February Flooding

The Clódagh river lives up to it's name 'Clóideach' a few times each year, following heavy rain; its Irish name meaning - mountain torrent! There are a number of such-named rivers in the country. The name Bunclody is derived from same Irish description. 

Following torrential rain on night of Feb 18th and continuing at times on the 19th, I headed out in such rain to see the anticipated flooding. The wind was almost blowing me off my feet; my brolly got quite a bashing, and raindrops were affecting my camera lens, as can be seen from above image; so I came home.

About 90 minutes later when the rain stopped, I came down to view the scene at the riverside walk, to find that the flooding had eased somewhat. This may well have been due to the fact that the tide was on the way out. Yes, the Clódagh is tidal as far as the now-defunct cotton-mill.

The above family, was one of the many groups who came along to view the scene during the day.

Still, the water was quite high at the bridge..

 Looking up-river, the Clódagh on left and the cotton-mill canal on the right, plus the adjacent field, higher up on left, which was completely water-logged and had the water surging through it.

A most interesting, hour-long TV documentary (BBC) last night about the 1607 Bristol Channel floods, showed dramatic contemporary printed matter and illustrations. An estimated 2,000 people were killed in the disaster.  Experts seemed uncertain whether the floods were caused by a tidal surge or a tsunami. Lots about the event on Wikipedia.