Clifden Flooding

Storm 10 · 02-09-2020 10:30am #1

Main roads blocked and housing estates flooded after torrential overnight rain in Co Galway

https://galwaybayfm.ie/galway-bay-fm-news-desk/houses-evacuated-in-clifden-after-owenglen-river-overtops/

DOCARCH · 02-09-2020 10:45am

Looks rough!

Silver-Tiger · 02-09-2020 10:52am

https://twitter.com/JudithFaherty/status/1301084019468234753

:eek:

Oscar Bravo · 02-09-2020 10:53am

Hope everyone is ok over there. Some serious damage has been done

Storm 10 · 02-09-2020 12:01pm

More pics and video here

https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0902/1162709-weather/

timmyntc · 02-09-2020 12:51pm

Apparently sitka spruce plantations and associated drainage works a few km upstream of Clifden are likely to have contributed - previously boggy land wouldn't have drained so quickly.

Hoboo · 02-09-2020 12:54pm

Silver-Tiger wrote: »

https://twitter.com/JudithFaherty/status/1301084019468234753

:eek:

First time ever my mouth has actually dropped open, holy ****.

Harry Palmr · 02-09-2020 12:55pm

Was this forecast?

Hoboo · 02-09-2020 12:56pm

timmyntc wrote: »

Apparently sitka spruce plantations and associated drainage works a few km upstream of Clifden are likely to have contributed - previously boggy land wouldn't have drained so quickly.

Would boggy land not already be saturated and worse? I've no idea, just an assumption.

Harry Palmr · 02-09-2020 1:01pm

Hoboo wrote: »

Would boggy land not already be saturated and worse? I've no idea, just an assumption.

It's the difference between a sponge (boggy land) and a cloth (plantation land) one can absorb a lot and release it slowly the other is saturated very quickly and absorbs no more

pauldry · 02-09-2020 1:16pm

These 1 in 40 year events seem to be occurring 1 in 40 days now.

Storm 10 · 02-09-2020 1:24pm

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Was this forecast?

Connacht was not included in last nights warning it went up very quick this morning but either way what could you have done with that amount of rain. I never saw such colors that were on the radar in the early hours.

Harry Palmr · 02-09-2020 1:26pm

So they failed to predict the track of the most intense rainfall.

Storm 10 · 02-09-2020 1:32pm

Harry Palmr wrote: »

So they failed to predict the track of the most intense rainfall.

Love to know how much rain fell last night must have been some amount to do that

Hawthorn Tree · 02-09-2020 1:36pm

Storm 10 wrote: »

Love to know how much rain fell last night must have been some amount to do that

Not much before midnight but then 2 heavy hours after that at Mace Head.

3am report was 8mm
5am report was 7.5mm

snaps · 02-09-2020 1:36pm

Has Clifden ever flooded like this before?

sryanbruen · 02-09-2020 1:40pm

Connemara National Park recorded 59mm between midnight and 8 a.m. this morning with a daily total of 59.6mm to now.

Maam Valley had 47mm in the same period with a daily total of 54.8mm to now.

https://wow.met.ie/

watlantic · 02-09-2020 1:52pm

Renvyle (north Connemara) had 48.3mm up to now. Newport in Mayo 39.6mm while I'm at 33.5mm now and it's just starting lash down again.

Gonzo · 02-09-2020 1:55pm

those showers look very intense moving into Galway and Mayo.They could easily dump another 5 to 10mm of rainfall on top of everything that fell last night.

Assetbacked · 02-09-2020 2:01pm

Terrible not including Galway in the weather warning. Only updated at 9am but we had heavy rain overnight (Letterfrack) and had floods already by that time.

Storm 10 · 02-09-2020 2:21pm

Gonzo wrote: »

those showers look very intense moving into Galway and Mayo.They could easily dump another 5 to 10mm of rainfall on top of everything that fell last night.

Jez just checked them now and they are growing in intensity could be a lot more flooding, hope not heart goes out to anyone who gets their house damaged by weather.

Storm 10 · 02-09-2020 2:29pm

snaps wrote: »

Has Clifden ever flooded like this before?

Some person on local radio who lives in Clifden said that the river has never flooded like this in his lifetime, so something wrong upstream

ednwireland · 02-09-2020 2:31pm

40mm in SW Donegal so far today

Nabber · 02-09-2020 2:36pm

pauldry wrote: »

These 1 in 40 year events seem to be occurring 1 in 40 days now.

Some blame being laid on plantations upstream

https://twitter.com/stiofanwalsh/status/1301105224250208261?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1301105224250208261%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.broadsheet.ie%2F2020%2F09%2F02%2Fmeanwhile-in-clifden%2F

ednwireland · 02-09-2020 2:44pm

http://slowtheflow.net/hardcastle-crags-our-most-successful-project-to-date/

they are looking seriously at issues like this in the steep sided valleys in west yorkshire

Coillte never seem to learn anything.

Hoboo · 02-09-2020 2:50pm

Harry Palmr wrote: »

It's the difference between a sponge (boggy land) and a cloth (plantation land) one can absorb a lot and release it slowly the other is saturated very quickly and absorbs no more

Thanks for explaining, never knew that.

ratracer · 02-09-2020 3:23pm

ednwireland wrote: »

http://slowtheflow.net/hardcastle-crags-our-most-successful-project-to-date/

they are looking seriously at issues like this in the steep sided valleys in west yorkshire

Coillte never seem to learn anything.

Coillte, and by extension the Irish taxpayer are currently paying €15k a day in fines to the EU for the last 3-4 months for the poor management of uplands in Derrybrien in South Galway, which has been responsible for flooding there for years since the building of wind farms.

Thelonious Monk · 02-09-2020 3:33pm

They've been warning about this for ages. Our bare uplands and stripped bogs will only lead to more and more of this.

Popoutman · 02-09-2020 4:30pm

timmyntc wrote: »

Apparently sitka spruce plantations and associated drainage works a few km upstream of Clifden are likely to have contributed - previously boggy land wouldn't have drained so quickly.

The forestry plantations will have reduced the floodwater peak from what it would have been otherwise - the root systems slow down the runoff. Now, if there was a large swathe of recently felled forestry, that would revert the behaviour to pre-forestry runoff speeds.

Bogs can take in a lot of water for sure, but only up to a certain rate. Above that rainfall rate the extra runs straight off. Source? I've a mate who is a forestry manager, and I've also observed this behaviour after 25 years of watching floodwater levels on Irish streams with my kayaking background.

I would suspect that if it were not for the forestry work, there would have been a mudflow/bogflow situation with the peat mobilising similar to that at the Dawn of Hope Bridge in Sligo and that would have been significantly worse for the Clifden residents.

Popoutman · 02-09-2020 4:34pm

Also - the videos linked above would have been *so* much better in landscape mode instead of the dumb portrait mode most people record in. We would then have been able to get a better scale of the damage and destruction without a need to pan around as much.

Storm 10 · 02-09-2020 4:38pm

Popoutman wrote: »

Also - the videos linked above would have been *so* much better in landscape mode instead of the dumb portrait mode most people record in. We would then have been able to get a better scale of the damage and destruction without a need to pan around as much.

It's beyond me why people film in portrait mode it's a waste of a good capture of any incident

timmyntc · 02-09-2020 4:57pm

Popoutman wrote: »

The forestry plantations will have reduced the floodwater peak from what it would have been otherwise - the root systems slow down the runoff. Now, if there was a large swathe of recently felled forestry, that would revert the behaviour to pre-forestry runoff speeds.

Bogs can take in a lot of water for sure, but only up to a certain rate. Above that rainfall rate the extra runs straight off. Source? I've a mate who is a forestry manager, and I've also observed this behaviour after 25 years of watching floodwater levels on Irish streams with my kayaking background.

I would suspect that if it were not for the forestry work, there would have been a mudflow/bogflow situation with the peat mobilising similar to that at the Dawn of Hope Bridge in Sligo and that would have been significantly worse for the Clifden residents.

Forestry would reduce peak flow - except for the drainage ditches which vastly speed up the rate of water runoff.
I'm not familiar with any of the forestry near clifden, but those I've seen in the past across the country usually have ditches dug for drainage and other reasons - stops the forest floor getting waterlogged in heavy rain, but shifts the problem elsewhere.

This exact kind of works caused a big bogflow in Leitrim earlier in the year

sryanbruen · 02-09-2020 5:08pm

Radar estimates say between 80-130mm fell locally in 12 hours.

https://twitter.com/ScottDuncanWX/status/1301189906337800193?s=20

flazio · 02-09-2020 5:28pm

Met Eireann dropped the ball on this one. Mind you it doesn't look like IWC did much better.

Gaoth Laidir · 02-09-2020 6:08pm

flazio wrote: »

Met Eireann dropped the ball on this one. Mind you it doesn't look like IWC did much better.

Met Éireann did forecast heavy rain, leading to some spot flooding. The Clifden event was due to a combination of runoff of orographic enhancement of rain rates and land usage issues. Surrounding areas didnt have any problem. Nearby Mace Head had only 25 mm overnight.

As for IWC, he won't be happy about missing that one given that he recently claimed that he is more qualified in Meteorology than anyone in Met Éireann. I shít you not.

Hawthorn Tree · 02-09-2020 6:31pm

Connemara is amazing after nights of heavy rain. The mountain streams come alive and you can drive through the valleys and marvel at the numerous waterfalls.

Storm 10 · 02-09-2020 7:04pm

Not a mention of the rain that hit Clifden on the forecast just said warnings still in place forgot to mention Connacht only got the warning at 9am today, now if this had hit Dublin

nthclare · 02-09-2020 8:55pm

If you ever walk through these modern plantations of forest's you'll notice that the ground is hard and doesn't absorb anything, there's no undergrowth or different canopy's, shrubs and fern's etc they soak up the moisture and the rain is distributed naturally.

Just your mundane evergreens and that's typical of the mentality of the greed going on in this county, ah sure lads plant away,we'll see the fruit of our success in the future...
Green shoots and all that stuff.

Mess around with nature and you'll see how it bites back.

There's a lot of these forest's in Clare too and the run off is poisonous to river's and lakes.
But dare you suggest that and you'll have the pitch forks out.

There's no such thing as a risk assessment or how these artificial woods will impact the environment or whatever is in its path.
A Horticulture student from the 80's and 90's would know about Risk assessment and how topography works.

Whatever they're teaching now in forestry course's and horticulture definitely isn't as practical as it was.

No doubt this is going to create a lot of finger wagging in Clifden.
A canopy forest layer is there for a reason...

FACEPALM

Villain · 02-09-2020 9:12pm

It is a bit odd how Galway was left out of the warning, ARPEGE model forecast was pretty good for it:

https://twitter.com/carlowweather/status/1301186494275694592?s=21

Oneiric 3 · 02-09-2020 9:44pm

More rain fell here in this eastern part of Galway (which wasn't that much compared to Connemara) in the last 24 hours than from 'Emma'. We got a yellow rainfall warning for Emma, but none for today's event, except when it was already in full swing.

I'm not blaming Met Eireann for this as the models right up to this were all over the place, but once again it shows that these county specific warnings are useless and for large western counties such as Galway, just too encompassing. The climate of this part of Galway, and even more so as you go further east into the country, has more in common with that of the midlands than the actual west coast, which is always prone to the feeling the full impacts of the Atlantic's tantrums.

Oneiric 3 · 02-09-2020 9:51pm

Rainfall totals since 1am (up to 9pm) on all of the reporting stations on the Met Eireann 'WOW' site:

ednwireland · 02-09-2020 10:06pm

upto 49.4 for sw donegal now

jetfiremuck · 02-09-2020 10:16pm

there is another depression leaving the coast of North Carolina on its way. Unless there is a serious discussion and funding to dredge the rivers which not ideal is the least intrusive method for offering some cushion to water outflows. tree plantations etc are not going to revert to pre planted state anytime soon. Also consider the underlying damage of fast flowing rivers on embankments and structures.

Birdnuts · 02-09-2020 10:18pm

Popoutman wrote: »

The forestry plantations will have reduced the floodwater peak from what it would have been otherwise - the root systems slow down the runoff. Now, if there was a large swathe of recently felled forestry, that would revert the behaviour to pre-forestry runoff speeds.

Bogs can take in a lot of water for sure, but only up to a certain rate. Above that rainfall rate the extra runs straight off. Source? I've a mate who is a forestry manager, and I've also observed this behaviour after 25 years of watching floodwater levels on Irish streams with my kayaking background.

I would suspect that if it were not for the forestry work, there would have been a mudflow/bogflow situation with the peat mobilising similar to that at the Dawn of Hope Bridge in Sligo and that would have been significantly worse for the Clifden residents.

The peat in the Sligo case had been damaged already by forestry and windfarm works. Spruce forests are shallow rooted and prone to windthrow on blanket bog so provide little in the way of stability. Also they kill all the ground vegetation which makes the area even more vulnerable to such events

Birdnuts · 02-09-2020 10:24pm

jetfiremuck wrote: »

there is another depression leaving the coast of North Carolina on its way. Unless there is a serious discussion and funding to dredge the rivers which not ideal is the least intrusive method for offering some cushion to water outflows. tree plantations etc are not going to revert to pre planted state anytime soon. Also consider the underlying damage of fast flowing rivers on embankments and structures.

Failed spectacularly in Bantry only a few weeks ago - we need a proper catchment approach including restoration of natural wetlands. The reasons Naas and Clondalkin do not flood anymore is thanx to the intallation of Reed beds and spillover ponds in upstream parks. Sadly the OPW appears to prefer wasting vast amounts of tax payers money on costly and destructive "hard" solutions that damage fisheries etc.

Hawthorn Tree · 02-09-2020 10:43pm

Storm 10 wrote: »

Not a mention of the rain that hit Clifden on the forecast just said warnings still in place forgot to mention Connacht only got the warning at 9am today, now if this had hit Dublin

I doubt people in Clifden would have done anything different whatsoever if they had been included in a rain warning. They see a lot of rain. And warnings.

Gaoth Laidir · 02-09-2020 10:54pm

We will, of course, have the usual suspects on claiming this is no doubt linked to greenhouse gases, bla bla. The same way certain commentators were attributing the Cork flooding to it too, no questions asked. If Clifden has had the worst flood in living memory it is not due to a changing climate, in the same way that that flash flood in Boscastle a few years ago was not linked to a changing climate. But wait, soon enough we'll have Professor Sweeney from Maynooth on Morning Ireland saying that Clifden is yet another sign of our effect on the climate.

TheRiverman · 02-09-2020 11:01pm

Storm 10 wrote: »

It's beyond me why people film in portrait mode it's a waste of a good capture of any incident

TV stations and social media need to ban them.They look so ridiculous.

Birdnuts · 02-09-2020 11:11pm

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

We will, of course, have the usual suspects on claiming this is no doubt linked to greenhouse gases, bla bla. The same way certain commentators were attributing the Cork flooding to it too, no questions asked. If Clifden has had the worst flood in living memory it is not due to a changing climate, in the same way that that flash flood in Boscastle a few years ago was not linked to a changing climate. But wait, soon enough we'll have Professor Sweeney from Maynooth on Morning Ireland saying that Clifden is yet another sign of our effect on the climate.

Indeed - sadly it deflects from the land use issues and poor planning that are by far the main elements that contributes to such events

Meteorite58 · 02-09-2020 11:40pm

That was some rainfall, frightening torrent of water in the video clips.

Will be interesting to hear if there is conclusive evidence of factors which contributed to such a flash flood or was it just a display of Mother Nature at it's fiercest dropping so much rain over the mountains in a relatively short amount of time.

Donegal Storm · 03-09-2020 12:50am

nthclare wrote: »

If you ever walk through these modern plantations of forest's you'll notice that the ground is hard and doesn't absorb anything, there's no undergrowth or different canopy's, shrubs and fern's etc they soak up the moisture and the rain is distributed naturally.

Just your mundane evergreens and that's typical of the mentality of the greed going on in this county, ah sure lads plant away,we'll see the fruit of our success in the future...
Green shoots and all that stuff.

Mess around with nature and you'll see how it bites back.

There's a lot of these forest's in Clare too and the run off is poisonous to river's and lakes.
But dare you suggest that and you'll have the pitch forks out.

There's no such thing as a risk assessment or how these artificial woods will impact the environment or whatever is in its path.
A Horticulture student from the 80's and 90's would know about Risk assessment and how topography works.

Whatever they're teaching now in forestry course's and horticulture definitely isn't as practical as it was.

No doubt this is going to create a lot of finger wagging in Clifden.
A canopy forest layer is there for a reason...

FACEPALM

Agreed, for all the talk of fossil fuels and whatnot, Coillte have done more damage to our environment than most over the past 30 years. Another thing you notice when walking through the plantations is that they extremely dark and utterly devoid of any other plant or animal life with the ground entirely covered in pine needles (which I'd guess helps water runoff). Not to mention they turn the area into something akin to a post nuclear wasteland when coillte decide to cash in and chop them down. They're unfortunately an ever increasing feature of the landscape here in Donegal as well.

Clifden Flooding

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