This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of some of the worst rainfall flooding in the South East of England seen in at least the last 100 years.

Along with the winters if 1962/3, 1978/9 and December 2010 and the summer of 1976 this is one of the my most memorable weather events.

The rainfall started late in the evening of Saturday 14th September and continued all night and for much of Sunday 15th. I can recall it was not continuously heavy but consisted of a series of violent thunderstorms lasting perhaps an hour each followed by a short drier interlude before the whole cycle started again. In the severest thunderstorm activity, the rain was of tropical downpour intensity

During the Sunday, roads across the whole South East gradually became impassable with flood water and I can recall listening to Radio 1 during the day as the list of impassable roads mentioned during traffic news flashes became longer and longer. I was living in Bromley (then Kent now SE London) at the time and every road in the area was affected by flooding.

By the Monday morning the rain had stoppped. When I went out I saw some flood levels several feet up on walls where there were dips in the road. However, we all thought the worst had passed. For my neck of the woods that proved to be the case but the rainwater was still working its way into the tributaries of the Thames. Although the Thames itself did not flood, the rivers which fed into the Thames mostly did. The Mole (at Molesey), the Darent (at Dartford) and the Ravensbourne (at Lewisham) all burst their banks and by Wednesday these town centres were under several feet of water.

100mm of rain fell widely across SE England mostly on 15th September with a wide area receiving over 125mm (about 5 inches) of rain as the high resolution map produced from the UKCP09/CEDA daily 5km rainfall totals shows.

The culprit was a stationery occluded front which stalled over SE England as which was linked back to  a depression over N France

clickable

Local Paper (Bromley and Kentish Times)

 

River flood Molesey

River flood Lewisham

Rainfall map taken from UKCP09/CEDA

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I can remember that. I remember the rain lasting non stop for a whole day. The flooding in SE England was the worst for a century as you pointed out.

The next worst one was the Norfolk flood of August 1912.

 

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This impressive amateur video clip shows Haverhill in Suffolk under just over 3 feet of water.

 

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-the-haverhill-flood-suffolk-1968-online

 

I remember this quite well.

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A great piece there Lanky backed up with pictures and a map too! I wasn't born until '71 so not old enough to remember it. The rainfall map shows it was quite localised but shows how extreme weather events are nothing new.

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I remember these floods too.  I was living in Tonbridge then and I can remember standing outside the railway station on the Monday in bright sunshine looking down towards the High Street which was under about four feet of water as the Medway had burst its banks.  I had gone to school that morning, but I seem to remember that so few people could get in that we were all sent home again.   From the rainfall map in the OP I guess we must have had around 150mm rain in the two previous days.

There are some pictures of the flooding here: http://tonbridgedaily.blogspot.com/2013/12/tonbridge-floods-1968.html

and the classic picture of the last bus through the High Street as the waters rose that appeared on the front page of the local paper: http://tonbridgedaily.blogspot.com/2014/01/1968-tonbridge-floods.html

Angus

 

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My parents moved to Molesey in 1969. I lived there for many years and the 1968 floods are mentioned frequently by local publications. I'm sure that Philip Eden said that they became known as the Molesey floods.
In my many years living there we had a few minor flooding events but nothing anywhere near as bad as 1968. Eventually a flood alleviation scheme was built and hopefully severe events like that are a thing of the past in that area.

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I remember it well. Cranleigh, where I live, must be very close to that black square on the map showing rainfall amounts, indicating a rainfall of 175 mm plus, or 7 inches in the old money. Luckily our house was on a slight hill. To the list of rivers that flooded can be added the Wey in Surrey. A department store on its banks in Guildford had only been open for a month or so when it was inundated. The basement was totally filled with water, and I believe the ground floor was under about three feet of water.  The nearby Yvonne Arnaud theatre was also flooded. 

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The peak rainfall from what I've heard was just over 7 inches, which was 30% of the normal annual total. It was an amazing storm - Only August 1912  exceeded it. That was a peak total of just over 8 inches in Brundall just west of Norwich.

The whole of Norfolk had a massive downpour - which was estimated as emptying the total amount of Lake Windermere on the county.

 

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Wasn't this event how the Norfolk Broads were formed?

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No

The Broads were formed by the flooding of medieval peat excavations which provided fuel to Norwich and Great Yarmouth. As the sea levels began to rise, the pits began to flood. By the end of the 14th century, the pits were abandoned and the Broads were formed.

https://www.broads.co.uk/10-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-broads/ see no.8

Current arguments seem to centre on whether the flooding was one big event, or the progessive flooding and linking of smaller pits.

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You can get these CEDA rainfall totals by grid reference as welll as in positional 5km squares

You can then determine the vicinity of the rainfall totals relative to major towns and landmarks

If you overlay the grid rainfall  together with an outline UK map you can see more clearly where the rain fell

The peak intensity was east of Guildford and to the south of London and ran in a band from about Sevenoaks to Dorking via Reigate and Redhill

The absolute peak value was 176.6 mm total in those 2 days and using the grid reference points to South Godstone which is just east of Redhill

 

 

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I was only six at the time but remember this event quite well. The water was so deep in one area of the Island that kids were jumping off a six foot wall into water.
We had booked a trip to France by coach. As the coach moved slowly down Pound Lane in Pitsea, the water was lapping at window sills here.
Much less roads but much less cars in those days. We would not be able to move nowadays.