England has been seeing torrential rain in places and some areas are suffering flooding, South Yorkshire is really suffering. A huge dam near Rotherham is threatening to burst in which case several villages will be severely hit. Many people have been evacuated and there have been sone deaths.

BBC News

My thanks to the people who have enquired about the safety of my daughter and her husband who live in Sheffield. Fortunately for them they live half way up a hill so are not flooded, nor likely to be. Obviously they have been affected in other ways as my daughter commutes to Wakefield and her husband works in Rotherham.

I've just watched a special report on the floods, which are the worst ever recorded in the month of June in Britain. The dam Sue mentions, which is an earth dam, has a large section eroded away due to the water pressure, but this is being secured by stacking large quantities of sand against the damaged area. A number of high capacity pumps are also being used to reduce the water level within the dam, but this water can only be pumped into the already over-run drainage systems.
I phoned a friend last night, who is a Sheffield fireman, and obviously working 'flat out' despite the fact his own house was under threat, the floodwater being literally at his doorstep. Unfortunately, even without further rain, the water is rising due to run-off from surrounding high ground - known as 'The Peak District', so even if the dam holds in all likelihood there'll be considerably more devastation.
Right now I can see from my window several miles across the Lea Valley in Hertfordshire, and it's a sight of tranquility. The sun is shining, and there's no wind, just trees and greenery as far as I can see. We live on relatively high ground, so flooding is highly unlikely, but my heart goes out to those who are suffering at present, and have lost the use of their homes indefinitely. Even after the waters subside, there's every possibility of a re-occurence at any time - we are after all in mid-summer when the flood risk is normally minimal if not zero.
Gordon Brown, Tony Blair's successor as prime minister, has stated that he wants to build at least five new towns involving hundreds of thousands of houses. I hope first of all that he can arrange for the millions of people with houses presently at risk from devastating floods, to be re-housed!

I have an uncle living in Tenbury Wells Worcestershire. My mom is sitting in front of the TV here in South Africa watching Sky News for even the smallest mention of the area.

Our daughter lives next to the River Dearne (south Yorkshire). It has burst its banks for the second time in a week. This time has been the worst. Torrents of water were running across the roads there yesterday. Water flooded the floor in her house to the depth of an inch, so not so bad as many in her locality. Some had part of the main flow of the river running through their houses and have had to move out.

The river has gone back to within its banks now but of course the legacy remains.

Even an inch can do a lot of damage, your poor daughter.

I spoke to my daughter this evening and although their house is fine, and they are very grateful they recently had their roof fixed.

She wasn't able to get to work this morning so worked at home, her husband set off to work at about 6am and was home again by 10am, he also couldn't get to work so had presented himself at a hospital in Sheffield instead but due to insurance problems they couldn't let him help out.

I haven't spoken to my sister who lives in the Nottingham area but assume she is alright or I would have heard.

We had floods here in Hull too. I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime. The water rose so fast, it was amazing to watch but also quite frightening and we wondered if we might have to leave but thankfully it didn't come to that as very little water got into the house. We shall probably never see someone canoeing past our house again!
Unfortunately my brother wasn't so lucky, his house was completely flooded (two feet deep inside) and his car is a right off. It will be a long time before they can go home again. My son's school also suffered badly, the water has practically destroyed everything and I've no idea when it will re-open.
I've posted a couple of photos on my blog that I took on Tuesday afternoon of my street.

http://www.funtrivia.com/~50ftqueenie

WOW! Queenie thos pics are shocking. Poor people there is nothing worse than water problems in your home.

What is going on with the weather in the world? We had snow last night - in Africa? Strange.

I have never seen rain like we are having before either. It has rained more or less every day for at least 6 weeks, and we have had terrible storms. The roads have been like rivers some days! Luckily we're quite high up here but there are still people whose homes have been flooded. What is going on with the world?!!

There are some general South Yorkshire floods photos here.

I just heard that our daughter is going to have to move out for 6 months.

Oh Martin, that is dreadful. Did they managed to get most of their possessions upstairs for safe keeping?

Where will all these people go?

Hopefully the flooding will subside for you as well. I have been under flood watches and/or warnings for the last five days myself. I am within 4" of tallying all my annual rainfall in the first half of the year. Since May 1, I have had about 17" of rain. We officially tallied 2.54" yesterday alone, setting a new daily record.

Oh the South Yorkshire pictures are just terrible. How will they ever get that water out of ther?
So sorry to hear about your daughter TW. Does she have somewhere to go?
I do not know England that well so please tell me, is the flooding in or near Birmingham?

There are reports of flooding in Birmingham even though it is a bit further south.

Our daughter has found somewhere to rent, starting in a couple of days time. It'll be an hotel until then.

Mrs TW's sister is also affected. She lives at Withernsea near Hull (50ftqueenie's neck of the woods). Her shop flooded at the first downpour and her house at the second one later in the week.

She is lucky to have found somewhere so quickly, I presume such properties are going to be snapped up.

One of my Twin nieces lives in Sheffield, and works there.Her sister went to see her last weekend, and got stranded at the train station for a few hours , with no trains running, on Monday morning. It must be awful for your daughter TW. Best wishes to everyone who is affected by the floods

Thanks TW for that link. My brother lives close to Sutton Coldfield (just checked with him) but he has not been affected.

More floods in England...

Today's flooding from BBC News

When on earth is it all going to end?

Excited anticipation! Son number 1 coming to stay for a few days. All going swimmingly (? maybe wrong word ). We went to the coast for a day out but came back after 2 hours - rain, rain and more rain. Thanks English weather! I rarely get to see him and off he went back to Birmingham a day early when he saw the the forecast.

I'm thankful that we live on fairly high ground overlooking the Lea Valley. Electricity pylons, about 175 ft tall run up the valley, and we look down on them so it will have to be a flood of Biblical proportions before we are seriously affected. Millions of other UK homes aren't so well situated, being built on flood plains and estuaries.
England has an undeserved reputation for bad weather, and flooding is presently occurring in areas never previously subject to floods. The problem for houseowners in these areas is will it happen again? It's unlikely their insurers will re-insure tham against flood, at least without a hugely increased premium, and the selling price of their houses is likely to be hit quite hard.
It takes months to dry out a flooded house, making it fit for habitation. The flooded areas have to be fully dried out, re-wired, re-plastered and possibly re-plumbed. New gas, electricity and water meters have to be fitted, and maybe new timber floors and joists fitted before anyone can move back in. Then if flooding happens again the problem is compounded further, and that's ignoring the other factors such as damaged furniture, vehicles, etc.
As Sue says above, "where is it all going to end?".

What is unusual with some of these recent floods (as in Hull) is that the drains cannot cope and it's the actual volume of rain in a short space of time that has caused the problem on a massive scale. Whether this is due to cutbacks and they are not maintained so effectively these days is one possibility - the one favoured by my Yorkshire relatives who say they rarely see the lorry pumping out the drains.

That is one of the possible reasons the rain is causing so much trouble,lilyalli. It isn't uncommon for me to see the roads flowing with surface water, even after a short downpour. Our street drains haven't been cleared in the past 15 years to my knowledge and most of them are full to the top with silt. Without this escape route the water has to go somewhere and it usually forms mini-rivers down the roads.
The other problem is the building of houses in areas that are natural drainage routes. This disrupts the natural run-off and water will always find the easiest route to get away, hence a lot of the problems.

I think you have a point, lilyalli. Of all the so-called "regulators" who are supposed to curb the excesses of our privatized utilities, OFWAT seems to be the least effective. When we get dry summers, the water companies are allowed to impose hosepipe bans and similar restrictions at the drop of a hat , but they're never made to do anything serious about the leakage of several billion gallons of water a year from their mains. So I don't suppose that OFWAT looks too closely at the maintenance of drains either.

In this town, we've avoided flooding so far this year; but in the winter of 2006 a downpour in the night caused flooding in the town centre, including the little shopping mall (built, of course, on an area that lies a few feet below sea level).

How awful for all you brits and TW, I am also sorry about you daughter's situation, but thankfully she is safe. I live in Ohio,USA and we are going through the opposite-a severe drought which is affecting all the large and small farms in my area. Would be nice to give you all a little dryness and trade for a little rain. I just hope all of you remain safe and you are in my thoughts. I'll be checking back for updates on the situation.

I live in the West Midlands and the rain has been torrential again for the last few days. We have had a lot of storms. Starting to wonder if we are going to get any summer at all!