I came over to England Weds morning to come and see my ailin’ Mum. Who is ailin’ at about the speed expected, no better, no worse.
On my way here obviously I had to drive from the house to the airport. This involved driving, in that very first stage, the 9 km or so from Montes Velhas to Aljustrel. Which I did at 6 am or so. By 6.30 am this had happened:
Roads closed to traffic
⛔ Road that connects Aljustrel to Montes Velhos (EN 383).
For those fascinated by such things if you look at the map there’s the “Roxio” lake and dam at Ervidel. The former river and current overflow outlet for this is the one that runs from there west, down past the bottom of Sao Joao de Negrilhos/Montes Velhas, (and couple of hundred yards from the bottom of our garden, other side of the cemetary) and then under – normally under – that road in question. The Roxio lake – which feeds the local irrigation system, nowt else – is now really, really, full, they’re releasing water, what is normally a rivulet is now a raging torrent and the road is therefore flooded.
Gonna be fun getting home on Sunday.
The Portuguese, being sensible people, have not built the village on the water meadow/flood plain. The edge of the village is on the edge of the plateau above that – 50 feet or so of altitude there. Which is, really, what “Monte” means in Portuguese naming conventions. The bit that sticks out above the local plain and where you put the farmhouse. It is now often applied to a farmhouse so located – a “Monte”. So, if the dam bursts, sure, we might have problems. But controlled overflow hits the road and nothing else. Well, someone’s potatoes are getting wet perhaps as well.
From what I understand the road from Rio de Moinhos to Jungheiros is open – it’s a proper bridge over the river on that road, not culverts as on the direct one – so we’re not wholly cut off. Hopefully. Find out Sunday…..
Ah, I remember a little discussion with you on here about flooding. If that first back up route is out there are definitely others. Good luck.
Mind you, if it carries on pissing down in the UK they’ll probably close the roads in panic . . .
Oh, England’s not bad at present. Us Bathonians always know when it is too. The Avon floods downstream of Newbridge when it is bad. It’s very easy to tell, there’s a field alongside the A4. If the river hsa flooded that fiel under the railway line from the other side then yes, we’ve got floods. If not it’s just a bit damp.
If they’re not using fins and snorkels at the Rec it’s fine.
By the way Tim, speaking of dramatic nature, there is a total eclipse of the sun visible from parts of Spain on August 12th.
https://solareclipsespain.com/total-solar-eclipse-in-spain-august-12-2026/
If you’re between the pink lines you get totality; the closer to the blue line you are the longer totality lasts.
It’s a less than once-in-a-lifetime event for most of us so worth considering.
I saw one in Oregon in 2017. The Spain one is tempting but I’ll be watching from Southern England, which will have over 90% coverage. You’ll still need your approved viewing specs though, even at that coverage.
So they’re going to be in the dark in Madrid? Not saying that’s anything out of the ordinary…
Heh, but no, Madrid will have an odd and gloomy light but it won’t be dark.
Even if the sun is 99.9% covered the light is still hundreds of times brighter than a full moon. If you want the dark twilight (but with far horizons still strangely bright) and to see the sun’s extended atmosphere against stars, you need to be between the pink lines where the moon will cover the furnace.
It’s bad down here. Next village is cut off. So’s the next one in the other direction.
The stream by me has overflowed, for the first time in the 25 years I’ve been here.
Problem is, we’re the old water mill, and the stream is overflowing into the old mill race, that runs under our hovel. We’re dry so far; keeping my fingers crossed.
But I think we’ve had rain like this before, and it’s not caused this.
However what has changed is the environmentalists stopping runoff water flowing into Poole harbour, because of this nitrate crap.
This. Everyone shouts “climate change!” No. It’s green policies blocking drainage, local authorities not clearing the drains themselves, and building on fucking flood plains.
Partially Green Bollocks, partially maintenance of waterways ( spending money on a 1-in-10-years event isn’t Politically Popular…) , and partially *creating* flood plains through not maintaining or even preserving drainage ditches.
If you look at the area around the golf course BiND mentions on Maps, in “map”mode, you see a *ton* of truncated/interrupted drainage ditches that *used* to drain the area, and none of those obvious networks connect to anything anymore….
As a Cloggie… I look at that as a recipe for …Regular Inconvenience.
It’s 15 years since we moved in here and I haven’t seen it as bad in the fields, although the roads are clearing faster because of work they’ve done recently.
I think part of the problem is that 15 years ago the aquifers were emptying fast* and water tables had dropped significantly, so we didn’t notice heavy winter rains as much. Over the past 5 years we’ve had a lot of summer rain as well so the water table is quite high.
Our golf club (Sherborne) is on a hill and even it is getting closed for days on end, again not something that happened in my 10 years or so of membership.
*I remember (original) Jim discussing the low aquifers on here and saying either he or his mates were starting to have to drill deeper.
A look a the weather radar exposes what’s happening. It’s just a big, confused Atlantic frontal system slowly rotating in place, rather than passing over us.
If you look further east you’ll see that they’ve had the opposite problem with a blocking high. Germany, especially the in east, Poland and that general area have had exceptionally cold weather.
Made worse by bans on using de-icing salt on pavements. Hospitals report an increase in broken bones and Tageschau claimed that Berliners are having to learn to walk like penguins.
The atlantic depression isn’t even confused… It’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to do: sit in the crook/lee of the Jet Stream.
It’s just usually 200-ish miles more Northwards. Same with the central european high BiND mentions.
The usual train of depressions we have this time of year consequently shifted down as well, moving over southern Europe instead of moving into the Rhine Basin.
Of course, there they hit a *lot* more Geography than in their usual path, so it comes down harder in very predictable places. like large rows of rocks sticking up.
Looking at the predictions for the Jet Stream, this’ll all be History in a week or so as it’ll snap back ( with a bit of a vengeance) to its “normal” path, landing roughly around southern England/middle of France.
Confused inasmuch as the fronts have all caught up with themselves and become occluded.
The data stated we had a month’s continous rain in three days, with the wind battering it sideways; the tenants complained the rain was coming through the window and demanded that I do something about it.
We’ve had a similar problem. We hadn’t noticed before because we don’t often et such persistent driving rain from the east.
There should be glass in the windows to stop horizontal rain. 🙁
On the subject of Poole Harbour and nitrates, one of the farmers here got planning permission for a couple of shepherds huts but the Harbour Commission delayed him for 6 moths while they carried out nitrate tests, at his expense. It’s 30km as the crow flies!
You don’t build on the flood plain? But that’s valuable development land! Where are people going to get their little boxes in the countryside?
Of course, but flood plains are generally nice flat areas – perfect to put houses on !
Here we’ve had 3 to 4 times the average January rainfall, and all of February’s average had come by the 4th.
The met office tweeted yesterday that we’ve had zero sunshine since 21st January.
The future is rain and rain as far as the forecast goes. I’ve never seen the like, and nor have the old codgers around me. It seems to be limited to the North East, and the rest of Scotland is oblivious to it.
Not aware of any flooding though, as we’ve got decent hills.
The rainfall data is all pleasingly presented here:
https://www2.sepa.org.uk/rainfall/
Just looked at our forecast for the month. Expecting a couple days sunshine next week. But from then it’s more rain daily until March. Usually be working on the tan by then.. I’m seriously considering moving the Brasil relocation forward, this place is going to have any more winters like this..
Not that it is any consolation, but we in New Zealand are having a crap summer,. Very heavy rain on the North Island and cold grey days in the south.I have had to put the heating on several times when I am normally running the air conditioning to cool the place down. Apparently it is something to do with the El Nino and El Nina not performing as they do normally.
This does make Brisbane a bit more comfortable. I haven’t even got the fan on at present.
But for some reason Victoria, and the centre of Australia, is much worse.