Frozen floodwater

[Tibbs735]

What do you think would happen if the temperature dropped below freezing, and all this saturated ground and floodwater froze solid, possibly for the next few months? (Especially with this winter predicted to be the coldest in 100 years)

Imagine all these flooded houses, buildings, roads and drains covered in a 2 foot layer of ice. If the drains freeze and crack from the expanding ice, how could they cope with the meltwater when it thaws?

[Highlander]

I think the shear amount of water would make the surface `warm` enough that it wouldnt freeze other than maybe a ice coating of a couple of inches on top,... if the weather did get cold enough to penertrate deeper, [ which I doubt ] then it would cause massive problems in all sorts of areas

[BDG]

Water and gas mains should be deep enough not to be troubled, but their would be a lot of heave that would destroy paths and roads, winter crops lost, lot of damage to trees, disruption of water flows so any rain or melt would flow over the land, deep cooling of the ground so it would take a lot longer to warm up for crops in spring, death of pasture, but that is all worst case.

The ground holds enough heat not to freeze up too bad in the UK.

[Scythe13]

Living in Taunton, I can tell you exactly what has been happening to part around here.

The OH says that pavements are cracking and crumbling all round the town centre. I'm still to check that out, but scientifically, it makes sense.

The temp dropped below zero already and.....no freezing! Don't forget, PURE H2O freezes at 0 degrees. Unclean water will freeze at a lower temp. Flood water is never pure h20, so will need VERY low temps to freeze it up. Further more, a lot of the water around here is very fast moving on the surface, so the water friction and natural drop and rise of hot and cold water, will reduce the level of freezing even further.

As for the rural land....that could well freeze. But it shouldn't be that harsh. Most piped are going to be screwed up with the natural freezing.....as they are every year.

The part that interests me the most is trees. Will the extreme freeze damage and kill certain types of tree? If so, that's a huge damager to the eco system. Couple that with the damage a falling tree can do to power lines, houses, etc. I know trees can cope with frozen ground. But with the amount of water in the ground, the roots will be getting crushed (water expands when frozen, remember).

I think the effects of the frozen ground water are going to be an unknown issue.

Let's just hope that the freeze doesn't happen until the water is a reasonable distance away, under ground.

[NorthernRaider]

I remember that actually happening in the early 60s when I was a youngster, we had heavy snow, then a quick thaw followed by very heavy rain and most flat areas were covered with 2 ft of water, then it froze, didnt half bugger up the phone lines, and in some grave yards the recently deceased floated to the surface.

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Frozen ground will suffer from heave like tundra and steppe does, in Canada they dont bury their telegraph poles they make them into a tripod type thing instead. A good freeze on the land they way it is now would destroy many miles of road surface.

[bigpaul]

the fields and roads would be unusable, nobody would be going anywhere, no deliveries to the shops, no fuel delivered to the petrol station. maybe the freezing temperatures would make your local elec sub station cut out so maybe no power either. personally speaking we would Bug IN with all our preps and food stocks and wait it out, possibly only use one room and try and keep that as warm as possible and wait for the thaw.

[NorthernRaider]

In the great winter of 64 the snow across much of the country reached higher than the upper deck of buses, many areas were cut of for weeks, I remember watching Blue Peter as Chris Trace and John Noaks joined the RAF dropping supplies to cut off communities, The footage of a steam train fully laiden with passengers being buried by snow for days on end was amazing. Sometimes your only opton is to hunker down and wait mother nature out.

[bigpaul]

i remember that! i was still living at home with my parents, saw pictures of the military dropping hay out of a helicopter to ponies and stock on Dartmoor!

[Pagan-Mist]

Well I think if it penetrated deep enough in certain areas say bristol for instance some of the piping is still clay I think it would at best crack at worst crumble

[Mortblanc]

Here in the U.S. we deal with extremes of weather on a regular basis. The land is big enough that when one area is stricken the others just take a ho-hum attitude, send some relief supplies and go about normal business. Hurricanes wipe out entire cities and 99% of the population does not bat and eye if it is more than 100km from them.

The government agencies have a very practical way of dealing with these things. They detirmine a problem as either an annually recurring event that must be delt with, or a "once every 100 year event" which can be ignored.

About half the time they do not wish to deal with the annual evernts, much less prepare for a "once in 100" event!

On top of that the individuals do not prepare for any emergency and strip the shelves of milk bread and eggs at every weather warning. Our grid goes down on a regular basis and no one has a reserve heat or cooking scource, or even considers what they do have as usable.

Over the years I have come to enjoy the panic and often watch the loons with no heat, no food and no clue what to do, whining on the newscast with a bit of smug self-satisfaction.