Waters Rising

With all the flood and storm warnings in the news I took the opportunity to go down to Hamble at high water and see for myself.

Down at Hamble Point (above and below) things were lively certainly not a day for sailing, protected by the Isle of Wight this part of the Solent is relatively sheltered compared to some of the main headlands along the coast.

Down in Hamble the RAFYC was pretty much cut off, ironically there used to be a gate in the wall to the left of the picture which is higher up the path and still dry, but it was bricked up some years ago, could be there was a good reason for having it.

The club pontoon was still afloat, but you would need a dinghy to get there, just as I was taking this (2 or 3 minutes after the picture above) there was an almighty downpour of hail stones and winds which I later saw were recorded at 60 knots.

Down on the town quay things were's not much better, the Royal Southern YC was just about staying dry.

One of many road closures around the area, fortunately this one was manned by a couple of community police officers who were on hand to redirect people.

We're just coming off a big spring tide, HW was 12.05 and predicted as 4.8m which isn't especially high, the full height and flooding are a combination of spring tide, low pressure and the surge caused by the ongoing gales we've had during the past couple of weeks.