i dedicate this website to all the climate/global warming change idiots...just look back over britains 1000 year history and you'll see multiple great flood events.. 1014AD ,1607 AND 1824 notable floods....read and learn you morons!
hxxp://www.southampton.ac.uk/~imw/chestorm.htm
1014 - "The Great Sea Flood" - A Storm Surge or a Tsunami?
"This year, on the eve of St. Michael's day, came the great sea-flood, which spread wide over this land, and ran so far up as it never did before, overwhelming many towns, and an innumerable multitude of people."
( The Anglo Saxon Chronicles ; The Online Medieval and Classical Library, Berkeley Digital Library.)
"St. Michael’s Day is celebrated in the Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican churches on September 29th, and in the Greek church on November 8. The different dates have to do with changes from the Roman to the Julian and Gregorian calendars." ( The Mystery of St. Michael's Day, Amish Country News.) A September date means that an Atlantic hurricane is a possible cause, although, of course, a tsunami could happen at any date.
"The earliest recorded landslides in Portland are for 1014 when 'great areas of the Portland Cliffs' were destroyed by the sea exposing large areas of stone which formed the first quarries." (Williams, 1992). No reference was given but this is a presumably a reference to the Great Sea Flood. If this is correct then the major scouring event by the sea is of particular interest.
See also the following note by Wallace (1990) in his fig. 2 : "Great Sea Flood of 1014 devastates the South Coast. In London high tides rise above Roman wharf and undercut Roman wall behind." Wallace (1990) on p.16 comments that "Old Selsey was one of the 'many town washed away' by the Great Sea Flood, and finally abandoned after the earthquake of 1048. Thereafter sea-level probably stabilised or even fell slightly, in accordance with Fairbridge's Eustatic Sea Level Curve and London archaelogical evidence."
1606 - Sea-Flooding in the Bristol Channel Area - Tsunami?
It is not known whether this affected the Chesil Beach. Information is provided here in case there is some record.
A news item refers to a January 1607 flood, but as noted below it was probably in 1606.
"520 sq km of land in south Wales and south west England were covered by water. This great sea-flood in the Bristol Channel area was thought to have been caused by high tides and severe storms. A tsunami is now considered to have been a possible cause" (BBC News on the internet, 4 April 2005 - Tsunami theory of flood disaster. ).
However, this may not be correct. Please see: TW - Blog Website which is useful in not only providing a criticism of the tsunami theory but also gives the following quotation:
"But the yeere 1606, the fourth of K (King) James, the ryver of Severn rose upon a sodeyn Tuesday mornyng the 20 of January beyng the full pryme day and hyghest tyde after the change of the moone by reason of a myghty strong western wynd. So that from Mynhead to Slymbryge the lowe groundes alongst the ryver Severne were that tuornyng tyde overflowen, and in Saltmarsh many howses overthrowne, sundry Chrystyans drowned, hundreds of rudder cattell and horses peryshed, and thowsandes of sheep and lambs lost. Unspeakable was the spoyle and losse on both sydes the ryver. [..snip..] The salt water was in Rednyng in Sansoms new chamber to the upper stepp save twoo, and in Hobbes house syx foote hyghe. In Ellenhurst at Wades howse the sea rose neere 7 foote and in some howses there yt ran yn at one wyndow and out at an other. [..snip..] Also in Brysto by credyble report that mornyng tyde was hygher than that Evenyng tyde by nyne foote of water.
John Paul, Vicar of Almondsbury, 26th January 1606"
(refer to the above-quoted webpage for more information)
EXTREME STORM WITH A STORM SURGE OF 3-4m - WORST KNOWN!
1824 - Hurricane "Great Gale" hits Devon and Dorset with a Storm Surge
"the wind was stronger than the West Indian hurricanes"
(Naval officer quoted by Hutchinson, P.O. - History of Sidmouth)
1824 contin - The Surge - Introduction - General
November of the year 1824 is famous for storm surges and hurricanes in Europe. Much of the Devon and Dorset coast was devastated with an abnormal rise in sea-level and huge waves from the southerly hurricane winds (Le Pard, 1999). The effect on the Chesil Beach was drastic. Adjacent to this and elsewhere and at sea many lives were lost. The sea-flood swept away many houses that had been built on very low ground near the coast. The hurricane caused some of the worst flooding ever known on the English Channel coast. It had a drastic effect on beaches and sea-defences from Plymouth to Hurst Castle Spit, Hampshire and its effects were felt far beyond to the east. It had economic consequences in the region regarding ports and housing, and it may have been caused the decline of the south coast salt industry (New Wall Saltworks Apuldram.) A similar hurricane and storm surge event will occur again, of course, sooner or later but there is there no good data on the frequency or return period. The historic records from English Channel coastal towns and villages provide some indication of what might happen at these places during the next occurrence.
1824 contin - The Storm Surge of St. Petersburg - Also in November
Mid-November 1824 is more famous, though, for the great storm surge and river flooding of Saint Petersburg (Leningrad). We cannot ignore this because it was similar to the Dorset event in some respects and it took place at a very close date that of the Dorset storm. The St. Petersburg disaster is described on the basis of local reports in Pushkin's poem - "The Bronze Horseman". The city is situated at the eastern end of the funnel-like Gulf of Finland, off the Baltic Sea, and is particularly prone to the effects of storm surges. The largest flood occurred on "November 19, 1824" (Gregorian conversion of a Julian date - November 7), when the sea-surge caused the river to reach 410 centimeters flooding the city and drowning between 208 and 569 people and destroying 462 houses. There is serious concern now (in Russia) about a repeat of the 1824 weather conditions ( St Petersburg races to halt floods.)
There may be some uncertainty about the date. The Julian Calendar was used at St. Petersburg, but the conversion to Gregorian is not simple because of different leap-year rules (note also the existence of the different Swedish and Finn calendar). Thus was this a separate severe storm occurring just a few days earlier or was the same storm. If if was the same storm then, of course, it should have been earlier in Dorset (your comments on the Julian-Gregorian conversion might help). If the dates had been appropriate the St. Petersberg storm could be explained by northeast drift of the dissipating Atlantic hurricane that had earlier affected the English Channel. "St. Petersburg’s flooding patterns are closely connected with the movement of low-pressure air masses over the Atlantic. Low-pressure air moves in from the west, creating so-called "long waves" that bring extra water into the Gulf of Finland and the mouth of the Neva River. Strong westerly winds then effectively block the flow of water from the mighty Neva .. spill the excess water over its banks and onto the city." ( St. Petersburg - Floods webpage. )
Certainly, the English Channel storm surge (the Dorset "Great Gale") is recorded as far east as Ramsgate (see below) and a particularly bad storm surge was noted in mid-November, 1824 in the Zuiderzee of the Netherlands ( Dutch Heritage Website. ). It is worth remembering too that the 1703 Hurricane proceeded northeast: "By dawn the following morning it had moved on to Scandinavia, but it left behind a 300-mile wide trail of devastation across England and Wales, all the way from Cornwall to the Wash." ( Richard Hamblyn. Britain: The gathering storms. Re - 1703. "Forget the violent gales of 1987 - when a real hurricane hit Britain 300 years ago, it was an 'Army of Terror' that killed 8,000 people. And we're due for another")
1824 contin - Hurricanes and Storm Surges in the English Channel - Introduction
Extreme wind conditions in the central to western English Channel can produce storm surges if the the wind is from the southwest or west-southwest (for examples of previous occurrences of such weather conditions see some of the historic weather maps for the British Isles in Lamb (2005) - Historic Storms of the North Sea, British Isle and Northwest Europe). Relatively small but recent examples of English Channel storm surges have been described by (Law, 1975) and by George and Thomas (1976).
