Yeah, I bet he's a bag of fun at party's " hey everyone, keiths coming"
!tumbleweed!
Floods
Re: Floods
[_]> No Liberals were harmed during the making of this post.
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Deuce Bigolo
- Posts: 9910
- Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 2:40 am
Re: Floods
Never had a hole in the ozone layer before either
all though i stand to be corrected
all though i stand to be corrected
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Deuce Bigolo
- Posts: 9910
- Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 2:40 am
Re: newsflash-australias drought over
looks like I'll be going on a trip to the beach tomorrow....lol
Re: Floods
Hey great news that Sam, I frequently find myself lost at sea in a clinker built boat for no reason whatsoever, and one of the major problem I encounter is thirst. This will save me boiling me own piss, or indeed trying to flag down huge tankers staffed mainly by Indonesion-non english speaking crew.
Could you mail me with more detailed instruction's re the syphon etc, cost, suppliers, would my local yacht chandlers sell them?, thanks in advance..
Liz.
Could you mail me with more detailed instruction's re the syphon etc, cost, suppliers, would my local yacht chandlers sell them?, thanks in advance..
Liz.
[_]> No Liberals were harmed during the making of this post.
Re: Floods
Firstly a quick thanks to Caractacus for sticking up for me. I didn't misread Keith's post, I was merely trying to make the point that in the past, Europe - the whole world in fact - does have flooding events. I do not need to be patronised by someone who quite obviously feels that for some reason he is of a superior intellect than the rest of us - and frankly I can live with any crap he throws my way!
This just goes to reinforce Sandie's post the other day regarding the attitude to models when they dare to post here! Many people - not just models - don't like posting on these forums because of abusive, patronising and frankly smart arsed comments by certain people!
Back to the floods! To compare these floods with Holland is pretty spurious. I get rather bored with people claiming that the UK is always more incompetent compared to the rest of the world - let alone mainland Europe. On Friday I think anyone who has any knowledge of the Severn watershed knew that the lower half of its flood plain was in trouble. I actually think that the main authorities dealing with the floods per se have handled the situation pretty well, and what has been done is probably as good as it can get whether in mainland Europe or in the UK. It's not often I think an authority has done anything well, so this is praise indeed!
As for "trotting out a few facts", well yes I did to illustrate a point! Having spent considerable time studying and mapping the Severn flood plain and its environs, from its high Cambrian sources to full geological mapping of its lower levels, I feel I am reasonably qualified to comment on the subject. I really didn't want to have to do a full synopsis of the Severn area but thanks to Keith I'll give it a quick go though this is a big subject.
1: There is little comparision between the Severn flood plain and the Rhine flood plain, especially in the context of this flooding, apart from the fact that they are both rivers! The Severn, whilst being our longest river is actually in European/World terms rather short. It is also, for the bulk of its course, relatively unimpeded by human intervention ( not just flood control features but weirs, dams etc.). The Rhine is obviously much longer and has many, many areas of human intervention - though none of this will ultimately stop a river flooding eventually.
2: The topography/geology around the lower reaches of the Severn could not be more different to Holland. All along the western flanks of the Severn it is largely bounded by very old, hard and relatively impermeable igneous and metamorphic rocks - right up to the Cambrian mountains. Whilst the vegetation in the mountains can hold an amazing amount of water once it is totally saturated the rain runs off very quickly indeed (as also happened with run-off from the Pennines in the Sheffield floods).
On its eastern flank the lower Severn is bounded by the scarp face of the Cotswolds. This is highly permeable limestone and can hold within its own mass (not just vegetation on top), literally millions of tons of water. This too, by Friday, would have been totally saturated after weeks of pretty continuous rain.
Much of Holland, as Keith so rightly noticed, is below sea level. It is a shame he did not notice that a lack of two ranges of fairly substantial hills in close proximity do make a significant difference in the two areas under discussion and the speed of run-off.
3: As I noticed on Friday morning, the rainfall was exceptional. I have checked with both the Met office and our local Bristol Met Office, and they are all reasonably certain that what occurred over the Cotswolds/west Oxfordshire area was a mesocyclone. These are fairly rare in the UK but form around areas of intense thunderstorm activity and, in the USA, are generally the precursor of a tornado. A series of intense thunderstorms converge together to create one huge storm mass - but in a very small geographical area. The height and intensity of the vortices created is so great that ultimately it can no longer support itself and collapses.
The location was thought to be roughly along the A40, west of Brize Norton, when this collapse happened. All the energy, ie. rain, drops relatively in one go - this is one hell of a lot of water, particularly when falling on already saturated ground! The largely limestone composition of the Cotswolds acts like a sponge and the physical affect of this on both the Severn and Thames catchment areas was a bit like holding a large sponge full of water then squeezing it very quickly! As this happened right next to the main flood plain this is why the Severn flooded first - the Thames is now in flood as Brize Norton is at the top of the Thames catchment area and it's taken a day or so to work through. There is also the effect of having a mass of very low air pressure over the area, which would also have had some effect on the limestone's ability to store water!
4: As Sam Slater has pointed out Holland isn't built on a flood plain it is virtually man made - mainly due to the pressure put on the Dutch for more land over the last 300 odd years. It's dyke system is designed to protected it from the North Sea - as well as river flooding. In fact the Dutch had serious problems when in the 1950's large areas were flooded due to a North Sea surge. This also affected large areas of eastern England and is one of the reasons the Thames Barrier was built - a flood prevention scheme that has worked very well ever since it was opened ( we can do flood prevention when it's necessary).
5: On a final note, it is sad - but predictable in the present climate - to hear people such as Gordon Brown/David Cameron et al all bringing in the global warming debate. This is total and utter rubbish in this case - the Severn has flooded to this level in the past. In the 17th century Tewkesbury Abbey was flooded - these things happen!
A lot of the problem is that we as a nation have become so removed from nature and so urbanised and 'civilised', we feel the need to blame someone or something when on the odd occasion nature bites back.
As a final comment, yes, I do find Keith's posts insulting. I did not just get a few facts together - it is not often I say this, but I'm fairly sure that I know more about the geology and topography of the Severn catchment area than Keith could ever dream of - I spent enough years studying it!. As I've said it really is a huge subject that takes in geology/topography/meteorology/fluid dynamics and hydrology and historical geography, as well as esoteric subjects such as planning etc.
... and, by the way, perhaps Keith should ( I quote!) "try to read the post before you reply" as I never mentioned Holland being flooded by the Rhine in 1995...
Lecture over!! I apologise for repeating anything from subsequent posts, but I wrote this yesterday morning & I've been working ever since!
Out of interest, has anyone tried to use the Environment Agency's website? It's crap! On Monday, despite being nearly 1000 feet above sea level on top of the Cotswolds, all it told me was I was living in a flood area! One part of Gloucestershire that's not flooded!
This just goes to reinforce Sandie's post the other day regarding the attitude to models when they dare to post here! Many people - not just models - don't like posting on these forums because of abusive, patronising and frankly smart arsed comments by certain people!
Back to the floods! To compare these floods with Holland is pretty spurious. I get rather bored with people claiming that the UK is always more incompetent compared to the rest of the world - let alone mainland Europe. On Friday I think anyone who has any knowledge of the Severn watershed knew that the lower half of its flood plain was in trouble. I actually think that the main authorities dealing with the floods per se have handled the situation pretty well, and what has been done is probably as good as it can get whether in mainland Europe or in the UK. It's not often I think an authority has done anything well, so this is praise indeed!
As for "trotting out a few facts", well yes I did to illustrate a point! Having spent considerable time studying and mapping the Severn flood plain and its environs, from its high Cambrian sources to full geological mapping of its lower levels, I feel I am reasonably qualified to comment on the subject. I really didn't want to have to do a full synopsis of the Severn area but thanks to Keith I'll give it a quick go though this is a big subject.
1: There is little comparision between the Severn flood plain and the Rhine flood plain, especially in the context of this flooding, apart from the fact that they are both rivers! The Severn, whilst being our longest river is actually in European/World terms rather short. It is also, for the bulk of its course, relatively unimpeded by human intervention ( not just flood control features but weirs, dams etc.). The Rhine is obviously much longer and has many, many areas of human intervention - though none of this will ultimately stop a river flooding eventually.
2: The topography/geology around the lower reaches of the Severn could not be more different to Holland. All along the western flanks of the Severn it is largely bounded by very old, hard and relatively impermeable igneous and metamorphic rocks - right up to the Cambrian mountains. Whilst the vegetation in the mountains can hold an amazing amount of water once it is totally saturated the rain runs off very quickly indeed (as also happened with run-off from the Pennines in the Sheffield floods).
On its eastern flank the lower Severn is bounded by the scarp face of the Cotswolds. This is highly permeable limestone and can hold within its own mass (not just vegetation on top), literally millions of tons of water. This too, by Friday, would have been totally saturated after weeks of pretty continuous rain.
Much of Holland, as Keith so rightly noticed, is below sea level. It is a shame he did not notice that a lack of two ranges of fairly substantial hills in close proximity do make a significant difference in the two areas under discussion and the speed of run-off.
3: As I noticed on Friday morning, the rainfall was exceptional. I have checked with both the Met office and our local Bristol Met Office, and they are all reasonably certain that what occurred over the Cotswolds/west Oxfordshire area was a mesocyclone. These are fairly rare in the UK but form around areas of intense thunderstorm activity and, in the USA, are generally the precursor of a tornado. A series of intense thunderstorms converge together to create one huge storm mass - but in a very small geographical area. The height and intensity of the vortices created is so great that ultimately it can no longer support itself and collapses.
The location was thought to be roughly along the A40, west of Brize Norton, when this collapse happened. All the energy, ie. rain, drops relatively in one go - this is one hell of a lot of water, particularly when falling on already saturated ground! The largely limestone composition of the Cotswolds acts like a sponge and the physical affect of this on both the Severn and Thames catchment areas was a bit like holding a large sponge full of water then squeezing it very quickly! As this happened right next to the main flood plain this is why the Severn flooded first - the Thames is now in flood as Brize Norton is at the top of the Thames catchment area and it's taken a day or so to work through. There is also the effect of having a mass of very low air pressure over the area, which would also have had some effect on the limestone's ability to store water!
4: As Sam Slater has pointed out Holland isn't built on a flood plain it is virtually man made - mainly due to the pressure put on the Dutch for more land over the last 300 odd years. It's dyke system is designed to protected it from the North Sea - as well as river flooding. In fact the Dutch had serious problems when in the 1950's large areas were flooded due to a North Sea surge. This also affected large areas of eastern England and is one of the reasons the Thames Barrier was built - a flood prevention scheme that has worked very well ever since it was opened ( we can do flood prevention when it's necessary).
5: On a final note, it is sad - but predictable in the present climate - to hear people such as Gordon Brown/David Cameron et al all bringing in the global warming debate. This is total and utter rubbish in this case - the Severn has flooded to this level in the past. In the 17th century Tewkesbury Abbey was flooded - these things happen!
A lot of the problem is that we as a nation have become so removed from nature and so urbanised and 'civilised', we feel the need to blame someone or something when on the odd occasion nature bites back.
As a final comment, yes, I do find Keith's posts insulting. I did not just get a few facts together - it is not often I say this, but I'm fairly sure that I know more about the geology and topography of the Severn catchment area than Keith could ever dream of - I spent enough years studying it!. As I've said it really is a huge subject that takes in geology/topography/meteorology/fluid dynamics and hydrology and historical geography, as well as esoteric subjects such as planning etc.
... and, by the way, perhaps Keith should ( I quote!) "try to read the post before you reply" as I never mentioned Holland being flooded by the Rhine in 1995...
Lecture over!! I apologise for repeating anything from subsequent posts, but I wrote this yesterday morning & I've been working ever since!
Out of interest, has anyone tried to use the Environment Agency's website? It's crap! On Monday, despite being nearly 1000 feet above sea level on top of the Cotswolds, all it told me was I was living in a flood area! One part of Gloucestershire that's not flooded!
I can resist everything except temptation!
<http://www.red-xxx.com>
<http://www.red-xxx.com>
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BGAFD Admin
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Attn: Keith Rasputin
This sort of obnoxious rubbish is unacceptable. Please abide by the spirit of the note under FAQ 3.7: " Visitors to the BGAFD forums should feel secure, relaxed and encouraged to participate by other Forumites. We will not permit the friendly atmosphere of the forums to be comprised by the personality traits of particular individuals. "