The Rain in Spain .........

......... doesn't fall very often. But, when it does it does it in style! ........

This normally dry river bed is not that far from my place. Look at it This Morning!

90-odd dead further down the coast. Luckily, we are on higher ground although there is a dry bed alongside my land which runs into the Ebro, the main river. The rain has just started there and is coming down hard!

It might help the drought situation though

Latest figures 140 deaths. My sister has been touring around Spain for the last month then they were heading to Portugal till the middle of November. Hope they are ok will try to phone her over the week end.

That "river bed" I would assume has been built purposely as an outlet for water. To cope with the unfortunate floods like we are seeing now.

It looks man made, and not a river, as such.
There is no debris on the bottom.

No, Chesh., they are dry rivers. Not all have a name but the one in the link, in Vinaros, is the Riu Cervol.
The River Ebro, near me, is a large main river, but it has a lot of dry stream beds running to it. They are called "barrancs" and are natural beds formed by water movement over thousands of years.

I've had a couple of messages from o'er theer and photos. My village, Benissanet, is not flooded. The main town, Mora d'Ebre is flooded. They've had constant heavy rain for two days along with hailstones. The Mossos (police) have closed all roads, no-one can drive anywhere. All buses stopped, trains stopped and, of course, no flights.

Very severe weather for Spain. I wonder what phenomenon created that. Has anybody said?

DANA!

Blimey! I'm surprised their Met Office didn't see something like that coming. If they had, they could have at least put out a severe weather warning, and there wouldn't have been so many fatalities.

Looking at those photos, it looks like a Tsunami struck. Those poor people didn't stand a chance.

meanwhile in Canada its minus 4 which is not normal for October , here we are enjoying a mild autumn ,

Yesterday in Canada, where my friend lives, it was 22F. Don't know about today though.

My son lives in Halifax Novia Scotia and its -4 there today, They've had a great summer with temps of 35 and humid but, overnight it went cold,

22F is about -5C

I think Nova Scotia is way up North, nearer the North Pole than where my friend lives in Ontario. Minus 4 is still very cold for the time of year though.

Better than poor old Spain, eh?

1st Mate this is part and parcel of the localised flooding in our area and years ago certain areas would flood and still do . They know the island for what ever reasons floods . Would a redesign by raising the island instead of being in a dip help or would this if possible not create flooding in the surrounding shop units which would be a disaster Going back to Spain with their flooding Tonker has said there are natural river beds which have been dry for years and where probably that hard they would be like concrete culverts with being baked by the sun and would not soak any water up.

Mick does some cracking videos

Wigans Hydro Brake

Posted by: Tommy Two Stroke (16425)

22F is about -5C

Yes, it is Tommy. I got meself muxed up as usual. It was
22C.

No worries Mollie

That roundabout at Asda is designed to flood, as a catchment area for the floodwater, and one from where the water can be quickly pumped out and squirted into the River Duggie

Posted by: Tommy Two Stroke
"That roundabout at Asda is designed to flood,"

Did you mean to type " it's prone to flooding"?

It could be designed to be the lowest point in the metalled area, but not designed to actually flood. It should have sufficient drainage from there into the River, not a pump!

It'll stop them whining about tourism for a bit...bet it stinks a bit at the moment.

The difference is we can expect heavy rain and flooding here in the UK, whereas Spain probably isn't geared up for it, hence to severe loss of lives.

The difference is we can expect heavy rain and flooding here in the UK, whereas Spain probably isn't geared up for it, hence to severe loss of lives.

Cheshire Puss said:

"Did you mean to type " it's prone to flooding"?"

No, I didn't mean that

Well, what did you mean?

Ive never known a road that has been specifically designed to flood

Cheshire Puss

Well yoo learn something new everyday don't you

Roads are not designed to flood. The roundabout behind Asda is not designed to flood. There are several grids around the roundabout and on the roads leading to and from it. The drainage is not up to the job.

Thank you, Tonker.

ps Tommy. Stick to learning economics Leave the road planning to the civil engineers

No

You are correct about the multiple grids on the roundabout, in fact I was going to mention them myself, but they are designed to bring water into what is known as the detention/retention basin, has well as allow it drain away and to quickly both fill up and drain the basin.

Has part of the several FAS (flood alleviation schemes) which there have been in that part of Wigan, and the schemes go back decades, the one which was done in the 1990's when the big Asda was built, along with the Stadium, Robin Retail Park and the Saddle Gyratory, the river bank of the Duggie was raised by about a metre and a half, and on the Asda side if you walk over to the river from the Asda car park, you can see the Dyke which was built to allow the water level to be raised, but this meant that when the river was in flood, the level of the water would be higher than the level of the car parks at Asda and Robin Park, so when that happens the rainwater drainage system into the river is stopped, otherwise the river water would back flow through the drains into the car parks, rendering the dyke system useless, so what happens then is that the rain water which falls on to the car parks is then diverted into holding tanks, from where it is pumped into the river, however during heavy downpours the water needs to have somewhere to collect as a buffer system, whilst the systems pump away the rainwater, so the retention basin/ roundabout is designed to be just such a thing, and when flooded it still allows traffic to enter the Robin Park car park, and for traffic to exit the Robin Park car park, exiting along the road to the rear of the shops and past the stadium and up Anjoo Boulevarde to the traffic lights at the Red Robin junction, traffic whch cannot use the rear entrance to Asda, can instead use the front entrance off the gyratory.

The drainage basin which consists of the Asda side of the roundabout, the loading bays and land to the rear of Asda, the loading bays are above the maximum level of which the water can rise too, this is because land in that location is at a premium, hence the use of the road as part of the FAS, if the rainfall is so heavy that the built in pump water systems are overwhelmed, then in such an emergency, the relevent authority such as United Utilities, the Council or Fire Brigade can bring in mobile pumps to pump away water from that roundabout and over the dyke and into the river.

A few years later when they built Southgate, that also was built with storm tanks and a pumping system.

Comprendre.

Tommy.
Thank you for submitting your dissertation on the said subject.
But, after reading it, the roundabout was not designed to flood!

In fact, it's designed to do the total opposite and try and prevent flooding .

Back to the rain in Spain, this was the A27 motorway near Valls, Tarragona, this morning! .......

Tonker

Bloody hell

Cheshire Puss

Poppycock

Tonker, tell us how have these storms have affected you? Sorry to sound like a periodista

I'm in England at the moment and driving back there on the 15th. I'm hoping everything will be ok at mine, we'll have to wait and see. I imagine the track to my land could be water damaged, maybe I won't be able to drive up it, it's happened before a number of times but this latest storm sounds a whole lot worse than I've ever seen.

Years ago after they had removed the pit and before they started to develop the Three sisters the land was prone to flash flooding and would sweep across Bryn Road. To help to alleviate this problem they dug drainage ditches which fed into the boating lake . Now most of the area is built on and storm drains have been installed, But it is now a mass of concrete/tarmac and I am surprised water does not now sweep down the bottom end of Lockett Road

Cheshire Puss said:

"But, after reading it, the roundabout was not designed to flood!

In fact, it's designed to do the total opposite and try and prevent flooding"

Those two sentences actually contradict each other.

The roundabout does flood, and the reason is to prevent flooding

It might flood but, it wasn't designed to flood!
Unless, you designed it, then, thats understandable.
It was designed to drain water away as quickly and efficiently as possible to avoid flooding

Rather like your sink in your bathroom TTS. If you put the plug in, the water goes nowhere. Or, if your plug-hole gets blocked the water goes nowhere. So, the island is low-lying and the water gathers there BUT, if the grids aren't blocked, the water should drain away.

Raaaaight Laaaaike ?

Cheshire Puss

So all those grids are for the rain which falls on that roundabout

No they are not!
They are there to drain away whatever water falls on the road