Floods

[Jack Knave]

Wouldn't it be ironic if we have a drought this summer and there's a hosepipe ban?

[Sriram]

Its probably the El Nino.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35159826

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The strongest El Nino weather cycle on record is likely to increase the threat of hunger and disease for millions of people in 2016, aid agencies say.

The weather phenomenon is set to exacerbate droughts in some areas, while increasing flooding in others.
Some of the worst impacts are likely in Africa with food shortages expected to peak in February.

This periodic weather event, which tends to drive up global temperatures and disturb weather patterns, has helped push 2015 into the record books as the world's warmest year.

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[Hope]

Its probably the El Nino.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35159826

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The strongest El Nino weather cycle on record is likely to increase the threat of hunger and disease for millions of people in 2016, aid agencies say.

The weather phenomenon is set to exacerbate droughts in some areas, while increasing flooding in others.
Some of the worst impacts are likely in Africa with food shortages expected to peak in February.

This periodic weather event, which tends to drive up global temperatures and disturb weather patterns, has helped push 2015 into the record books as the world's warmest year.

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The problem with its being the El Nino alone is that it doesn't usually last for as long as this is expected to do - well over a 12-month.  That is why the experts seem to be saying its a combination of El Nino and climate change.

[torridon]

Sorry, but I'm not sure any politician whilst I've been alive can really be regarded as 'Actually giv(ing) a damn'.  They're generally too concerned about ensuring that their party, and if possible themselves, gets elected/re-elected at the next election, resulting in extremely short-term thinking and planning. 

This is not so much a weakness in our politicians themselves, but a weakness in the concept of pariliamentary democracy.  All western democracies are debilitated by the force majeur of the electoral cycle, which favours easy short term policy making over difficult long term vision. Democracy may have freed us from the tyranny of kings and despots but it ties us to another monster, populist sentiment.

[jeremyp]

Money or no money, if my house and prized belongings had been destroyed I'd be happy to see Sturgeon and absolutely delighted to see Corbyn - I'd think I'd be meeting somebody who actually gave a damn rather than some shiny-faced Etonian Tory boy parading his puffy, shiny red face in front of the cameras.

Of the three of them, only Cameron currently has enough power to do anything about flood damage. If you met Sturgeon or Corbyn now, it would be because they are on mission to gather votes through photo ops with "the poor flood victims the government has let down".

[Spud]

The "huge quantities of water where it shouldn't be" aspect seems to be the current front runner.

I'm lucky because our house is on a hill and has no risk of flooding. It has only once been cut off, in my memory, along with the whole town, by snow. That was for 2 weeks several years ago. No damage was done though.

It must be dreadful for the families whose homes have been flooded. But I do wonder why people have this attitude of, "this water shouldn't be here"? Is that not trying to deny responsibility for what the good book calls foolishness- that is, building houses near water?

[Red Giant]

Democracy may have freed us from the tyranny of kings and despots but it ties us to another monster, populist sentiment.

And yet, at the end of the day, the voters either like them or not, and what they do hardly seems to make much difference.  When the tide begins to turn, the things they say and do will become catalysts for the changing mood, but at that point, they can't win, and if they said and did the opposite, the effect would be the same.

[Rhiannon]

I'm lucky because our house is on a hill and has no risk of flooding. It has only once been cut off, in my memory, along with the whole town, by snow. That was for 2 weeks several years ago. No damage was done though.

It must be dreadful for the families whose homes have been flooded. But I do wonder why people have this attitude of, "this water shouldn't be here"? Is that not trying to deny responsibility for what the good book calls foolishness- that is, building houses near water?

Looking at the age of many of the properties affected I'd say they'd done ok for a couple of hundred years or so, flood plain or not.

[Shaker]

Of the three of them, only Cameron currently has enough power to do anything about flood damage. If you met Sturgeon or Corbyn now, it would be because they are on mission to gather votes through photo ops with "the poor flood victims the government has let down".

Sturgeon not only doesn't have but can't have my vote as I don't live in Scotland.

Corbyn has my vote anyway as he's a proper back-to-basics dyed-in-the-red flag-waving International-singing socialist, as am I, leader of what is actually supposed to be a socialist party.

Would they be in the wrong so to do?

[Shaker]

Wouldn't it be ironic if we have a drought this summer and there's a hosepipe ban?

No; it wouldn't be ironic at all. It would be half-arsed, half-cocked, ill-prepared, under-funded, ill-funded, badly-managed Britain.

[Hope]

Corbyn has my vote anyway as he's a proper back-to-basics dyed-in-the-red flag-waving International-singing socialist, as am I, leader of what is actually supposed to be a socialist party.

Would they be in the wrong so to do?

Well, they could get their knickers in a twist - Corbyn has already done so by complaining about the Tory's electoral guru's knighthood - when his own party's last such guru was elevated to the Lords!!

I'm not saying that I believe that Crosby's gong is warranted; just that Faulkner got a 'higher' one!!

[Shaker]

Well, they could get their knickers in a twist - Corbyn has already done so by complaining about the Tory's electoral guru's knighthood - when his own party's last such guru was elevated to the Lords!!

Corbyn's thirty-two years in Parliament have been characterised, as any media article that includes his name will tell you, by independent free thought and the willingness to follow a humane and moral vision of what the good society should be regardless of party diktats, so it shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone that his own views are not in accord with the Tory-lite, pseudo-Thatcher wing of the historically socialist party whose leadership he so thumpingly won a few months ago.

[Bubbles]

I'm lucky because our house is on a hill and has no risk of flooding. It has only once been cut off, in my memory, along with the whole town, by snow. That was for 2 weeks several years ago. No damage was done though.

It must be dreadful for the families whose homes have been flooded. But I do wonder why people have this attitude of, "this water shouldn't be here"? Is that not trying to deny responsibility for what the good book calls foolishness- that is, building houses near water?

It doesn't always follow, a village near me got flooded one year, and that was half way up a hill too.

The water built up behind something 

[Samuel]

As always it depends very much on the underlying g geology and water table. At times like this the water table gets so high the water literally has nowhere to go except running over the surface. It's also likely that dormant springs will become active. Depending on the make up of the bedrock springs can indeed exist half way up a hill. My area was flooded in 2012 and I heard of one house high above the valley floor that had to be abandoned because a spring literally burst through the floor of their living room.

With no respite in the rain the level of groundwater will remain high meaning even modest rainfall can cause / prolong flooding. It really is terrible and there are a great many reasons this has happened. Climate change and El nino,  but also our land management and farming and planning practices play a part.

[Hope]

As always it depends very much on the underlying g geology and water table.

It will also be interesting to see whether the natural aquifers that lie under many parts of the UK will be in any way fully replenished by this excessive rainfall.

[Hope]

Corbyn's thirty-two years in Parliament have been characterised, as any media article that includes his name will tell you, by independent free thought and the willingness to follow a humane and moral vision of what the good society should be regardless of party diktats, so it shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone that his own views are not in accord with the Tory-lite, pseudo-Thatcher wing of the historically socialist party whose leadership he so thumpingly won a few months ago.

Just because he probably opposed said elevation, he still belongs to and now leads a party that took part in such shenanigans.  His independence of approach doesn't mean that he doesn't have to carry the burden created by previous leaders. 

[Hope]

An interesting article on the causes of flooding from the BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35199963

[wigginhall]

Good points about flooding on high ground.  I used to live near the Pennines, and you get this odd thing, that quite often as you walk uphill, conditions get wetter, and at the top, positively aquatic.  So to find dry ground, you have to go downhill.  As Samuel said, to do with lots of things, water table, aquifer, ground conditions, vegetation, agriculture, etc.

[Jack Knave]

No; it wouldn't be ironic at all. It would be half-arsed, half-cocked, ill-prepared, under-funded, ill-funded, badly-managed Britain.

Well, that is right. The Water companies franchise has been set up in a way that doesn't pay them to build reservoirs and it makes no odds to them whether there is a drought or not as they get paid anyway; and we can't go to another supplier. 

[Jack Knave]

It doesn't always follow, a village near me got flooded one year, and that was half way up a hill too.

The water built up behind something 

Someone forgot to pull out the plug in the communal outdoor bath!!!

[jeremyp]

Would they be in the wrong so to do?

In the sense that they and their attendant media circuses would be getting in the way of the clean up efforts, they would be wrong. However, it may just be that I don't watch enough TV but I haven't seen either of them doing any of that.