[T3] Southern dis-comfort

Keith Park topnotch at nycap.rr.com
Wed Feb 12 18:34:07 PST 2014


Ahh, a maritime climate at 50 north, crocus' in February! down here at 42
north we hit -13F last night and haven't seen the ground for months!
Interesting report Dave, I was wondering where all of California's rain
went.

Keith


Top Notch Restorations
topnotch at nycap.rr.com 
http://www.a383ina68.addr.com/radiorest/main.htm
71 Squareback "Hothe"
65 Notchback "El Baja Rojo"
65 Squareback "Eggcrate"
87 golf "Winterat"
93 RX7 "Redstur"

-----Original Message-----
From: type3-vwtype3.org-bounces at lists.vwtype3.org
[mailto:type3-vwtype3.org-bounces at lists.vwtype3.org] On Behalf Of Dave Hall
Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 7:37 PM
To: type3 at vwtype3.org
Subject: Re: [T3] Southern dis-comfort

Things are certainly pretty bad for some in the UK at the moment.
Fortunately we are OK, being on top of a hill, and the area doesn't normally
get flooded.  It gets windy at times, but we've only lost tiles on one
occasion, back in 1987 when we had severe winds (force 12) for a few hours.
In July 1968 the centre of the village suffered a flash-flood with some
houses having about 5ft of water in them, when the river (stream?) rose
dramatically after a torrential thunderstorm and washed away several old
stone bridges.  

There's been so much rain this winter it is actually coming up through some
people's floors - not even flood barriers or sand-bags can stop that.  As I
reported before, some have been flooded out since Christmas.  We've had 3
times the normal monthly rainfall, and there's more heavy rain forecast for
Friday from the next storm due.  With the ground saturated already, that's
going to cause further trouble.  Apparently the jet stream is picking up
energy from the warm Pacific Ocean which is disturbing the atmosphere in an
unusual way and giving the USA snow and ice, and the UK storms and rain.  

The latest flooding is mainly around the Thames and the Severn, which has
struck more recently.  It doesn't normally happen this badly - we are
usually able to enjoy fairly mild winters, and green fields all year round!

Flooding brings on-going problems, and many house owners won't be able to
move back in much before next Christmas.  The flood-water is inevitably
contaminated by sewage, so cleaning up is a massive task, and drying out
takes time, and then re-plastering damaged walls, with no guarantee it won't
be back next winter.  Last year a few houses were still flooded several
months later.

Anne and I are very lucky to not be suffering, and our sympathies go out to
those who are.  The garden snowdrops have been out for several weeks, and
the crocuses are coming through the grass already, to prove spring is on the
way.


Dave
UK VW Type 3&4 Club
===================



-----Original Message-----
From: type3-vwtype3.org-bounces at lists.vwtype3.org
[mailto:type3-vwtype3.org-bounces at lists.vwtype3.org] On Behalf Of Jim Adney
Sent: 12 February 2014 21:47
To: type3 at vwtype3.org
Subject: Re: [T3] Southern dis-comfort

When I started this thread, I just thought of it as a way to share a bit of
winter distraction since few of us seemed to be thinking about our Type 3s
this time of year. I figured that a little snow down south might make life
interesting for some of you, but I had no idea that this was going to get as
bad as it has.

A little bit of snow is one thing, but ice storms are a whole different
matter. That's serious business.

And flooding, in England. I had no idea. Then Dave sent his post, and later
that night I surfed across the BBC news and found film of the Thames valley
with miles and miles of flooded farms and homes.

A bit of snow can be inconvenient, but seldom that big a deal.

Ice storms pulling down trees and power lines are serious. I hope Marion's
gas log fireplace serves him well, but never becomes truly necessary.

But flooding is tragic. They showed southern England in our national news
last night. Are you well away from that, Dave?

I think it was the winter of '76-77 that we had a big ice storm here in
southern Wisconsin. Our neighborhood was without power for 3 days, which
meant that it was also pretty much without heat. We could run the gas stove
for short periods, and I could manually run that old gas furnace and get
some heat by convection, also for short periods. 
But it really wasn't too bad. The weather wasn't really all that cold, so
the temp inside the house never got much below 50 F.

It weeks before everyone in this region got their power back, so we were
lucky.

We took walks around the neighborhood at night, which was different, because
everything was dark. I came across one downed power line which was sizzling
on the wet ice, melting its way down to the ground. Don't know the voltage,
but I kept clear of it by 3-4 feet. 
An amazing sight.

The real attraction that night was the lightshow on the horizon. We could
see bright flashes as power lines parted in the distance, and could hear
occasional booms as something, possibly transformers, exploded.

--
*******************************
Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
*******************************

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