accumulations but, yes, it will snow. http://www.weatherweb.net/wxwebtv2.php
I only ordered barometer on Sunday and it's being delivered tomorrow. I understand it's best not to set it whilst weather is unstable and to wait for a settled spell. No idea if that's true or not?
JFLL, sorry your Mother lives on the Welsh borders, but some of us have to dwell in Bandit Country!!

[Serial_Apologist]

I understand it's best not to set it whilst weather is unstable and to wait for a settled spell.

If the nearest weather site to which you have made reference gives as near as dammit present readings, go with it, I say, Anna; you'll otherwise have to wait for a "settled spell".

[salymap]

It hasn't stopped raining hard here all day and it never got light at all. This is an awful winter and I'm sick of it already. So there. Cousins coming on early Xmas visit from Devon tomorrow I hope.

Sorry for the flooded out people though. They mentioned Gloucester but not Worcester on TV news. That has a mark on the wall by the Severn, where the water reached 17 feet one year.