Wellies and your big coat needed

I'm interrupting the Bankfield museum series in order to be topical - topic: the weather! 

Climate change is well and truly with us. We've had three named storms in the space of a few days, bringing gale force winds, heavy rain and snow, so it's not surprising that by Sunday our rivers were suffering under the impact. Mid-afternoon on Sunday, although it was still raining, I ventured down to the park to gauge what was happening. 

As you can see above, the river had breached and was pouring into Roberts Park. It hadn't (yet) topped the opposite bank but the Boathouse Inn had its flood defences in place. Further down by the bowling greens the car park was under water.  That huge, pesky tree (see HERE) was still trapped above the weir - one wonders for how much longer with that force of water... The weir itself was hard to see apart from the turbulence, though the river level was (at that time) not up to the top of the wall by Salts Mill.   

It's always a vulnerable spot further upstream by Hirst Weir and the Rowing Club (below), as Lode Pit Beck joins the Aire here. The banking by the weir is quite low and the whole area quickly gets inundated. You can just see the handrail of what is normally the footbridge over the beck. I suppose to an extent it is designed to be like that; allowing flooding on this side relieves the pressure against the old mill on the other bank, which is now residential property. 

The footpath through the nature reserve was awash - but this is designated flood plain and the houses above are elevated, hopefully high enough to be safe. 

The power of the water was terrifying, but the river level was still well below the footbridge across the Aire, where I stood to take the picture below.  

At the time I was exploring, the flooding wasn't as bad as the record floods of 2015, and was similar to those after Storm Ciara in 2020, but the rain was still falling and there was much more water to come down from the higher reaches of the river in the Dales. In the hour I was out, the water level in the park had come much higher, creeping up towards the Half Moon Café.