about rain reporting?

[bagelmonkey]

AIBU to think that the news/weather people should stop commenting about short time periods when we have apparently had "a month's worth of rain"?
It seems to be happening so frequently that maybe they should consider that the calculations they're using for how much rain we're supposed to have need to be updated. I mean, if we're getting "a months worth of rain" in 2 days, surely the rest of the month should be dry??

Well after this year there will be a new average taking into account this years rain. They can only tell us the expected rainfall based on historical averages the more rain we have the next year those averages are higher.

"I mean, if we're getting "a months worth of rain" in 2 days, surely the rest of the month should be dry??"

Er, seriously?

Surely it just means that on those 2 days we are having the same amount of rain we would expect in a full month in average, based on previous data from past years.

It doesn't mean it will eb dry the rest of the month.

Like already said, after this year it looks like the averages will be increasing a bit.

By using the term 'a month's worth of rain', the weather forecasters are trying to make it sound dramatic. Floods could be controlled better or even so that they do not happen.

I have written to my MP, the Prime Minister and DEFRA and sggested that ditches around farm land, streams, rills, gullies alongside roads, ponds etc everywhere should be dredged as frequently as they used to be to enable the excess rainwater to run along them.

I received a standard reply from the lot of them. One of the mentioned items that I spotted in their letter was that buildings are erected too close to waterways to enable dredging machinery (JCB type things) to travel along the sides of the rivers to dredge and build up levees with the silt.

I know what I'm talking about because we used to have a house, built in 1964, with the back garden leading down to a brook and the farmer who had the land opposite used to come round annually with his JCB to dredge and levee. We did have the odd overflow at the bottom of the long garden but nothing like we see these days.

I've even written to my current local council about a 3-4 foot deep brook alongside the A4 where plants have been allowed to grow and fill it and trees now live there. If vegetation is not eliminated from these waterways, there is no room for the rainwater to flow along.

Granted, it's the responsibility of landowners to dredge their own property but it should be more frequent especially with buildings on flood plains.

I attended an exhibition of a proposed large development on a flood plain here (Kennet) and asked a demonstrator where the water table would be displaced to if foundations etc were built to its depth (in the planning application). I received a non-committal reply but I stood there and asked the question three times with a crowd drawing around with interest and he finally said that the displaced water table would go into the nearest town centre because the Kennet would not be able to cope. The planning application never got anywhere and the land is now a SSSI.

Remember the news about the recent floods in Bangkok. I had a postcard sent to me in 1970 something which described how canals there had been filled in to allow building work to take place. I sent copies to my MP etc and they took no notice.

Did anyone read to the end of this? Sorry. Sometimes, I can't stop writing once I start.

Totally agree Rule - it's like we've become stupid . We always had those ditches, god knows why we dont have them maintained.

Maintaining waterways, however large or small, is a task that could be done by those who have Community Service orders. But they're not. Where is an active brain who could take this forward? I just can't do this sort of thing any more.

I just meant that "a month's worth of rain" seems a bit of a stupid unit of rain to use.

Rainfall data is analysed and reviewed constantly. This summer will change the stats considerably ( I work for the Environment Agency, but still sititng at home with everything I could carry upstairs and v anxious about water outside).

Its the easiest unit for most people to understand. It means that if you look at the rainfall for June for the last x number of years, you can see how much rain one can reasonably expect for the whole of June. If that much rain falls in one day, you have had a "months worth of rain".
See?

Am on maternity leave. Realised last post made Env Agency look like lazy shysters.