West Cornwall Big Seas & now too much rain!

[Graham Easterling]

A very large & powerful swell yesterday caused some real issues. Roads closed around Porthleven harbour due to overtopping.

Also removed much of Sennen beach. Exceptionally low sand levels this morning.

Compare that with more normal sand levels (late October from the same viewpoint

If you look at that large boulder bottom right, it gives an idea of the vast amount of beach that has vanished. The path down to the what's left of the beach (top pic shows it best) is actually quite steep, the photo angle is misleading. The sand'll return quite readily, as the swell wasn't the exceptional size which can take it out where other waves cannot reach, to bring it back in.

Today it's the rain. The stream in my garden is now at the highest level since 2013, which set a record according to the EA gauge 800 yards upstream. It's been fairly torrential for the last hour or so. No rain warning in place. This straight after the 27.2mm which fell from 15:00 on 29th to 09:00 today, and that following a very wet 10 days.

Despite all this January sunshine is near normal, 60 hours or so up over the moors at Bosullow.

Graham

Penzance

[Graham Easterling]

Torrential bursts of rain continue. (The radar's interesting, take a look over the last 2 hours or so 14:00-16:00). Plenty of reports of flooding now & my stream's almost at the 2013 record level. The Tesco delivery man said Alexandra road, just around the Corner, is only just passable. The St Erth area seems to be reporting plenty of roads flooded.

Still no rain warning, in fact 20% chance of rain & a white cloud apparently @ 15:00.  

Graham

Penzance

[Graham Easterling]

"This straight after the 27.2mm which fell from 15:00 on 29th to 09:00 today, and that following a very wet 10 days."

Eventual total since 09:00 a further 22.2mm, more than Camborne & Culdrose. Scilly was to the west of it all

Graham

Penzance

On Sunday, 31 January 2021 at 14:32:32 UTC Graham Easterling wrote:

[Graham Easterling]

RIver that runs through my garden, showing one of the highest levels on record at the end of yesterday afternoons cloudburst.

A narrow band from near St Erth to Penzance Marazion to the Lizard was badly affected. Some impressive videos from the Cadgewith area.

Graham

Penzance

[jack.h...@gmail.com]

Send some of that rain up here Graham. 

I got the hosepipe out, set up the sprinkler and everything was going fine - until that is I tried to move the sprinkler.  It detached itself from the [flexible] hose pipe which then thrashed about in manic fashion.  As you will know, I am somewhat arthritic in my old age and - yes - I got very wet as I staggered out of the way.

Jack

[Graham Easterling]

Virtually no rain here Jack, though thunder is forecast (again) tomorrow. It never seems to materialise.

Seeing this post revitalised, and that picture of Sennen in January

I thought you may be interested to see current sand levels, photo below from the same webcam today, the busiest the beach has been all summer. Several feet of extra sand along much of a 1 mile beach. Notice the big rock in the bottom right of the picture. That path is much steeper than it looks.

It never ceases to amaze me when Councils dig out a JCB & move a few bucketloads of sand around as a photoshoot to show the press they are doing something after a storm.

I'm actually very interested in sand movement, to the extent where I regularly capture that webcam image and record it alongside wind strength, direction (offshore / along / offshore ), wave height, wave period, in an attempt to get some understanding of sand movements on just 1 section of 1 beach. The profile of the beach also has a big influence on how a particular set of wind / wave conditions impact.

A bit sad I know.

Graham

Penzance