Early thoughts are that a combination of weather and high tides will be making the headlines again this weekend. Seems the end of the month may end up much the same as the start of the month for some living in western coastal regions.

The Severn Bore timetable has us going into a period of very high tides this weekend, peaking on Sat/Sun. In fact these tides are forecasted to be higher than the start of Jan, with the Sunday morning bore predicted a top of the range 5 star category.
http://www.severn-bore.co.uk/2014_times.html 

Whether the tides turn out to be higher than the start of Jan remains to be seen as there was unprecedented low pressure systems in the Atlantic then.
Still, a deep low is forecasted for the weekend so conditions may be quite similar
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1028.png 
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1021.png 

Just hope those sea defences broken and breached in the storm earlier in the month have been mostly repaired as they may get found out.
The high tides also won't help inland areas where river levels will have problems ejecting the rainfall predicted on Friday.
In all, could be another harsh time to come for some.

Just had a quick look at high tides are forecast to peak at 5.00 metres for Teignmouth on Saturday and Sunday mornings which is around 10cm higher than was forecast earlier in the month.  

 

I expect it won't be quite as high as last time though as that was under surge conditions but certainly a risk. 

 

The current model consensus for next week would bring one of the wettest 7-day periods I've ever seen, though it would have to go some to beat the week in December 2013 that featured over 70mm from a single event.

What worries me further is when I think about how, for example, the showery activity that was projected to give 3-4mm today through tomorrow has been upgraded in the short range to bring 7-8mm according to GFS or as much as 15mm according to EURO-4 (rough estimate as the grid points for which the totals are displayed as figures are strangely far apart).

 

It looks to be a testing time indeed. Could the exceptional river levels of 2000 be revisited? The River Avon is currently 12cm short of that in West Hants, but at the end of that soaking wet first week of January (85.8mm) it was only 6cm short.

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10 meter is going to be a cause for some flooding on already sodden  banks and fields....

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Must be some large totals around the London area so far today; peristent moderate rain from around 8am, barely easing off at any time until 2pm and counting.

Reading is catching the edge of it and has been since 10am, with light to mdoerate rain causing a lot of standing water and many miserable but determined students.

 

I notice it's managing to rain across Cornwall again too. Don't they ever catch a break down there?!

My home location is catching a break though - but that is after moderate to heavy rain chained across the locale overnight, delivering 7mm at my place.

 

Latest GFS output delivers 10-20mm from the Friday/Saturday rainfall, with the totals tending to be higher as you go west. The gradient is remarkably steady east to west, which I find a little suspicious in that it must not be accounting for the effects of topography (orographic rainfall) and also suggests a total lack of showers, which in a particularly chilly return-polar maritime airstream should at least be present and if anything be widespread.

Not much happens for much of the weekend except for a period of rain crossing the middle swathe of the country and delivering a few mm for most, though as much as 10 across parts of Wales.

Then, next week, a strong storm Monday brings 5-10mm of rain... that does seem a bit on the low side though, considering that the storm peaks as it reaches the UK and tracks up from the SW, meaning a slower rate of frontal progression across the UK.

Two days later, an even more intense storm and the final two frames (covering 12 hours) of higher-res dumps 12mm or so across the far S and SW, and that's with about half of the leading frontal rain moved through.

 

As an aside, this looks a bit vicous, but is different to the previous run with the positioning and timing, so not to be taken too seriously:

http://modeles2.meteociel.fr/modeles_gfs/runs/2014012906/156-289UK.GIF?29-6

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Looking at the new surge of energy coming into the SE now, and considering it's been raining often moderately for 8 hours straight here in Reading and across many parts of the SE region, this is turning into a larger event than the models projected, although not by much in the case of GFS and perhaps WRF.

I mean, we're talking totals of 10mm or so compared to projections of a little under 10mm... but of course another 4-5mm might be added to the observed totals before the day is done.

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16mm here in East Berkshire. All day been under a small yellow blob( 23 square lm ) on the Met Office radar. It hasn't moved all day. In its own minor way it has been a really interesting event. Steady light to moderate rain at the moment and 4.2 C

Low pressure still on course from a couple of days ago and appears another battering for western areas.
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn602.png 
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn608.png 

From NW's Facebook page, c 10 mins ago:

Forecast wave heights of 10-14 metres+ in the southwest approaches on Saturday. #UKstorm

 

Chart: https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc1/t1/1795502_10152162482819326_1310580947_n.png

 

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Best keep this up on the front page - surprised it fell off, but then it has been a rather quiet 48 hours, which hints at a huge pile of thrown towels somewhere... 

I guess a lot of visitors to the site are mostly concerned about how much rain there will be and when it will not be falling (as that is now the harder thing to find).

 

GFS lines up a lot of 7-14mm events next week, following from the 20mm or so today, while ECM manages to look wetter than that due to the troughs having more trouble sending energy to the NE of the UK.

Correcting for undercooked or missed shower activity, I can see 50-70mm falling quite widely away from the SW and S-Central regions in the next 10 days, with those two areas potentially seeing 75-90mm.

That's just a guess based on past experience. Even the event now arriving could bring more than GFS and in particular EURO-4 predict, as the forecaster input for the Met Office precipitation charts shows more substantial shower activity tomorrow than those do, although not by much so it's not really a concern relative to what the frontal rain will manage to do.

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Indeed, the outlook is not pretty for areas in the SW, with a procession of rainfall events looking likely over the next week.

To spoonerise Simon & Garfunkel, Trouble Over Bridgwater. 

 

 

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That's actually quite good

A very large Severn Bore with tomorrow's tidal surge.  "Gloucestershire Police have warned people planning to watch the bores to "avoid the area completely". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-25575166 A bit contradictory, but I see what they mean.

The EA have issued 3 severe flood warnings for the Severn, i.e. danger to life covering amongst other places Newnham, Elmore, Minsterworth and Longney, all popular bore watching spots. Take care if you're going bore watching (and see this post in time) - my advice would also be to avoid Stonebench as well,  which gets flooded at the drop of a hat.

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Great posts here - keep them coming. It really does seem now that we need to look at this winter being the wettest on record - or indeed close to it.

 

 

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First impressions and looking at live coverage on the coast is that the wind hasn't picked up yet as forecast, so hopefully things this morning won't be too bad.
More attention will be for this evenings tide and the highest tide tomorrow morning.

Been a lot of coverage of the Severn Bore on the BBC news channel this morning where a 5 star wave was predicted. The wave looked very good as a spectacle and ride further downstream, but high freshwater levels killed the wave further upstream. The tide that followed the wave however overspilled the banks of the river in some areas flooding properties.
There was flooding along some coastal areas, but thankfully the wind wasn't too bad and don't believe there were too many problems.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25996176 

Some more pictures with the effect of weather and tide
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-26005597