Sunday 27 January 2013

The Force of Nature

A rapid overnight thaw combined with torrential rain and gale force winds meant that the scene which awaited us this morning was in complete contrast to yesterday's. What a difference 24 hours makes! All that rain and melting snow had to go somewhere. The beautiful vistas in my previous post have been replaced by these incredible views.  I couldn't replicate all of yesterday's photos, simply because many of my viewpoints were inaccessible today, but I think you'll get the picture. If you haven't seen the previous post, do have a look and compare.

This first one shows how quickly all the snow disappeared, in just a few hours. 

The others show where it all went to!

Picture No.6 in yesterday's post shows a gateway next to a tree by the river. Here (below) you can just see the top of the gate, which gives an indication of the depth of the water. Scary!

 The river does flood quite often, but this is about the worst I have seen it since we moved here. The water you can see in the next two photos is not usually there!



The normal course of the river follows the line of trees in the centre of the next picture and then bends off to the right in the distance.

The next view is looking in the opposite direction. The direction of flow is from left to right in front of the line of trees across the middle of the picture. The tree at the LH end of the line at right angles (the tree by the gateway in the earlier pic) is normally high and dry at the edge of the near bank!

Normally I would walk through this little wood alongside the river. Couldn't do that today!

The sky is now blue again, although it's still very windy. It's two hours or so since I took the photos and already the water level has dropped quite a bit. I always wonder what happens to the creatures which live in and around the river when it floods, but they seem to cope! We saw a large hare this morning, and some swans were swimming happily on the new lake which had appeared! I'm not sure where the otters go, but they seem to come back eventually. We found a dead otter, sadly, by the roadside a few weeks ago, but have seen more otter tracks since then, so hopefully there must be several around.

This is certainly a fascinating place to live!

7 comments:

craftimamma said...

What a dramatic change Lynne. All I can say is thank goodness it doesn't look as though any properties were in the way of all that water. I've just been showing my OH your before and after photos.

We had a similar change here but without the drama of floods thank goodness. It was nice to go supermarket shopping without my wellies I have to say but the wind and rain as I came out wasn't very nice. Wonder what tomorrow will bring, lol!

Hugs
Lesley Xx

Sally H said...

Oh my goodness, Lynne! What a difference a day makes! Looks like you would have needed a boat to retrace your steps exactly! Hope the levels go down fast and you get a bit more of that lovely sunshine. We have just been out for lunch, and after a week of it barely getting above freezing it is 8 degrees now - almost tropical! Wind and showers here too now, and very few birds on the feeders - so pleased I did my bird watch yesterday!

lisa said...

We seem to have had two seasons in one weekend don't we. My goodness, you have a lot of water about now. It has no where to go does it. It's fascinating to compare the two sets of photos. I hope you've kept warm today, the wind is decidedly chilly here. I was expecting it to feel warmer!!!
Hugs Lisax

Lisa Jane said...

OH my goodness.. that is amazing .. what a dramatic dfference.
LOve the new blog look too
Lisa x

kiwimeskreations said...

Isn't nature amazing - and what a fascinating corner of the world you live in.
Blessings
Maxine

Stella said...

Speaking of contrast; this is!
Scotland must be an amzing part of the world to live:)
XX

Michelle Webb said...

Wow those are fantastic pictures Lynne! Very pleased you took them and shared them on here. I'm truely blown away by the force of nature as I am a geologist and love anything to do with the Earth. Great post. Michelle x