Yesterday afternoon (Sunday 11th May) there was a fair old electric storm on Ingleborough. Does anyone know if it put much rain down anywhere? I suspect it didn't but it'd be handy to know. Hopefully it didn't cause any problems for the Bradford, who were setting up the GG winch this weekend.

I'm interested particularly in areas to the east (Littondale or Wharfedale for example) as it'd save an unnecessary drive over there this week if conditions underground have been affected anywhere.

Pitlamp said:

Yesterday afternoon (Sunday 11th May) there was a fair old electric storm on Ingleborough. Does anyone know if it put much rain down anywhere?
I'm interested particularly in areas to the east (Littondale or Wharfedale for example) as it'd save an unnecessary drive over there this week if conditions underground have been affected anywhere.

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No rain in Wharfedale, JC. Water levels in the river are as low as they've been for several months.

Two of our rescue team were paged re: flooding in Lower long Churn and road flooded at Sellgill just after we had completed practice through Dowbergill passage!

Dry up at Buckden today. Ask Scoff about the Bradford's fun on the hill yesterday...

We did have a callout for a party of trapped adults and children in Lower Long Churn. It seems that the flooding was VERY localised to the Alum Pot catchment. The flooding of the road was at Selside, not Sell Gill. The involved party were all safely recovered.

Came out of Hardrawkin at about 3:00pm yesterday to serious thunder. A few minutes later the heaven's opened on that side of Ingleborough. It was a river everywhere within minutes.

Changed (very quickly) and drove around via Ribblehead and past Long Churn lane, thinking while driving through flooded roads that a rescue in Long Churn was very likely. Somewhere between Selside and Horton the road suddenly became dry and the weather beautiful. It seems it was one immensely local flood on the West side of Ingleborough stretching as far across as Selside.

Never seen anything like it in Britain before ... amazing ... and scary!

Went down Ireby to the occasional crack of thunder and came out to find the ground as dry as when we had gone in.  The storm we saw appeared to be heading over Bull Pot Farm and we didn't see another one between us and Inglebrough.

"Somewhere between Selside and Horton the road suddenly became dry and the weather beautiful."

Going the other way round Ingleborough we hit the sun about halfway between the Hill Inn and White Scar! Also no sign of rain here. (This was the other half of Damian's party.)

we went to do diccan yesterday just as the thunder began to rumble, a few spots of rain and we decided to sack it off thinking how hard ground is right now making a potentially heavy cloudburst just stream over the surface. We did notice a group of adults and kids going up. a few mins later and torrential downpour and flooding on the road. glad we made the choice to leave it, glad everyone was ok

My grateful thanks folks - that's exactly the information I wanted. Turns out that the storm also hit the GG catchment; Clapham Beck came right up (but is way back down again today!). They had hailstones like machine gun bullets up there apparently. The Bradford had a team down Pay Sank at the time - as Fell Beck overtopped the dam at GG they were quite concerned about this team - but apparently the P5 stream never came up at all.

It just shows how devastating a localised storm can be. I guess we're now into the time of year when we need to be extra careful (through till September probably). Convectional rainfall can catch even the most experienced cavers out.

Anyway - cheers for the info.

damian said:

"Somewhere between Selside and Horton the road suddenly became dry and the weather beautiful."

Going the other way round Ingleborough we hit the sun about halfway between the Hill Inn and White Scar! Also no sign of rain here. (This was the other half of Damian's party.)

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For the benefit of the confused, that was my wife posting under my name!

Pitlamp

Yes, we did have fun up at the Gill yesterday. The thunder rumbled around the top of Ingleborough  for a while and then a grey curtain came slowly down the Fell Beck valley. We headed under cover when it hit - it sounded like someone outside lobbing buckets of gravel over the tent. Could hear the hailstones pinging off the exterior aluminium poles, and a brief peer out saw they were as big as peas. On top of this there was a tremendous amount of rain. Lightning flashes & thunder cracks were down to two or three seconds apart.The storm lasted without any real rest for about half and hour.

Then, when it stopped, we emerged to find the grass pretty much white over, with the beck already on the rise and looking like chocolate.

Within a few minutes it was up and pouring over the dam to a depth of around nine inches (at a guess). It thundered past (and into) Jib, and also washed over the winch platform. Here the water power was sufficient to physically move the fuel tank and diesel engine - which two people can just about lift. But fortunately the engine didn't go over the edge and down the hole. The torrent also nearly swept away ammo boxes full of scaff clamps and other assorted ironmongery, but these got rescued.

The flood debris washed down by the stream caught on the safety netting leading to the gantry, causing blockage/ back up of the water flow - debris afterwards being evident on the first four or five feet on the gantry plank/ grid itself.

In addition to our chums the Ratbags down Pay Sank (which remained basically dry), three of the club were down Bar Pot. They heard running water under the boulders near the top of the big pitch and headed out to find the greasy slab a bit wet and sporting. But they got out okay.

Within a short while it was hot sunshine again, and a leisurely walk down past the showcave showed Beck Head in spate by 1740hrs.

Dave Ryall managed to capture a few video clips, and he has posted five of these on Youtube with the keywords "Gaping Gill Flood".

Makes you realise the power of nature and how fortunate that no-one was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Scoff

BPC/ CDG

We changed plans as we were heading into Pool Sink and the thunder began to rumble. The sky was very dark all over Crag Hill / Gragareth and the Easegill catchment and there was sufficient unease within the group to make us rethink. We went into Wretched Rabbit, down Spiral Staircase to Holbeck Junction, then to Stop Pot and out of Wretched Rabbit.

As we emerged from Wretched Rabbit, the thunder was still rumbling, but the ground was dry and we were denied the spectacle of a flood pulse coming down the beck. It seemed that the storm had been all noise and no action. We went to the Whoop to rehydrate and set off home in different directions...

Alison and I returned home via Chapel le Dale and as we passed White Scar, I glanced down at the river, then stared again in shock. It was running bright brown (if there is such a thing) and a raging torrent. I've always thought that the Doe responded quite slowly with most of the water taking its time to pass through various underground routes, but clearly I was wrong. If you look at a map of the catchment for Winterscales Beck around Ribblehead, I guess it's fairly obvious that this will respond pretty quickly and won't take long to get through the underground sections in Chapel le Dale. Joint Hole area was all submerged.

We hit wet roads just before the Hill Inn and could see water resurging at various points from the Yoredales high on Ingleborough and lower down. The road was very wet in one or two unusual places. The resurgence cave by the cattle grid at the Station Inn (is that Batty Wife Cave? I can't remember off the top of my head) had water mushrooming out in huge volumes and streaming down the grass. Just past Conduit Spring Cave, the road was dry again. Were we right to change our plan? Probably yes. Could we have been caught out at Holbeck Junction? Probably yes too. Interesting.

Paul Brooks

Pitlamp in reply to your original query the automated weather station a Ribblehead recorded 33mm over the 40 odd minutes of the storm. It is however not the best of rain gauges and i suspect that some of the hail and heavy water droplets may have bounced out.

I found the whole experience very sobering I have never seen such water running off Ingleborough, white water torrents right off the top of the ridge all along from Ingleborough to Park Fell. Even the track running down to Souther Scales was a raging torrent - never seen that before. I understand the storm built up on Whernside moved the summit of Ingleborough and then moved down the ridge to Park Fell from where is just disappeared.

I can also vouch that when I arrived at Long Churn via the largely flooded and impassable road from Ribblehead that the ground was totally dry and appeared not to have had any rain at all - so incredibly localised.

Hi Paul

Hope that your Sunday trip achieved its purpose. Sorry to miss you, if it was the trip I think it was. See you about, ideally in a cave next time!

Tony

Yes the water comming off Park Fell was astounding.I did get it on a photo.
I have some fantastic photos of what happened at GG.
But despite reading the instuctions I am not computor lierate enough
to post on here.Pity

I have been down Long churn cave today ,plenty of evidence of sundays flood .On the walk up Long churn Lane i noticed up  above the trees of Alum Pot and could see what looked like 2 recent land slides on the summit slope of Simon Fell,was this caused by the storm on sunday or have i just not spotted it before.

Just for the record there was a similarly violent weather event last year in the Gaping Gill catchment - without looking it up I think it was on 1st July. Last Sunday's event is by no means unique - we all need to be VERY careful in hot humid summer weather.

Thursday 30th June 2005 saw another extremely localised major thunderstorm at the top end of Kingsdale. Resulted in a major flood pulse on the Twiss side of the waterfalls walk but with no increase at all on the River Doe side.

So beware they do happen!