Partner Article

North East gets new flood warning system

A £1m weather radar that will help protect the region in the fight against flooding has been unveiled.

Northumbrian Water, the Met Office and the Environment Agency have invested the money to build a weather radar station which will provide the three agencies with important rainfall data.

The advanced equipment constantly sends and receives signals, ‘reads’ 25,000 one-kilometre grid locations every five minutes and provides up to seven million readings a day from across the region.

The station, which observes rainfall across the entire region, records where, when and how hard it is raining as well as how quickly areas of rainfall are moving.

This helps to evaluate the likelihood of heavy rainfall and the risk of potential flooding.

David Chapman, Northumbrian Water’s climate change manager, said: “The weather radar is a huge step forward in our ability to collect rainfall data and will allow Northumbrian Water to have a better understanding of the performance of our sewerage network in times of heavy rainfall.”

Phil Marshall, Environment Agency flood risk team leader, said: “Recent flooding in the North East has shown it is vital to be able to predict where and when rain will fall so we can warn residents and the emergency services about potential flooding and help reduce the risk of damage to property and loss of life.

“Weather radar data forms an important part of the Environment Agency’s forecasting capability.

“We can’t always prevent flooding but we can do our best to warn people so they can take action.”

The water company’s secure High Moorsley site has been chosen for its central location in the North East.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .