Our thanks go to Dave R, who has submitted a very interesting comment on today’s post entitled ‘Wet start to October‘. Dave has sent us a couple of graphs by email that illustrate his point. We have therefore created this post so they can be shown…..
I note with interest the Parwich rainfall statistics. This current fall of heavy rain brings back unpleasant memories!
To my way of thinking, the 2008 flooding was a consequence of the ground being soaked during the previous week to the flood and then a downpour with nowhere to go. Looking back, the 2008 rainfall data shows a wet week followed by heavy rain on Friday (32mm) and heavy rain Saturday (40mm). The floods occured early Saturday morning so I guess that most of the Saturday’s 40mm were in the early hours and thus very intense. The cumulative rainfall for that week tots up to 97mm.
I’ve totted up the rainfall for this week and got 43.9mm and thus told myself not to panic.
Is it possible for ‘The Weatherman’ to keep a rolling weekly total of rainfall and then notify us all when it reaches say 50mm? Thus we could prepare our lifeboats in case the next day yields a damaging 40mm rainfall.
Does anyone else have any thoughts on the subject? I’m sure I’m not the only home owner with one eye on the clouds!
Dave”
PARWICH.ORG 
I don’t think we should be talking about flooding in relation to Parwich. We have no river worth a mention, only a tiny brook. Surely, it was storm damage in 2008 due to excessive weather – a one-off event. For we non-decimal oldies, around four and a half inches of rain fell in a week and most within 48 hours.
The reason I make this point is that if Parwich is regarded as a ‘flood area’ by insurance companies it will affect house insurance premiums adversely. But Parwich is not a flood area. It simply suffered the worst storm damage in half a century back in 2008. Ask Jack Cundy, who has been around for all of that time. The drains simply could not cope. Water gushed off the hillsides into the valley. Since the village is not characterised by flooding, I don’t think we should be talking in these terms, and when an insurance asserts that we should, it must be challenged. Of course, they love to increase their premiums at any opportunity, and get us all paying for the tragedies of the few, with no loss for themselves.