Whaley Bridge dam collapse

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-49189955

shit.

For those of you in WN and surrounding areas I've been crossing fingers and praying for you all.

Stay safe

I heard thunder earlier but no rain here yet (we are 6 miles from Whaley down the A6 towards Stockport). Keeping fingers crossed.

Forecast is now giving just a 10% chance of rain at Whaley Bridge for the rest of the evening.

There is an 80% chance of rain at 3am - and that looks heavy, but short lived.

Thats considerably different to what was forecast. It looks like the weather gods have shone so far.

It's looking very positive

The people behind meteogroup (the company who produce bbc forecasts) posted this a little while ago:

We have been so blessed with no rain this today. The showers have been to the north, south east & west, but missed us and Whaley all day. Long may it continue ...until the res is emptied.

Dreadful storm here in North Yorks, being going for 90 minutes, really heavy rain, thunder and lightening has died down a bit, lets hope it doesn't hit anywhere where it will cause major problems.

Lightning !

WE had a humdinger of a storm at 7.30. The rain was so heavy that it felt like someone was pouring a giant bucket of water over the house. It only lasted for about 20 minutes though. (South Yorkshire)

Looks as though it's all calm on the WB front at the moment!

It had rained overnight, not sure when, but hasn't rained during the day. Enjoying the peace from hardly any traffic tbh, but there are still lots of non local resident drivers trying to get up the A6 although it's closed at the WB end of Furness Vale. They're driving past at least two electronic sign boards and several signs on barriers.

Reservoir is at least 6m down and get the impression they've got it well under control now. Roads are a nightmare but a small price to pay of course!

That's good news!
Let's hope it stays dry, the necessary work can be done, and everyone can go home.

Brilliant news about the reservoir!

notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/08/04/the-whaley-bridge-flood-of-1872/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
The Whaley Bridge Flood Of 1872

So it turns out that in 1872 there WAS a flood in Whaley Bridge and further downstream. This is AFTER the dam was built. So rainfall not entirely unprecedented by the look of it.

It doesn't say anything about it being a problem with the dam though does it?

4.72 inches =108 mm of rain in 1872 over 10 hours. It seems that this time 50mm of rain fell over a period of one hour, coming on top of a fair bit of rain over the preceding days.

There's an interesting blog with some more rainfall data:
notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/08/05/whaley-bridge-update-2/

To put this into context 185mm of rain fell upland of Boscastle in 2004. Entirely different situation of course, but an interesting comparator.

Wowfudge, one of the things said about the dam was it wasn't built to survive that amount of rain fall and flow. Which is potentially isn't strictly true. The issue is more maintainence. It also suggests that freak rain isn't something new, though it may becoming uncommon. It also raises a lot of questions about building in those areas with an historic flooding risk.

may becoming less uncommon

Sorry typo

Fantastic news just now that people can now return home! The emergency services have done an amazing job on this last week. Well done to all involved and all the best to those going back home. Huge sigh of relief from down the Goyt for you all

@Bercows really?!

Yes it was just on the bbc news as breaking news just now.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-49261977
Whaley Bridge dam: Evacuated residents can return home

Ah amazing! I worked a night last night, just woke up, and don't have the bbc app on my phone. Get in!! I'm going home now!

Glad everyone can go home and there was no damage to life or property. Well done to the emergency services.