'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe

This time I got two phone calls back-to-back from the Environment Agency's autodialler: a flood alert for Fareham to Portchester, and a flood warning for Fareham specifically. The gist of it from their emails is:

Sunday afternoon's tide at 12:30 on 29/09/2019 is higher than normal due to unsettled weather with strong South Westerly Force 7 winds and large waves. The weather increases tide table values by 0.3 m (surge). The forecast tide is 5.38 metres Chart Datum (2.65 mAOD) at Portsmouth. For 1 hour either side of high water, the tide will exceed the top of the slipway at Lower Quay, flooding a small number of properties. The road, at Wallington Shore Road, will also flood. Until Tuesday (01/10/2019)‚ tides are high enough to cause minor impacts at each high water. The largest impacts will occur on this tide.

Probably not quite enough for me to have a moat, but it'll be close...

Boss: You may as well head home, the snow's getting worse and those with further to go are already leaving.

( The sky is falling! )

It's a tad windy tonight. No phonecall from the Environment Agency (yet), but a flood alert has materialised on their website...

The forecast tide is higher than normal.

Time and date of high water: 11:45 on 03/01/2018
Predicted astronomical tide level: 2.26 mAOD
Forecast surge height: 0.33 m
Forecast high water level at Portsmouth: 2.59 mAOD or 5.32 mCD
Forecast wind direction: Westerly
Forecast wind strength: Force 8

Interestingly they're warning about tomorrow's high tide, which looking at the astronomical prediction is higher than tonight's (and that's before you take the storm surge into account). I wonder if it'll be high enough for me to have a moat again?

Just getting to pasta night was hard enough - someone managed to roll a dustbin lorry of all things on the M27 eastbound... immediately before the J12 exit. This basically snarled up the entire M27 as far back as Southampton Airport. So I looked at Google's traffic data, and went "ah-hah, the A27 looks fairly clear, so I shall be Smart and use the A27 through Fareham and Portchester". This was actually a very good idea with only one flaw - to get to the A27 I had to leave Segensworth. That alone took over 45 minutes to achieve as the local roads were equally snarled up.

Today's game of choice was Betrayal at House on the Hill. It's a game of two halves: everyone starts off exploring the haunted house, until enough Omen cards are collected that someone fails the Haunt roll. At that point one of the players becomes the traitor and starts attacking the rest. In this case, Sarah's character became invisible and so we had to try and hunt her down (by guessing where she'd moved to and attacking in that room), while she got to sneak around. It was looking to become a long drawn-out affair until Jonners managed a lucky guess on Sarah's location and an even luckier attack roll that splatted her character in one hit. Definitely one to play again, though like Eclipse possibly at the weekend when we've got more time.

Definitely a wet and wild night, driving back from Billingshurst... not helped by having to dodge I think a dog walker on the A29 followed immediately by a white van man parked at the side of the road opening his door! Fortunately I could dodge into the other lane and didn't hit anyone or anything, but I could have done without that surprise.

You know it's a dark and stormy night when you can hear the wind whistling through your earphone leads. Not to mention the clanging of the rigging from the yachts moored in the marina.

Judging by the ripples it's quite a stiff sea breeze... and I've a vague recollection that there's supposed to be some extra-high tides around this time. Lemme check the tide tables... no, it was last month that there was a predicted 5.13m tide. Today's is a measly 4.43m above chart datum so I'm unlikely to have a repeat of the floods from last February (caused by a combination of spring tides and a storm surge pushing the water up the channel between Portsmouth and Gosport). Shame, it was quite fun having an actual moat!

That was all rather anti-climatic. By the time I went out at lunchtime the clouds had thinned and the snow was almost all gone. Shame, really, as I was hoping to go for a stroll and take some suitably snowy photos.

I wish I had had a camera set up in the car on the way to work though. Once I reached 35mph or so the snow stopped landing on the windscreen and instead was blown up and over the car, as if I was driving through a tunnel of snow. It did look quite epic as I was trundling along the bypass and up Titchfield Hill.

Hmm... my grandfather did give me a couple of non-slip car/gadget mats over Christmas. Perhaps if I put one on top of the dashboard and then sit the 3DS on top to use as a camera? My main worry with those is I'm not sure how well they'd grip with aggressive cornering (there's a sharp right-left one in particular where a road leaves a roundabout and then immediately turns back on itself), or if I had to stamp on the brakes. Maybe I could anchor the 3DS to something as well?

The sky is falling!

( Fallen-sky photos )

While the snow is still falling a little, it's forecast to stop soon. Additionally the roads outside look clear and traffic is flowing well so I ought to be able to drive to work in it. Here goes...

Well, the sea is now at the bottom of the steps to the front door. And it's still three-quarters of an hour until high tide.

It is a bit disconcerting, looking out the window and seeing the sea instead of the road. Though I suppose this does mean that I now have a moat :)

I mentioned the recent floods to Craig the other day, and he demanded that I post the photos I'd taken of the floods in Fareham. Well, here they are! These were taken way back on the 4th of January, at high tide. It should be noted that the tide on the 3rd was higher, by a good few inches (as the tide gauge in nearby Portsmouth shows), and that spooked the Environment Agency enough to phone my flat with a recorded flood warning (presumably they called all houses in the at-risk area as I've never registered for warnings). Unfortunately I don't have any photos from the 3rd as I didn't get back to Fareham until the afternoon after the tide had fallen somewhat.

( Flood photos )

Last weekend broke the record for the hottest day in October, though locally it only reached 26°C or so.

Today, it's actually chilly enough that I've switched the heating on. The local weather stations on Weather Underground vary a bit, but generally agree on a temperature drop of 9-10°C since last Sunday. Ah well, that's the great British weather for you!