UK Boxing Day Floods

Update 1 | Summary
Posting Date: January 20, 2016, 2:00:00 PM

AIR’s Flood Research Team has identified stochastic events from the AIR Inland Flood Model for Great Britain that cause flooding similar to that from storms Desmond, Eva, and Frank. The similar stochastic event IDs are now available to ALERT subscribers on the downloads page of the ALERT website. AIR’s Flood Research Team is currently aggregating and assessing the flood data (e.g., information on levee failure and flooded areas, river gauging measurements, Copernicus Emergency Management Service) and is developing footprint shapefiles. The flood footprints will be prepared based on peak flow data from various gauge stations from December 2015. Flow data will be interpolated over ungauged areas. ALERT subscribers will be notified as soon as the shapefiles are available on the ALERT website.

Just over a month ago, Storm Desmond began breaking rainfall records in the UK. Three weeks later, Storm Eva’s additional precipitation quickly escalated rainfall totals and compounded flooding issues. Days after Storm Eva came Storm Frank, and since then records have continued to break as the UK faces additional wet weather. On Tuesday, the Met Office declared December 2015 as the wettest month on record (dating back to 1910), and confirmed 2015 as the sixth wettest year on record.

Meteorological Summary
Since AIR’s 28 December post on flooding in the UK, all severe flood warnings have been lifted, which includes 9 areas in England (Figure 1). Today, there are 23 fewer flood warnings for England and 30 additional flood warnings for Scotland, and 85, 8, and 3 additional flood alerts for England, Scotland, and Wales, respectively.

Figure 1. Great Britain flood warnings as of 12:15 (UTC) on January 7, 2016. (Source: Met Office; contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0)

Although all severe flood warnings are currently lifted, since 28 December the UK has been impacted by the sixth named storm of the season, Frank, and additional heavy rain events. Storm Frank’s heavy rains resulted in severe flood warnings in England and Scotland, and impaired Northern Ireland, west and southwest Scotland, northwest England and Wales on 30 December. Scotland’s Nith, Tweed, and Dee rivers caused severe flooding to several neighbouring towns, and the storm claimed the lives of three people. UK environment secretary, Liz Truss, told parliament on 5 January, that December weather caused flooding to more than 16,000 English properties.

Since Storm Frank, the UK has continued to be hit by wet winter weather systems. Today is no exception, as prolonged heavy rain is forecast to fall and the Met Office has issued an amber national severe weather warning for eastern Scotland (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Warnings overview for the UK as of 7 January. (Source: Met Office; contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0)

On Tuesday, the Met Office declared December 2015 the wettest month on record (dating back to 1910), and confirmed 2015 as the sixth wettest year on record (Figure 3 and Table 1). 

Figure 3. December rainfall totals for the UK highlighting the already saturated soil conditions (A.) prior to 23 December (accounting for Storm Desmond), and (B.) to the end of December (accounting for storms Desmond, Eva, and Frank). (Source: Met Office; contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0)

Emergency Response
In response to the flooding, emergency services, over 600 military personnel, the Environment Agency, council workers, and an array of emergency responders and volunteers worked during and after the storm series. Together, temporary defences were set in place or repaired, rescue boats and pumps were brought in, and power generators were delivered. Prime Minister David Cameron announced that GBP 40 million would be spent on repairing defences (GBP 10 million of which is pledged to install new pumps and upgrade the Foss barrier to be able to withstand larger water volumes) and an additional GBP 60 million in spending to help local residents, businesses, and farmers recover. Payments to local authorities began 29 December to assist businesses and residents as swiftly as possible.

Update 1 | Downloads
Posting Date: January 20, 2016, 2:00:00 PM