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Jam Lady

Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 2573
Location: New Jersey, USA

Posted: Thu Aug 08, 19 1:05 pm Post subject: Weather

I had to smile when I saw the BBC Wales alert about 30 mm of rain in a few hours. Because yesterday we had a sequence of electrical storms, beginning at 3:38 a.m. Wednesday morning. Tremendous lightening bolts and thunder claps and noisy rain on skylights. By the time I got up in the morning the weather station indicated 1.03 inches - that's 26 mm of rain.

But wait, there's more! Things started to get noisy again in the afternoon, complete with some pea sized hail. And more rain. Then more rain, lightening, thunder.

By the time it appeared to be mostly over (and the day was over too) we had received a total of 3.14 inches which is 79.7 mm in approximately 20 hours.

Fortunately the basement stayed dry and there didn't appear to be any flooding. Hummingbirds arrived at the feeder when there were breaks in the deluge.

And I learned a fabulous new word - superhydrophobic. It is used for leaves of plants such as elephant ear and lotus that do not get wet, the water just runs right off. Excellent topic for the next entry on my web site, don't you think!

What's your weather at the moment?

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46246
Location: yes

Posted: Thu Aug 08, 19 9:22 pm Post subject:
re the hydrophobic leaves the materials scientists are working on using the way plants do it . iirc with some success , not my thing at the mo but a quick look on scholar for some papers might be fun to go with the plant stuff. i am not a google fan but scholar is really nice and very useful.

Jam Lady

Joined: 28 Dec 2006
Posts: 2573
Location: New Jersey, USA

Posted: Thu Aug 08, 19 10:24 pm Post subject:

Since I was talking about Wednesday's weather I mentioned the side by side leaves of red spot banana (wet) and elephant ear (dry) just because it intrigued me. I saw no reason to take it further with my original message. Superydrophobic coatings that are currently in use with multiple industrial uses did not interest me. Anti icing - used for airplane wings. Anti corrosion - protect against rust. Self cleaning - dirt or grease or dust on a superhydrophobic coating can be removed with a spray of water. Water repellent coating for fabric. Car windshields. Shall we continue to digress to bats / echo location leading to radar / sonar?

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15996

Posted: Fri Aug 09, 19 6:37 am Post subject:

Our weather is usually less extreme than yours, but this storm is going to be high winds as well; in fact they are going to be the most damaging part of it they think. The trouble is with lots of rain all at once that our systems are not built to cope with it, so tend to flood in the short term, even though it might drain away over the course of a few hours. Riverside properties where the river is naturally a 'spate' river can suffer from rising water. We were on the Severn once on a narrow boat and had to stop early as the locks were closed because there was a rush of water coming down, and all boating was held until it had passed.

I have sometimes wondered how people live with more extreme weather, always having lived here. When I hear about things like tornadoes in the US I am glad I don't live there, although we do occasionally get damaging ones here, but tiny by your standards.

Lovely that the hummingbirds were out so soon, and the superhydrophobic leaves are very interesting. As you say, a useful study to try to make coatings of various sorts to repel dirt and ice.

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 8952
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Sun Aug 11, 19 8:23 pm Post subject:
We've had rain for the last 18 hours... the polytunnel is wet from the rising damp the lawn goes squelch as you walk over it....

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15996

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 19 7:50 am Post subject:

Seeing last nights weather forecast, it seems some places in the north had over 100mm of rain over 24 hours over the last couple of days. We were fortunate down south and only got a bit. The wind was interesting though. We were in the lea of a wood, although luckily our side was far enough in to be safe, but heard several branches come down. We have to see what damage there has been in our woods today.

Hoping that the weather calms down, although we have the potential for thunder storms today, and we have a charcoal kiln to fill.

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 8952
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 19 8:40 am Post subject:
It sounds like we have a brief reprieve until the next low pressure system on Wednesday

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15996

Posted: Tue Aug 13, 19 6:43 am Post subject:
Luckily we decided to come home from Charfest early so we loaded the kiln yesterday and are going to fire it today. Not a good thing to be stoking a kiln in pouring rain.

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