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Five floods in two years: what a medieval disaster teaches us about back-to-back flooding

Between the autumn of 1341 and the end of 1343, much of Europe flooded again and again. A study published in Nature in August 2026 counted sixteen major flood events in that short window. Four of them were so large…
Posted on 13th August, 2026
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Why the Somerset Levels flood — and what £50m will (and won’t) fix

The Somerset Levels flood because they are a low-lying former wetland, much of which sits at or below the level of the rivers and tides meant to drain it. In a wet winter, water arrives faster than the catchment can…
Posted on 17th June, 2026
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Acqua alta: how Venice lives with flooding, and what the UK takes from it

Acqua alta is the tidal flooding that covers parts of Venice several dozen times a year, and the city stays open through almost all of it. The reason is not the barrier at the lagoon mouth. It is that the…
Posted on 23rd February, 2026
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Managed retreat from flood risk at Clydach Terrace

Sixteen flood-prone homes on Clydach Terrace in Ynysybwl, Rhondda Cynon Taf, are set to be purchased and demolished by the local authority, bringing an end to years of repeated flooding, fear and uncertainty for the people who live there. Publicly,…
Posted on 3rd February, 2026
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Construction Stage Flood Risk and the Lessons from Attleborough

Flood risk is most often scrutinised at the point a planning application is determined. Flood Risk Assessments are prepared, mitigation is proposed, and decisions are taken on the assumption that what has been assessed on paper is what will exist…
Posted on 13th January, 2026
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Flooding Across England and Wales Ahead of Christmas 2025

In the weeks leading up to Christmas 2025, large parts of England and Wales experienced prolonged and disruptive flooding. Rather than a single storm-driven incident, the period was marked by repeated rainfall, saturated ground conditions and flooding that often persisted…
Posted on 22nd December, 2025
, in NPPF 
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Shrewsbury Floods, Ironbridge and Bewdley: What 25 Years of Severn Defences Changed

Shrewsbury floods because the town sits inside a loop of the River Severn, on ground the river has always used, at the foot of a catchment that gathers rain across mid Wales. Ironbridge and Bewdley flood for the same reason…
Posted on 5th November, 2025
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York Flooding: Why the Ouse Rises, and What 25 Years of Defences Changed

York flooding is not a freak event. It is the predictable consequence of where the city was built: at the meeting point of two rivers, at the bottom of a catchment draining most of the Yorkshire Dales, on ground flat…
Posted on 5th November, 2025
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Runways Underwater: The 2000 Crawley and Gatwick Floods

The Crawley and Gatwick floods of November 2000 saw the Gatwick Stream and the wider Upper Mole catchment overwhelm homes, roads and even the runways at one of the country's busiest airports. They were one local chapter of the wettest…
Posted on 4th November, 2025
, in SuDS 
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25 Years On: The Legacy of the Lewes Floods

The Lewes floods of October 2000 were among the most severe England has seen in living memory. On 12 October 2000, after the wettest autumn on record, the River Ouse overwhelmed the town in a matter of hours, inundating 613…
Posted on 3rd November, 2025
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Boscastle 2004 Floods: Lessons for a Wetter Climate

On 16 August 2004, a torrent of water tore through the Cornish village of Boscastle. What began as a humid summer afternoon became one of the most dramatic and widely televised flood events in modern British history. Within hours, cars…
Posted on 16th August, 2024
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The Great Flood of 1968: causes, the towns it hit, and the risk today

In the middle of September 1968, much of South East England disappeared under water. Two days of near-constant rain, the worst of it on Sunday 15 September, turned quiet rivers into torrents and turned high streets into channels you could…
Posted on 14th September, 2023
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What Is a Weather Bomb? Explosive Cyclogenesis Explained

A weather bomb is the informal name for a storm whose central pressure drops by at least 24 millibars in 24 hours, a process meteorologists call explosive cyclogenesis. The result is a deep, fast-developing area of low pressure that brings…
Posted on 22nd January, 2018
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