February 2009
Chelmsford on Sea photos by Stuart Axe.
After a modest amount of rainfall in early February, GDF exceeded the 90th percentile on the 5th of February.
Then 28 mm of rainfall on the 9th of February, combined with a spring tide from a full moon on the 9th of February, led to one of the worst floods we have seen in Chelmsford in recent decades.
The maximum 7-day CDR during the flood was 44 mm, which exceeds the 98th percentile, but is still a long way from the maximum of 86 mm for the Rushes Lock record.
In terms of volume, the maximum 7-day VR was 24 million cubic metres of rainfall over the Rushes Lock catchment, which resulted in a maximum 7-day VF of 8.6 million cubic metres of flow through Rushes Lock. Unfortuately bypassing at Rushes Lock makes the flow measurement inaccurate when the river is in flood.
GDF stayed above the 90th percentile for 14 days, until th 17th of February. GDF also exceeded the 95th percentile for 6 consecutive days.
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Video
There are quite a few videos for this flood, including videos of the Meads and flood gates, and videos of cars underwater in Writtle.
Photographs
We're fotunate to have a fairly large collection of photographs for the February 2009 flood, mostly from Stuart Axe.
Reference
We see from the Moon phase record that was a Full Moon on the 9th of February. Full record for Rushes Lock shows 28mm rainfall on the 9th of Februrary coincided with the Full Moon.
Data
Only the data for Rushes Lock has been processed so far.
Catchment Daily Rainfall (CDR):
1-day max =
3-day max =
7-day max =
27.9 mm
31.9 mm
44.1 mm
Volume of Rainfall:
1-day max =
3-day max =
7-day max =
14.9 M m3
17.03 M m3
23.54 M m3
Gauged Daily Flow (GDF):
1-day max =
Days over Q10 =
Days over Q5 =
> 18.2 m3 / s
13
6
Volume of Flow:
1-day max =
3-day max =
7-day max =
> 1.57 M m3
> 4.38 M m3
> 8.56 M m3
37002 - Chelmer at Rushes Lock
A useful station due to data availability back to 1932. However, flow data is inacurate at low and high readings, due to bypassing which begins at 0.57 metres, presumably when the Lock Gates overflow. Upgraded in 1965, to increase max flow from 10 to 20 cumecs. Frustratingly the Level data is not available.
Data available from NRFA:
CDR: 1932-01-01 to 2017-12-31
GDF: 1932-01-01 to 2010-10-05
Reference:
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