What I don't understand is why the weather pattern has changed. Normally the wet weather goes west - east across southern England, but for the last 12 months or so it has been going SW - NE. What starts off over the Channel Islands six hours later goes over my home in Southend. Does anyone know what's caused the change?
Standing on Southend seafront half an hour ago there was an easterly wind coming off the North Sea. I looked up and saw clouds moving in from the west. Within ten minutes the wind had changed direction and it had got very dark as rain clouds moved in. Now awaiting the rain.
Down here in Essex it's just started to rain. There's been some rain form over SW London, north Kent and Essex which I hadn't expected to see. Plus with the wind it's cold along the seafront.
Huge downpour on Canvey Island at the moment. I was hoping to find some geocaches before watching Concord Rangers play, but I'm stuck in the car watching huge rain drops bouncing off the bonnet. First really meaningful rain for a couple of months round here.
If I remember correctly, part of the problem in 1987 was that the Met Office used weather ships to take observations and then send these back to HQ. The storm went between the two ships hence the reason they didn't pick up on it until it was nearly on us. Today they have a network of weather buoys which do a similar function and have a ship which goes round servicing them. This means we are getting far more data than before.
I did Saltash Utd's ground when I was a student in Plymouth, I enjoyed going there for the Western League games. As for tomorrow, I think it would be better if they just called he game off now.