Flood!

During the past 24 hours the British Isles have been subjected to tidal surges and a Winter storm. What was described yesterday on BBC Radio 4 as “a mound of water” pushing up from the South met Northerly winds head-on. Worst affected was the East coast of England, but here on the Isle of Man, half way between England and Ireland, we also experienced high water.

High tide yesterday saw me down in the boat cellar taking pictures of Peggy. Being midday, this was a rare opportunity to see what a high tide with a storm surge can do. As you can see from the photographs, the result wasn’t pretty although, thankfully, the seawater rose just short of Peggy herself by two or three centimetres. In March 2015 a tide is predicted sixty seven centimetres higher still than that we saw yesterday. Such a tide would fill Peggy one third full of seawater (she won’t float because she’s full of small holes).

These pictures illustrate graphically why removing Peggy from the cellar before 2015 is such a high priority for Manx National Heritage.