Not just the huge individual rainfall totals that’s exceptional, it’s the widespread nature of the heavy rain
Thousands of square kilometres of central England have seen 100mm + in a few days.
That’s every square metre having 100 litres (same as a wheelie bin) plus poured on it
Just some more normal Summer weather in northern Italy this afternoon.
Eventually the penny will drop that this isn’t normal and is a direct result of heating the atmosphere.
As the waters recede on another monster flood, thousands of homes and businesses along the Severn and Wye remain dry thanks to flood defences.
They work.
But they’re not the answer to future flooding and are creating a false sense of security.
A (long!) 🧵
Catastrophic flooding in Swiss Alps overnight.
Reports of several villages cut off, severe damage to critical infrastructure and people missing.
Images via
Hopefully this sends a strong message.
A year prison sentence, banned from Directorship, £600k costs and required to restore damage.
The worst environmental damage I’ve ever seen and entirely intentional.
Well done
@EnvAgency
@NaturalEngland
Acapulco
I’m not big on conspiracy theories but can’t quite get my head around the lack of news coverage & official statements.
It’s 2 days since the hurricane hit.
As expected daylight revealing severe damage to a number of Swiss Alpine towns and villages.
Radar estimates suggesting over 200mm of rain fell in a few hours in some locations.
Reports of mudslides, infrastructure damage and missing people.
Flash flooding in Devon.
20mm in an hour recorded a few miles away, probably more locally. No drainage systems are going to cope with those volumes of water.
Incredible footage of rescuer breaking through roof of house engulfed by rocks and mud and filling with water.
2 occupants apparently rescued.
La Bérarde in the French Alps
Horrendous pictures & video of huge amounts of sewage in the sea at St Agnes Cornwall.
Yet rainfall amounts and intensities look to be entirely normal for October. Exceptional circumstances?
Acapulco
One the the strongest hurricanes ever to make landfall directly impacts a world famous city of 1 million people with almost no warning, killing dozens and causing billions of $ of damage.
Yet still barely a mention.
Incredible pic of temporary flood barriers at Ironbridge holding back the River Severn.
You can see why there’s nervousness when they’re fully loaded or there’s a risk of overtopping.
Pic by
@Britt_W
If you want an example of the value of hard flood defences, look no further than Upton.
Built in 2011 at a cost of £4.5m it’s protected homes and businesses from flooding over 50 times now.
Today some places would be under 5ft of water.
A remarkable picture yesterday from
@sentinel_hub
@CopernicusEU
showing a parched NW Europe.
Easy to see parts of SW & NW England have that seen a bit more rain.
Impressive pic of Maeslant barrier protecting Rotterdam against a 3m North Sea storm surge last night.
First time it’s been closed in anger since construction in 1997.
Pic via Adam Robinson.
I’ve seen things today I would not have believed.
Large parts of my home town and village are underwater tonight.
This is not normal flooding, we are in uncharted territory.
So sorry for everyone who has flooded.
Back tomorrow.
The UK is getting hotter and wetter.
50 years ago 28°C happened 4-6 times a year in England - now 12-20
Number of very wet days almost doubled in some counties
If only we’d been warned decades ago we could have been more prepared.
Oh, we were.
Personal news
After 22 years with the Agency I’ll be retiring (early I hasten to add) at the end of the year.
It’s been a rollercoaster!
Good (or bad maybe) news is I’ll keep this account going (suitably re-branded) on climate & environmental stuff. And my bike rides!
How about maintaining your infrastructure. That would help.
Interesting timing of a tweet when you’re flooding Birmingham with millions of litres of drinking water.
Let’s look after our wonderful water 💧
We asked our people to share their favourite water saving tips. For more ways you can save water this summer, visit:
How do you save water? Share your favourite tips by commenting below.
As usual, quite a few arm chair hydrologists delivering their opinions.
No flooding if we scrape out some ditches and do some dredging.
Yeah right.
And things are going to get a lot worse.
For anyone unconvinced that rural land use makes a difference to runoff and pollution issues, heres the confluence of the Dulas Brook and River Dore at Pontrilas after 5mm of rain last night.
Very pleased that multiple charges have been brought against Price for works done to the River Lugg SSSI at Kingsland in December 2020.
In my 22 years at the Agency it’s the worst damage I’ve seen done to a protected site.
…
That’s it, I’m done.
2 days rest, back Saturday
What I’ve seen over the last few days isn’t normal. It isn’t even the new normal. It’s going to get worse.
We need to adapt and respond. And fast.
So sorry for everyone who’s life has been turned upside down.
Impossible to say for sure but the absolute shellacking the Tories have taken, combined with a huge increase in the green vote suggests that environmental issues and the Government’s abysmal performance in addressing them is really cutting through.
This is a remarkable piece of work.
90 years of changes in landuse on a tiny corner of England. Extensively researched.
Multiply by thousands and you can understand the collapse of biodiversity and increased flash flooding.
By
@outhwaitegeorge
Parts of the Mediterranean are 7°C above normal.
7 bloody degrees!
Remember it takes more than 3000 times as much heat to warm water by 1°C than it does for air.
Graphic courtesy
@CopernicusEU
China - 300,000km2 have seen over 100mm of rain in 24 hours. That’s an area 14 times the size of the Severn catchment.
All feeding in to the River Yangtze.
Unsurprisingly there are reports of severe flooding.
The Yangtze River Basin was hit by extreme rainstorms again today, with more than 300,000 km2 receiving more than 100 mm of rainfall in 24 hours, causing floods in many places.
Not very significant in the context of what’s happening at the moment but a bit of good news.
More than 400lb of fish rescued from receding floodwater on
#Worcester
racecourse.
We’ve been monitoring this & other locations for a while, waiting for the right moment.
Synchronised apologising by the water companies, almost certainly as a result of Government pressure.
They’re now all very keen to increase investment.
Which we will all have to pay for.
Ofwat have been assuring us for years they have all the money they need.
That’s a remarkable map!
Virtually all the UK covered by amber weather warnings.
Don’t think it’s happened before. They usually cover quite small, specific areas.
Shift in Water companies position today.
Now accepting there’s a problem. Admitting they’ve caused it via inadequate infrastructure. Pushing for more investment so they can fix it. So they can put bills up.
@Feargal_Sharkey
explains why that’s cobblers.
Interesting if true, that Tory MPs think it’s about communications and messaging rather than the huge increase in sewage entering rivers & seas that’s happened on their watch.
The proposed nutrient neutrality amendment is simply staggering
2 says LAs must assume new houses will have no impact on protected rivers
3 tells them not to check
4 tells them to ignore anything that says otherwise
No MP in their right mind could vote for this?!
Might be miserable here at the moment but spare a thought for the residents of Utqiagvik, Alaska who won’t see a sunrise for 65 days as polar night descends.
'Our domestic courts will no longer be able to use any domestic or international law, including the Human Rights Act, to stop us removing illegal migrants'
Rishi Sunak says 'we will finally stop the boats' as he explains his new Rwanda Bill
Land use changes have been dramatic in the last couple of generations.
My county used to have large expanses of wetlands, principally along river corridors. No more.
Combine these changes with more and heavier rainfall and it’s little surprise flooding is becoming much worse.
Huge momentum building over the state of our rivers & seas.
Today’s cartoon in the Times which has initiated a large campaign today.
Instead of taking decisive action the Government continues to gaslight and dither.
Dozens of monthly heat records fell in France today. Even more incredible that it’s only early April.
Temperatures in Biarritz last night didn’t fall below 22.5°C beating not only the April record but also May & June’s!
Big trouble ahead.
At 425 metres the Worcestershire Beacon in the Malvern Hills is the highest point until the Ural Mountains in Russia looking east.
Somehow seems very poignant tonight.
Great news that thanks to Hurculean efforts by our staff the temporary flood barriers at
#ironbridge
and
#Bewdley
have been fully assessed and repaired.
Ready for the expected Severn rises in coming days.
Summer 2024 was the coolest in a decade.
40 years ago it would have been anomalously warm for many areas.
Shifting perceptions in a rapidly warming climate.
I know there’s a lot going on in the world, but a Category 5 hurricane hitting a city of 1 million with virtually no warning is surely newsworthy
You wouldn’t think so. Maybe we’re getting used to such things
Billions of $ of damage, casualties unknown
In a truly crowded field, Coffey will go down as one of the worst Environment Ministers ever.
Not just for her complete lack of achievement (many could claim that) but because she just didn’t care.
On the brink of a private company that supplies water to millions of homes and businesses going bust.
Their only solution is to raise bills to pay for infrastructure they’ve been paid to build and maintain for 30 years
If you’re not angry, you should be.
I remember when the Water Framework Directive was adopted in 2003 the target for compliance was 2015, later extended to 2027.
A Government Brexit bonus means we can now set our own.
2063 is frankly meaningless and an embarrassing admission of failure.
Not only was February the wettest on record, it was so wet the Met Office had to create a new scale to show it!
This is not normal.
Uncharted territory.
180mm of rain fell in Jeddah in 6 hours yesterday, eclipsing the previous record. Instantaneous rates of 900mm per hour were reported.
Average annual rainfall for Jeddah is around 50mm.
Saudi Arabia is amongst the laggards in tackling climate change
Defra as tin eared as ever, obviously very sensitive about the legality of sewage discharges.
It’s absolutely clear most discharges are in breach of any permit conditions and are therefore illegal.
Quite rightly a lot of recent coverage of the difficulties farmers have been facing due to the recent deluge.
Unfortunately this is just the beginning.
Some thoughts
A 🧵
In this experiment Dr Rob Thompson of
@UniRdg_Met
shows just how long it takes water to soak into parched ground, illustrating why heavy rainfall after a
#drought
can be dangerous and might lead to flashfloods.
@R0b1et
@UniRdg_water
LIVE - These folk are the real heroes.
@EnvAgency
staff working through the night at
#Bewdley
operating flood defences as the Severn approaches its peak with the highest levels in 20 years.
For them it’s personal!
The country’s on its arse, millions are about to have to choose between heating and eating, the climate’s collapsing and there’s war on our doorstep.
But every news outlet is leading on a court case between 2 vacuous nonentities which affects nobody at all.
It’s clearly ridiculous that a water company discharging untreated sewage into our rivers in hundreds of locations can be described as industry leading and an exemplar.
And it’s been ridiculous for years.