No significant rain for 15 days has meant that the water levels in the River Till and the Tilshead aquifer have begun to fall. As a consequence, the Environment Agency has removed the Flood Warning and we now have a Flood Alert in place. However, it would be premature to believe we are through the flood season just yet, and that uncertainty is likely to remain until the end of March. The rate of fall in the aquifer is presently around 2 cm a day. If levels continue to fall at this rate, we won’t be back into the normal range until 24th February. That is unlikely to be the case as continued dry weather will lead to an increase in the rate of fall and rain will lead to a reduction in the rate and if the rainfall is heavy, we may quickly move back into a flood situation. If you look at the graph below you will see that we have just dropped below the line for the 2014 flood, but look further along 2014 line and you will see it rises and falls a few centimetres until the effects of Spring kick in in late March. It seems likely that we will see a similar chain of events in 2024 with water levels potentially increasing as each Atlantic storm system carries more rain over the country..
After 4mm of rain last night, the 9th named storm of the winter, Storm Isha, hits later on today. Whilst the biggest impact will be the wind speeds, there is going to be a fair bit of rain between dusk and midnight. There will be intermittent showers on Monday and a few more showers during the rest of the week. Although there is still a lot of uncertainty in the medium range, there is at least a chance that the weather in the south of the country will be drier than the average February. If we are going to get another cold snap this winter, it is most likely to occur towards the middle of February rather than the beginning.
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