Storm Babet - Oct 17th 2023

JP Liz V1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121251013#Comment_121251013

East Cork, Midleton especially very bad also Glanmire

pauldry

Sligo leading a charmed life tonight. Very heavy rain just to our East keeps missing us so wer only getting 1mm an hour instead of 5mm.

RetroEncabulator

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121257265#Comment_121257265

Do we even know how much rain fell in Midleton today?

Markcheese

In hindsight a red warning would have been safer - it wouldn't have done much for businesses or most of the homes , maybe towns need graded flood warnings and alerts ,- if you live in a flood prone area you'd subscribe to a flood alert system ..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121257329#Comment_121257329

I wouldn't know for Midleton itself, but up to 100mm fell quite widely.

Markcheese

The timing of the flood posed an extreme risk yesterday -

The floods started just before 1 , kids left school at one on Wednesday, they re-opened my young fellas school at 1.20,but most of the kids had left

I went off looking for my young fella,

At 1 o'clock i got wet to my calves and a bit of a current ,

20 mins later i was up to my thighs , 10 mins after to my waist , and a serious current , and i still hadnt gound him - ( he showed up 30 mins later ) ,

But i was getting very worried by then - 20 mins later it was shoulder high in places on the main street - and the water coming down drury lane wss a raging torrent..

pureza

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121257329#Comment_121257329

This is the issue

No matter how many stations you have,you're getting just a broad measure and will miss extremes that may be higher locally than recorded at the nearest station

Whilst if these floods happened in Dublin but without a red,the very fact a million plus people would have been impacted,Glasnevin would have had to endure much more criticism

Their defence on morning ireland was that parts of Cork only had yellow level rain amounts

If ever there was a justification for applying warnings to areas of counties,this is a reason to do so

Meanwhile still some showery rain in Arklow this morning and a lot of surface flooding

Total for the episode here 71mm

Month total gone up to 115mm

SleetAndSnow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121257635#Comment_121257635

What an awful defence, can't believe they said that? Also shows the problem with only using specific metrics, and not taking potential impacts into account. Just because some areas had yellow amounts, doesn't mean that rivers in those areas burst their banks and flooded the towns anyway.

pauldry

Total in Sligo for Babet is now 44mm after 24mm has fallen in the past 12 or so hours.

Monthly total still only 72mm as apart from this and last Friday wev only had 13mm

SeaBreezes

Is the worst past now? Has Babet moved on?

giveitholly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121257611#Comment_121257611

That must of been a scary hour for you,thank god everything worked out OK and just shows how easily something can go wrong and a life lost

RetroEncabulator

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121257635#Comment_121257635

Had it hit just a few km further west and south it would have been in Cork City centre or extremely densely populated parts of the inner suburbs.

Had it hit Little Island you’re talking about one of the largest clusters of employment in the state ~40,000 ppl.

Glanmire is a suburb, within the city council area nowadays, albeit on the edge of the city and Midleton. The official populations of those places often aren’t including large areas of housing around and between them. There are at least 20,000 people around Glanmire for example.

It hit a very significantly populated area on the edge of Cork City.

This is why I was saying earlier their granularity for Cork is ridiculous. For weather alerts it should be split into probably 4 areas. The county covers far too wide a geographical area to make the definition useful, and there’s a massive distinction between some of those areas in terms of exposure to storms vs cold weather etc etc

Markcheese

Honestly , local councils areas should have a flood alert system , possibly colour coded for expected severity ,taking into account rainfall/tidal conditions time of the year ect - so if midleton gives a yellow warning ,people at distillery end of main street know to beware ( small floods several times a year ..i think the council already gives a heads up to these businesses) ,

aidanodr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121257329#Comment_121257329

This in Youghal

https://twitter.com/CarlowWeather/status/1714738697814344106

We should also consider something other than amounts - The Intensity

aidanodr

The post mortem, the questions

https://twitter.com/CarlowWeather/status/1714924895316938765

One of the replies to that tweet:

"Bad weather will happen. Given the flooding was to one specific area rather than widespread, this looks like a local infrastructure issue primarily!"

Amazing how flipant people can be. And also ill informed and then from there making wide sweeping statements w/o first hand knowledge. Smacks of arrogance also

This "specific area" comment is wholly down to media coverage of this I imagine. RTE straight away have latched onto midleton and then imply that East Cork, a few towns there is where the action was and no where else

mcburns07

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121257643#Comment_121257643

The warning system doesn't seem to take into account the current state of affairs either. If we had 12cm of rain after a month of drought the impact is going to be totally different to 12cm of rain on top of 20-25cm over the previous month (Which is approx what transpired yesterday).

aidanodr

We made LBC:

https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1714941879769280569

pauldry

Up to 52mm from this now in Sligo. 23mm since midnight

InAtFullBack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121257984#Comment_121257984

But is that response really flippant?

It's the lack of adaptation that's biting in these areas. Yesterday there was a video doing the rounds of a small mini-digger cutting a wider trench across a road to relieve the water. Why are the rivers and culverts not being cleared so when the heavy rains arrive the excess water can quickly get to sea. How many storm drains on the roads yesterday are chocked with gunk and leaves?

In fairness now, the governments of many shades have been only too delighted to cream huge amounts of money in the form of carbon taxes for nearly two decades now and very little has been spent. If pointing this out is 'flippant' then it gives the authorities carte blanche to continue as is and nothing will get done - so expect further flooding events and leave it to insurance companies to pay for the clean up costs each time.

Then we'll moan about the gouging insurance companies in due course.

Carlow Weather was on radio a few weeks back and was demonised for pointing out that much much more needs to be spent on adaptation and that we need a proper flood alert system. One of the high horses of the green movement lambasted him. And look at what happened just a few weeks later.

If everyone in Ireland was zero emissions from tomorrow onwards, we are still going to get weather events such as yesterday - so all the spending on mitigation isn't worth a dime if emissions continue to grow elsewhere in the world. It's days like yesterday that drive that message home to any logical thinking person. Yet a green councillor Liam Quaide in Cork tweeted yesterday "Climate change is here. Absolutely vital that we double down on mitigation & adaptation." Talk about gaslighting people. Same cabal of councillors have down through the years stalled any meaningful works to protect properties built on flood plains.

aidanodr

Point taken @InAtFullBack .. I suppose I was reading that tweet reply and focusing on the "Given the flooding was to one specific area rather than widespread" - Sounded like from somebody who may not live in the Cork area where the flooding was widespread. Maybe flipant is the wrong word, but i see this kind of thing here at boards weather and elsewhere online and just find it annoying - the shur its all calm where I am so what are you talking about 100kms away with your floods and storm type of thing OR making authoritive judgements from affar type thing

Dazler97

They admitted the need to do better

Dazler97

More warnings for Cork, kerry and Limerick

.Donegal.

Yellow - Rain Warning for Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Derry

Showers or longer spells of rain have the potential to lead to some disruption, particularly for eastern areas

Valid: 03:00 Friday 20/10/2023 to 09:00 Saturday 

tromtipp

This may be the wrong thread to ask this, am happy to go elsewhere is re-directed, BUT - what effect would this rainfall have had if it had happened ca 30 kilometers further west, upstream of Inniscarra dam? I know the ESB people are pretty clued-in and do their best to prepare when extreme conditions are forecast, but would they have been able to cope with this? The 2009 flood caused millions of euros worth of damage. Cities downstream of dams are very vulnerable to extreme weather.

Rebelbrowser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121258337#Comment_121258337

I haven't seen the data but this did affect the City and I assume west of it. Certainly in my suburban location the rainfall was epic. I'm not sure the rainfall was necessarily that much worse around Midleton, subject to correction

pauldry

UK has a live feed for their Floods on bbc news website

Rebelbrowser

Separately, very interesting bit in that Independent article. Talking about a salon called HS2 in Midleton, which had 4 feet of water, the owner says

"...The HS2 team had met with the Council yesterday and asked if they would need sandbags. Ms O’Donnell said they were told everything was OK and they “weren’t on high alert”.

Within half an hour of that conversation, water entered the shop through the front door...."

Did the council decide that themselves or who was guiding them? Someone got it very wrong anyway....

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121258314#Comment_121258314

Unless falling on very waterlogged ground, Yellow warnings really only mean 'bring a raincoat with you'.

They should be scrapped - by all means keep some level of warning for severe events but no need for what is common in an Atlantic climate.

Dazler97

Angus in Scotland is being evacuated, red warning doesn't kick in till 6pm today here

aidanodr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121258524#Comment_121258524

Yip .. i would say they have looked at Ireland yesterday and applying the lesson we didnt

https://twitter.com/MeteoredUK/status/1714975238377623905

https://twitter.com/DaveDooganSNP/status/1714967014416998911