Just Before Dawn

It certainly was parky driving over the Wolds to work this morning, and there's still a bit of lying snow on the Wolds in places but it's so dry now, that any falling snow should have no problem settling. We just need to see a few showers popping up.

We've had snow and sleet this morning so things are obviously pretty marginal here. Currently turned back to snow.

Yes, and it's something I've suggested to mods before. The area threads as they are cover huge geographic areas, and let's be honest here, this one is almost entirely Yorkshire-centric, which is not surprising, given the spread of posters. Moving Lincs into an East Midlands thread makes a lot of sense to me.

Yep, our two year wait is over. Drove back from Lincoln about half an hour ago and it was surprisingly tricky.

Ha ha. There's some freaking out ongoing in that thread!

Not all of us. The clue's in the name!

Parts of our region may have done well, but it's 24 months now since we've seen lying snow of any kind. It's a big region and the eastern and southern parts of it have done anything but well this winter, so far.

Yep, the front is fizzling out from the East, so I think anywhere east of about Lincoln is going to be out of luck. Story of the winter so far really.

Looking at 850's and dew points, 00z Op run looks like it would be a wintery mix at best east of say, the A1 (unless you have altitude - North York Moors look less marginal), whereas west of the A1, it looks progressively more favourable, at least with some altitude. Last night down here had temps and dews more favourable for snow than those predicted for Tuesday night/Wednesday and we had sleet at best, so I'm really not expecting much other than rain in this location.

Looks like its dying off to our north - which is typical of the winter so far here.

I'm certainly not expecting much beyond cold nights and drizzly North sea dreck next week for our part of the world. With height and further west, Tuesday has some potential, but I'm not convinced that the frontal system with have much cohesion by the time it reaches here, and the Post Wednesday easterly air flow looks very slack. We saw in 2013, again, that this usually spells grey skies and drizzle on the coast unless temps are much lower than those I'm seeing suggested at the moment. If you live in west, north or South Yorkshire, then there's a fair bit more to take some heart from, and you would think these to be favoured over the next week, but it doesn't look particularly inspiring if you happen to be in East Lincs or East Yorks, at least to my eyes.

Yep, I'll be travelling from Bristol to Lincoln on Wednesday night. Brilliant.

And us in the coastal fringe of Lincolnshire (this IS still the Yorkshire AND Lincolnshire forum, isn't it?). It' been 3 years since we've had lying snow here.

When you see the sea state for an area of coastal waters described as phenomenal, it's not likely to be an everyday storm...

And here - sleet rather than rain and it snowed briefly, but the temps and dew points wrong side of marginal here now. Still, at least we did have falling snow, our first in 2014 too.

Rain has now turned to sleet here just outside Louth. It'll do well to settle, though.

Dew points lighter precip and proximity to the coast probably does for any settling snow in Lincolnshire East of The Wolds except further south, where it might be a bit heavier, but the southern ridge, between Lincoln and Grantham, might see some. If it's marginal for us, that usually means sleet or rain. Worth keeping an eye on though.

The three day flood outlook has a low risk for the Northern part of East Anglia on Tuesday, but it's a timing thing. Low pressure track and wind direction seem to rule out a December last year type event, though somewhere like Cley might see some spectacular waves and overtopping if the worst of the wind is timed with high tide.

Very heavy rain here with thunder and lightning, though starting to slacken off now. The rain has been so heavy that the Environment Agency has issued a flash flood warning for parts of Louth near the Louth Canal.

Rain is still torrential here though the lightning output has slackened off now.

That rain mass with embedded storms is now passing just to our east. It caused a brief power outage in Louth and is still rumbling on, with frequent lightning over the Eastern horizon. Edit. It's now right over us and the power has gone again. Seems from the radar that it's developing along its western edge as there's now a distinct band of storms stretching across central Lincs. Absolutely chucking it down now too.

Yeay! About to start driving down to Stansted! Love driving in storms at night.

The first document is from an anti-EU think-tank. Post something penned by someone with CIWEM membership and I might take it seriously. I can point to four or five flood retention schemes managed by IDBs and the EA that pre-date 'making space for water' just in my neck of the woods. Branston Island, The Ouse washes, the Nene Washes, Cowbit Wash....all date from the 60s or 70's. Hardly a flood risk management approach that stems from the EU, then. The second document is a Natural England vision document - it's not policy as NE have no powers to raise or drop water levels. However, you are right, there has been a broader policy to raise water levels in parts of the Levels (and elsewhere - in the fens, it's been driven largely by Landowners recognising the multiple benefits of raised water levels for agriculture, as well as public supply and wildlife benefits), and I said previously that it's legitimate to look at this again and change it if necessary. People before wildlife in circumstances like these seems to be a position no reasonable individual would argue with. I certainly wouldn't. Still no criticism of the IDB though, I see.

That's not what he said though, is it? What he actually said was that we don't have enough money to defend everywhere, and that choices need to be made about what we defend. That's not EA policy either, thats DEFRA policy endorsed by Treasury. The cost-benefit analysis work that the EA is required to do before investing in flood risk management schemes is focussed towards defending properties, businesses and built infrastructure above farmland (and incidentally benefits farmland over semi-natural habitat, but don't let that get in the way of a good rant) but that isn't at the behest of the EA, it's at the behest of DEFRA, Treasury and the Association of British Insurers. I happen to agree with you that the flood policy is too urban-centric, but laying that on the EA is laying it at the wrong door. It's blindingly obvious that far too much notice is being taken of the siren voices wanting proper maintenance minimised in an effort to boost wildlife, save costs, and if that makes farming there impossible that's another useful benefit. I want to eat, and I want food produced at a decent price. I want the people who put the effort into food production to be properly and fairly rewarded for their effort. We're not all farmer-hating tree-huggers. Balancing industrial production with environmental impacts is a reasonable conversation to have isn't it? The mining industry, the textiles industry, the energy industry and the water industry all had to have it, otherwise we'd still have miners dying of blacklung, we'd still have five day smog outbreaks and our rivers would still be green and blue with industrial dyes. I don't know of a single serious environmentalist who's suggesting sacrificing the Somerset Levels, or The Fens, but do you really think if the main rivers were concrete lined and free of any form of habitat whatsoever, this still wouldn't have happened? I refer you back to 2007. You say the flooding wasn't as bad, but it was, just in different places, places where water carrying systems were concrete bowls with no habitat whatsoever. Urban carrying systems in Sheffield and Hull couldn't cope and no-one suggested there that the issue was water voles and kingfishers. All systems have a design capacity and once it is exceeded, land floods. The debate on the levels should be whether that system is of high enough capacity, and it isn't, what can be done to improve it. Dredging may help, but it won't be enough on it's own. I'll ask you what I ask everyone who throws their arms up and blames the tree-huggers - what level of environmental scrutiny do you think is appropriate for the farming industry? Why exactly does England and Wales need an Environment Agency "almost the size of the Canadian, Danish, French, German, Swedish and Austrian EAs COMBINED!"- their budget is correspondingly enormous but where does the money go if a January *only* twice as wet as normal (i.e. not outside what might be expected) is causing total chaos and heartbreak.2007 was similarly wet but the floods were nothing like as bad, which indicates the rapid decline in water carrying capacity of the neglected rivers. Setting aside the fact that the document itself points out that the comparisons between the EA and the bodies identified in Europe are not like-for-like, it also misses out a few (no doubt because they don't support the argument) such as the Dutch who, like us have large areas of low-lying coast to defend (in which sits their capital city, like us) and their flood management agency has a per capita spend higher than us. Austria has no coast and Denmark has a seperate agency for coastal flood defence which has a substantialy larger budget than the figures quoted in the document. In the US the EPA is a regulatory body only, it doesn't build any flood defences, a task undertaken by individual land owners, state environment departments, city ordnance and the US Army corps of Engineers. Ask the people of New Orleans how that worked out for them, or anyone who lives on the Mississippi, or in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It seems an incompetent Environment Agency isn't a pre-requisite for flooding. I'm perfectly happy for the EA to be properly held to account for it's work - that's a must for every public body. I have no problem criticising the EA when they have it coming, but lets not forget that the EA aren't the only drainage authority on the Levels. There's the Somerset Levels IDB, a consortium of Local Authority Representatives and local land owners who are equally responsible for land drainage on the Levels. I've seen no criticism of them at all. Could it be because they are local councillors and land owners, so it couldn't possibly be their fault? Do their drains automatically shift more water than the EA carriers because they are local councillors and land owners rather than a Quango? This is not a natural landscape, it has been drained since Roman times and if the work is stopped it will revert to some kind of wilderness salt marsh. Absolutely. You can say the same about the Fens, The Isle of Sheppey and coastal Essex and Kent - they are amongst our most important agricultural and food production resource and it's a national priority to maintain their protection. The question is whether you do that, for every square metre, at whatever the national cost without regard to environmental impacts or the fiscal costs. Perhaps we should. But if that's the case, the debate should be a bit more adult than just sticking our tongues out at the EA.

Interesting that we are four pages in and not one mention of the Somerset Levels Internal Drainage Board, which drains more of the levels than the Environment Agency or local authorities who took responsibility for surface water flood management in 2010. Water Level Management these days is much more complicated than just being the EA's responsibility. Maybe that's part of the problem. In 2007, urban concrete watercourses in Sheffield and Hull were overwhelmed by water. There were no issues with maintenance because there was nothing to maintain. There were no issues with 'people vs wildlife' because they were artificial drainage systems, with no semi-natural habitat at all. It just rained too much for a system not designed for that volume of rainfall. You can design a more capable system, but that costs more. Most of the issues the drainage board I was involved with at the time had during that event was with collapsing of badly maintained culverts - general waterway maintenance wasn't an issue. There are lots of reasons why water bodies can flood, and maintenance is just one. I'm not saying that the EA are blameless, I'm not saying that the balance of maintenance and habitat protection in main rivers on the Levels is right, but this situation probably has loads of contributory factors, two of which are record rainfall and the fact that the levels are a floodplain.