A severe weather warning has been issued by The Met Office -  from midnight tonight a “YELLOW ALERT OF RAIN” will be in place for 24 hours.

A period of heavy rain will affect parts of southern, central and eastern Scotland during Tuesday. The rain will tend to ease from the south during the afternoon. Timings and extent of rainfall remain subject to some uncertainty. The public should be aware that there may be disruption to travel in a few places with possible localised flooding.

The BBC Breakfast weather report is reporting the potential for 40 – 60mm in the east of Scotland.

Certainly a weather event we will be watching closely.

Freuchie experienced the most rainfall in a while yesterday. Approximately 24mm of rain fell in 9 hours, with most of the total falling in a 7 hour spell of moderate steady rainfall.

The culvert at Freuchie Mill rose considerably during this rainfall event. As has been previously highlighted, a rainfall rate of 3mm per hour will see the level of the Pitilock Burn rise to alarming levels incredibly quickly at Freuchie Mill.

Thankfully other watercourses in Freuchie tend to take longer or require more rainfall to raise the same level of alarm or lead onto flooding.

Thanks to Cockermouth Flood Action Group and others for their kind thoughts posted on our Facebook updates yesterday.

Our thoughts are with those across the Atlantic who are suffering the worst effects of “Hurricane Irene” / “Tropical Storm Irene”.

The storm surge has already caused flooding, with further severe flooding being predicted along the east coast of the US.

Keep safe.

A Yellow (Be Aware) Severe Weather Warning has been issued by the Met Office:

Issued at – 26 Aug 2011, 12:42
Valid from – 26 Aug 2011, 12:00
Valid to – 26 Aug 2011, 21:00

Slow moving heavy rain, perhaps accompanied by thunder in places, will continue into this evening. The public should be aware that localised flooding from surface water is possible.

SEPA has issued a Flood Alert for Fife:

A FLOOD ALERT has been issued for Fife

from 26-08-2011 12:30 to 27-08-2011 12:30

A FLOOD ALERT has been issued for Fife.

Outbreaks of heavy rain, with some intense localised downpours, are expected to affect the area throughout Friday. The intensity of the rain may cause some surface water flooding, particularly in built up areas or on low lying roads. Flooding to low lying areas from small watercourses is also possible. Impacts are not expected to be widespread, but flooding may occur in localised areas where the rainfall is most intense. SEPA will continue to monitor the situation and further updates will be provided when new information becomes available. Conditions are expected to ease during Saturday.

A Met Office spokesman on the BBC Scotland News programme revealed the following statistics for the first ten days of August:

2/3 of weather stations in Scotland have already recorded the usual amount of rainfall that would be seen in the whole of August.

Aberdeen has recorded 1.5 times
Edinburgh has recorded 2 times
Leuchars has recorded 3 times

Our own weather station is showing 107.4mm so far in August as of 7pm on the 11th August, with half of this rainfall being over the last 36 hours.

Approximately 40mm of rainfall was recorded by the Freuchie Mill weather station from 9am on the 10th until 9am this morning (11th).

Image: Recent daily rainfall totals

This volume of rainfall will have fully saturated the ground thereby increasing the risk of flooding over the next few days as rain continues to fall.

Scary rain is heading our way by Wednesday, potentially lasting into next week.

Weather forecast data for Freuchie from the Norwegian Weather Service

Fingers crossed the weathermen have it wrong.

The cumulative result of the rainfall this week past and the forecast rainfall, if repeated across Scotland, will undoubtedly and sadly result in flooding throughout Scotland.  Our experience of past flood events in Freuchie suggests these daily rainfall totals will see watercourse levels rising to levels where we will be closely monitoring the Freuchie and Pittilock Burns.

Be prepared and keep an eye on the FFAG web resources for information as the weather patterns evolve over the coming days.

SEPA has issued a flood alert for Fife:

An updated FLOOD ALERT has been issued for Fife.

A spell of heavy and possibly thundery rain is expected across much of the region through Saturday and into Sunday. The rain is expected to start during the morning and give possible totals of between 25 and 35mm with higher totals expected over more eastern and coastal parts of Fife.
River levels across the region are currently low. However, rivers and smaller watercourses in the areas that are affected by the heaviest of the rain over the weekend will rise, which may result in some minor disruption.
There may be localised flooding issues in towns and communities across the region, with surface water and possible road flooding causing some disruption. The Flood Alert will be updated as further information is known.

Remain vigilant and remember, it is your responsibility to take actions which help protect yourself and your property. Advice and information is available through Floodline on 0845 9881188. This FLOOD ALERT UPDATE is now in force until further notice.

The Met Office has also issued an AMBER severe weather warning:

Rain will become persistent and often heavy across Southeast Scotland during the afternoon, spreading north into the rest of the East this evening and tonight. The rain will last through much of Sunday. Accumulations of 25 to 35mm are expected widely, with 60mm locally and a small risk of localised totals of 75 to 100mm in the Southeast.

Time to dust down your flood protection products ready to deploy just in case the rainfall is the worst case.

The graph says it all about the rainfall on Freuchie over the last day or so…

Technorati Tags: Freuchie, rainfall

We would like to thank Cllr David MacDiarmid for showing up yesterday early evening to check on how Freuchie was standing up to the rainfall. He was only away about fifteen minutes when the high drama began at Freuchie Mill.

We appreciate his concern and continued support.

Technorati Tags: Cllr David MacDiarmid, Freuchie, Freuchie Mill