Still raining at 6.30am, but the rain radar shows that the trailing edge of the storm is just passing over us – here’s hoping! By mid-morning, the rain has now stopped but the river level website shows many flooded rivers in the Pyrenees area. The Baise is flooded while the Lot has a warning, as do many other rivers in the south-west.

The Tarn river height gauge at Moissac shows that it peaked during the night but has now fallen.

However, I don’t quite believe this from what I saw on the Tarn this morning. The Tarn is at least half a metre higher than it was last week, with the dock where we were standing to watch the Pentecote Parade now under water (lucky Pentecote was a week earlier this year!).

The old lock where barges go through to avoid the barrage is now running a torrent. Will be interesting to check whether there is more water coming down the Tarn later this afternoon.

Checking the VNF State of the Network website (for canals) shows that the Midi Canal is closed today south of Toulouse because of high water.

Despite the weather, there are still lots of Compostelle walkers going through Moissac. Here is a party walking along on the other side of the canal from our house.

Been down to the river a few times to check the water level and it has continued to rise, as shown by the pictures below of the same place at 9am, 12 noon and 7pm.

At 9.00am

At 12.00noon

At 7.00pm

Not too much so far, but looking at the river levels further upstream on the Tarn and the Agout seems to indicate that we can expect a LOT more water in Moissac later today (not quite 1930 levels when the Tarn rose by 17m in 24 hours at Montauban, but still a lot). Montauban has shown a rise of 2m in the past 12 hours, while Lavaur has shown a rise of 5m in that time. Luckily the Tarn is a bit wider at Moissac so the increase in height may be a bit less, but it should still be substantial. In February 2003, when Montauban got to 5.6m, Moissac got to 5.5m.

The river levels website shows that the Tarn at Moissac has started to rise again (not sure what happened this morning - technical glitch in the measuring equipment?), so will keep an eye out this afternoon. I found out later in the day that the drop in water level earlier today at Moisaac was not a measurement glitch - rather, there is a barrage to the west of Moissac on the Garonne which lets cooling water into the pondage for the nuclear power station at Goldfech. This morning they lowered the barrage to take water out of the river, which gave rise to the drop in water level upstream at Moissac.

The car seller's wife brought the CT to the port, and left her ID card as security that she would deliver the car after we paid the money into her account. I then arranged for the transfer of the balance of the purchase price into their account via OzForex. Once again, they were happy to confirm via emails rather than the usual phone calls.

Talked with Kaz and Iain about future plans for the port, now that Veolia have got the contract again. Sounds like they will be OK, and maybe go onto contract after this year. Veolia have promised significant capital expenditure at the port over the coming year. The plans for the new finger pontoons on the Tarn sound interesting, but will require substantial investment and annual operating costs for removal and storage. Will be interesting to see how it all turns out.