News
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Interesting tweets on Hurricane Ophelia
The last hurricane that transitioned into a post tropical storm to hit Ireland was Hurricane Debbie 1961 #Ophelia #HurricaneOphelia pic.twitter.com/EjLPTjQhXm — Deric Ó hArtagáinTV3 (@deric_hartigan) October 15, 2017 #HurricaneOphelia is beginning to fall apart & transition into a “post-tropical cyclone”. This means it’s loosing the eye, & many other…
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A perspective on Hurricane Ophelia
Hurricane Ophelia is approaching the UK, and due to cross Ireland tomorrow (Monday 16th October 2017), exactly 30 years on from the infamous ‘Great Storm’ of 1987 often associated with TV weather presenter Michael Fish. It is the furthest east category 3 Hurricane ever recorded. Here at SurgeWatch we are keeping a close eye on the track of the storm and the storm surge that will be…
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Event in Focus: October 1923 - 'Hurricane' stops shipping
by Sebastian Pitman On this day 94 years ago England was in the midst of large scale flooding and ‘hurricane force’ winds as a result of a storm originating in the mid-Atlantic. While centred over the Norwegian Sea, the storm reached a central pressure of approximately 965 mbar on 9th October. The winds were predominantly of westerly orientation over much of the British…
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Event in Focus: September 1984 - How air pressure controls storm surge
by Sebastian Pitman On this day thirty-three years ago, the Solent reportedly experienced the highest tides for 40 years. The result was small scale coastal flooding in Hampshire, but also in areas around the Thames estuary. The flooding was far less pronounced than would be expected for such large tidal heights, but why? The answer lies in the control exerted…
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Flood warning systems in the UK
by Sebastian Pitman Much of SurgeWatch’s work is concentrated on recording flood events that have already taken place as there is currently no consistent UK approach to doing so, but how does the UK warn people of flood events? The Government run a Flood Information Service (FIS), which outlines any imminent or occurring flood events throughout the UK. Through…
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SurgeWatch needs you!
SurgeWatch needs your help – our aim is to map every recorded UK coastal flooding event in as much details as possible. Currently, our archives go back to one event in 1099! In order to build as full a picture as possible of flood events, we kindly ask for your photos of coastal flooding events. You can see a few uploads here. If you’d like to…
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Event in Focus: September 1969 - A city at sea level
by Sebastian Pitman The event in focus this week is the North Sea flooding that occurred during this month 48 years ago, inundating Hull, Great Yarmouth and some of the Shetland Islands. Hull has historically suffered badly during flood events, as over 90% of the historic city lies 2 m below the maximum recorded tides in the River Hull and Humber.
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Event in Focus: April 1985 - A storm in the 'calm' season
by Sebastian Pitman In a recent post, we outlined to you how surge-induced coastal flooding in the UK predominantly occurs (91 % of the time) between the months of September and March. Today we’re going to highlight one serious (Category 3) event from recent times that occurred outside of that window, and caused widespread flooding and disruption. On 4th April…