"It's beggining to feel at lot like Winter!"

What a week! More floods and now turning Frosty!

The highest rain record this week came from Thorneyholme RC Primary School and Westwood CP School both with 100mms of rain. As WestwoodSchool pointed out this week they are very lucky to not live by a river. Some schools who received less rain but did get flooding in their locality.

Nant Y Coed School explained:  We've actually had 23mm of rain since yesterday. There was lots of flooding in the area and some of the teachers couldn't get home at all and some didn’t get home until nearly midnight.

Study the maps to see why. If you click on the option that says 'Terrain' in Google maps you will be able to see all the contours of the mountains and hills. If you follow this link to where Ysgol Nant Y Coed school is situated you will see that when the rain falls in the surrounding area it all collects and runs to  Llandudno Junction area - so if there is very heavy rainfall the area may flood. If you look at the Environment Agency flood map it highlights the areas that suffer from flooding and you will see that the areas around does flood just as the school reported.

Take a look at different areas in your locality and see if you can predict if or why certain areas flood. Then visit the environment agency flood map to see where the areas of high risk are.

This link has some animations about the different factors that cause a flood.

Oakfield Primary asks: Is the rainfall heavy for this time of year? Prof.P: Good question! Our records show that the average rainfall since we began recording are around 150mm of rain in November in Wales. We can't compare this figure until the end of the month but in some places 100mm of rain have fallen in a day! So yes it is high for this time of year. 

Your questions, my answers:

Thorneyholme RC Primary School: The bulb is so cute!!
########## hash tag (no reason at all someone in class is obsessed with hash tags!) See you next week p plant. Thorneyholme xoxo Prof.P: High #Thorneyholme #Prof.P

Ysgol Capelulo: It rained a lot on Thursday but it was very windy so not a lot of rain went into the rain collector, but there was a lot of rain on Thursday night. It also rained a lot on Wednesday night. The temperature on Tuesday was quiet warm. Prof.P: Great recording!

Stanford in the ValePrimary School: What a week.... Floods on Wednesday, Thursday high winds and blue skies Friday!
Stanford Gardening Club Prof.P: Yes a very crazy week of weather!

Stepping StonesShortStaySchool
We have wondered about the rainfall records - we were putting the rain gauge out each morning, but then thought this isn't recording all the rain at night we have had recently? We are now leaving it out all the time in between emptying it at about 2:30 each afternoon. We hope this is ok?  Prof.P: Great, well spotted, I leave mine out so it collects all the rain too then just empty it once a day.

Ysgol Porth Y Felin. Hello P.P we are very amazed about Thursday because of all the floods!!! There aren’t many differences between the temperatures but there’s quite a lot in the rainfall! Happy planting!!!!  Prof.P: Yes so much rain falling some days!

GlyncollenPrimary School
We have had a lot of rain this week and the strong wind blew our water gauge down so we hope our rainfall measurement is accurate. Prof.P: Thanks for letting me know, this can’t be helped sometimes mine falls over too!

St Joseph's Primary School (Penarth) we have been very excited about taking measurements this week. We were interested to see that, so much rain fell on Tuesday night, our car park was flooded! Prof.P: Gosh, I hope none of the cars were flooded, glad you’re enjoying!

Greyfriars RC Primary School
I love the plants there doing very well. Prof.P: Great news Greyfriars!

CadoxtonPrimary School
Friday rainfall could have been more than 50 ml but measurer stopped at 50. Prof.P: Gosh, perhaps you need a bigger rain gauge?

LadybankPrimary School
Problem of people standing on our plants but we are working to get it sorted. Prof.P: Oh dear! I do hope you manage to sort it out – please let me know.

Thanks

Prof.P