Ops-Normal.org

Weather guesser has decreed that we can look forward to the fourth flooding event for the year. Sun is shining blue but this is set to go cloudy with
torrential rain about lunchtime, and flooding is forecast to be moderate but with the saturated ground, the runoff will be substantial. La Nina can pack
its bags and po as enough is enough, people are still recovering from the major flood in June due to the lack of tradesmen and owners unable to insure
their homes due to the ginormous cost associated with flood insurance. Am off to play the waiting game!
As the old kiddies chant goes "rain, rain go away and come again another day."

After major flooding in our valley in 2005, the government introduced a scheme offering subsidised insurance at similar cost to existing insurance.

https://www.floodre.co.uk/about-us/

Insurance is not assurance (that it won't happen).
I have never bought a house anywhere that needed insurance.
And I had a record-breaking hurricane here last week, but I sustained no significant damage because I both bought and rebuilt the property to take it.
Obviously that is not possible where one inherits a property, or one gets a house at risk in order to achieve some other benefit.
So, I intend no slight to those who do have vulnerable houses for these reasons.
But I think it should always be a major consideration.
I work on the principle of never getting a house anywhere I wouldn't pitch a tent.

Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:58 pm

I work on the principle of never getting a house anywhere I wouldn't pitch a tent.

The trouble is that while I might pitch a tent in some places at some times of the year, I wouldn't do it all year round. It's a bit easier to pack up a tent and move it elsewhere for a bit.

Ultimately, insurance is a form of gambling, you're all paying into the pot and hoping someone else is going to get the payout. It works on the principle that not everyone is going to suffer misfortune, so the lucky ones pay for the unlucky ones. If everyone is going to be unlucky on a regular basis then for a significant number of them, they're going to be better off opting out and just paying for their own repairs, or moving elsewhere and avoiding even being in the game. California with its earthquakes is one where everyone is lucky most of the time, and on (fortunately) rare occasions, a large number will be unlucky. With wildfires, they're more likely to occur and in the same places every few years. The same with Florida - the probability of being clobbered by the effects of a hurricane must get close to 100% over five years. Therefore, the way insurance works, you ought to be paying a premium of 20% of the insured value plus whatever profit the insurance company wants to add on top.

"It's a hard rain's gonna fall" - actually is and has been all night. Local reservoir has never been as empty as it is right now, so rain is a Good Thing. The Fire Chief aircraft stationed at the Drop Zone all summer left last week. Despite the drought we didn't have the expected bad summer fire wise.

Rain has been suggested down here to fall on Tuesday.

Excellent feed last night.

Still raining up here. Soaked on walk into town. And again on walk back.

Afternoon folks. A bit warm. Safari camp for a few beer. A few reflectives there that was it.

They have bought a puppy to get rid of the snakes. Stupid idea. Multiple breed. A lot of training to be done. We just let the snakes get on with it. No danger unless you aggravate them which a dog will. We think dog 0 snake 1.

When we lived full time in the Philippines we had a small native dog, Blackie, who might have been better called 'Riki Tiki Tavi' of Jungle Book fame.

She took great delight in killing any snake found in the garden. About the size of a skinny Corgi but with long legs. I once saw her battle it out with a Philippine cobra. She danced around it until able to grasp it at the back of the neck where she hung on for dear life while being thrown around by a writhing, infuriated snake. This happened two or three times until she eventually killed it and presented me with the corpse and looking very pleased with herself!

She died a few years ago at the ripe age of 14 but not of snakebite.

Was admiring the flowers at church this morning: two great vases filled with Arum lilies, one of deep-blue irises and two vases of blue and white bluebells. Also a bouquet of silk flowers.

Some warmth in the early morning sun these days, very pleasant.

Well my thoughts as to us only having to endure a minor flood have been crushed with a 50 mil dump of rain last night, the low has now moved offshore
but the runoff and the extra flow from Warragamba Dam spilling at about 250 gigalitres has the river rising, so it is the old wait-and-watch game for now.
From midnight till now (10am ) the river has risen 2.5 meters, just hope it slows down a bit now the rain has stopped.

Karearea wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 08, 2022 10:58 pm

Was admiring the flowers at church this morning: two great vases filled with Arum lilies, one of deep-blue irises and two vases of blue and white bluebells. Also a bouquet of silk flowers.

I am told that green goes with any other colour. That's why leaves are the colour that they are.

So I'm told anyway.

Not at church. Shhfff!

bob2s wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 08, 2022 11:35 pm

From midnight till now (10am ) the river has risen 2.5 meters, just hope it slows down a bit now the rain has stopped.

What are your 'danger' points?

Our river breaks its banks locally @ 3.3 metres above datum and rose to 5.8 metres in 2015 (causing widespread flooding) with many dwellings flooded to depths of 1.5 metres.
The rugby pitch flood level reached up to the crossbar (3 metres above ground level).

The 2015 flood repeated the similar (slightly lower) flood event of 2005.
Locals were preparing to celebrate 10 years 'flood-free' when Storm Desmond hit in 2015.

G_CPTN wrote --What are your 'danger' points?---
8-9m means we are isolated due to all bridges being under, anything above 12m is time for us to start to make the workshop safe, the house is at 19m and the best we have experienced is 15m but a 1 in 500-year flood could see it at 20 m, don't want to see one of those.

Those figures are phenomenal.
I cannot imagine what would generate such levels for us apart from collapse of the dam at Kielder Water - the largest man-made reservoir in Northern Europe, 35 miles up-river - which contains 200 billion litres of water.

Originally built to serve the steelworks on Teesside - which closed before it was completed - and is now a leisure facility - though it does provide water to Wearside and Teesside in times of drought.

Rain stopped here after twenty four hours. Tram blowing, clear skies and cats howling. Sunday morning Going Down.

When I first started working with rivers, some of the old-timers had worked gauging the Penrith floods of 1950 & '62. I haven't checked but I think this year's floods were bigger.
It was and still is common practice to refer to floods as '1 in x hundred years' or 'X percent probability', but this is really only valid if conditions are constant, but in the case of the Hawkesbury-Nepean system, they aren't. Aside from new dams (which can be accounted for) and climate change, there has been a huge amount of construction on the flood plain, which decreases the waterway area and increases the impermeable area. Both of these elements will increase flood levels. There are currently proposals afoot to develop more land.

North of Barcelona on the Maresme the steep mountain sides running down to the sea have all been built over. Minor to moderate rainfall still descends down the old rivers and gullies, but the frequent cloudbursts (mountains, remember) tear down the new concrete roadways straight into the older traditional settlements down on the coast, in the backdoors and out the fronts of the houses, and washing parked cars out to sea. We all know the cause but nothing is done about it and town halls continue to hand out building licences to developers constructing above their communities. Or retroactively approving urbanisations built illegally.

The local properties which are subject to flooding were constructed after the arrival of the railway generated a need for housing (and a hotel) at a time before motor cars.
All, predictably, built on the flood plane - though the station itself is just beyond the extent of the flooding.
Station Road is a terrace of houses that have regularly flooded every ten years or so, along with more recent development of the Stanners (land alongside the river).
The station is separated from the village by the river with the Stanners between the station and the river.

TheGreenAnger wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 07, 2022 5:11 am

bob2s wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 07, 2022 2:17 am

This coming Sunday is the day the best car racing event of the year is held, the Bathurst 1000. The expected weather will have a significant impact
given the entrail readers' statement of up to 100mil of the wet stuff falling from the sky. The conditions on the 6k track can vary substantially, it may
be bone dry on the pit straight but pouring rain at the top of the mountain where the trickiest part of the track is, a good example is in the attachment.
The first video gives a great description of what the mountain is all about
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... t+panorama

I have watched the Bathhurst 1000 a couple of times on TV from the comfort of my little perch in the UK. That mountain section is mighty! I also used to enjoy the street race in Townsville.

Used to enjoy the action in the V8 Supercars Championship with my favourite driver being Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen, who drives sportscars in Europe from time to time, but haven't watched since the series morphed into Repco Supercars.

The Kiwi van is on form again.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/ ... -supercars