Swildons in the wet, any rules of thumb?

[Cantclimbtom]

The Swildon's stream was over the top pipe tonight, but was not flowing into the blockhouse when we walked the dog at about 5.30pm. Things are starting to get pretty damp on Mendip.

Thanks for the update, based on earlier comments that's way too high. It's been pretty awful at times tonight on the roads. I'll take a look maybe tomorrow evening.

 

[mikem]

Certainly several roads around the base of the hills are flooded, including the main one to Bath by chew valley lake

 

[mikem]

It's also closed Goughs showcave at cheddar

 

[mikem]

The river at wookey has already dropped 10cm (which is 20% of yesterday's rise), so it's highly unlikely that swildon's is still flowing in the top pipe. Cheddar Yeo, however, has only just started to drop (that gauge is closer to the cave - outflow of Cox's mill pond)

 

[PaulW]

I went down to Sump 1 on Saturday, in my view water entering at the entrance has changed over the last few years, there was maybe a foot of water outside the blockhouse, but the volume of water in the cave was more like it used to be when entering the top pipe as the water is undercutting the wall and stream bed at the blockhouse. I also look at the resurgence water levels at Wookey on guagemap (admittedly the water has gone through by that point), but look at it now and it shows friday nights / sat am flood pulse.
https://www.gaugemap.co.uk/#!Map/Summary/463/469
The foam on the walls also showed higher water levels 450mm between the 40 and 20
600mm at the sump

On Sunday the foam was 600mm short of ladder dig in GB

 

[mikem]

Yes, it has changed, but on average less water is flowing in most days than we used to get.

 

[Cantclimbtom]

I didn't try Swildons on Sat evening. I erred on caution as it's an unfamiliar cave, would've been solo and expected to be wetter than I was comfortable with in those circumstances.

However there's a wealth of useful info here about water levels and I've learned loads, hopefully this thread will be useful to others too

Thanks everyone