EMB ERJ 145 ER/LR
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness; Workload
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation - Speed All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Diverted
Aircraft; Weather; Human Factors
Shortly after takeoff the auto pressurization system failed.  After leveling off below 10;000 feet and complying with procedures; the decision was made not to continue the flight due to high terrain.  We asked to return for landing at Airport ZZZ and [notified ATC] we would be making an overweight landing. The weather was very poor due to a tropical storm causing heavy rain and strong crosswinds on all runways.  While being vectored for approach to runway; we began to configure the aircraft; and set the flaps to 9 degrees.  Approach control then informed us that due to winds; ZZZ was down to one landing runway and that our [overweight landing] would cause its closure.  They were apprehensive about letting us continue the landing and broke us off of the approach using vectors at our current altitude.  Due to the questionable conditions; and status of the aircraft we elected to divert to our Takeoff Alternate Airport ZZZ1.   We were given climb instructions to 10;000 feet and cleared to ZZZ1.  Because we did not do a go-around; and were simply broken off the approach; we had not yet reconfigured the aircraft.  During the climb we became task saturated dealing with diverting; avoiding weather and monitoring/controlling the pressurization system manually during climb.  Upon leveling at 10;000 feet the aircraft accelerated to 275 knots before we realized that the flaps were still set at 9 degrees.  The aircraft was slowed and the flaps were then retracted.  We continued and burned off fuel until the aircraft was below landing weight and a normal landing was conducted.  Upon gate arrival; I entered the aircraft discrepancies into the AML (Aircraft Maintenance Log).  One for the pressurization system and one for the flap overspeed.  I then contacted [maintenance] and informed them of the aircraft status and the flap overspeed.  Maintenance technicians eventually arrived and inspected the aircraft and found no defects with the flap system and cleared the AML write-up.     Task saturation due to dealing with weather; ATC; diversion; faulty pressurization system; new-hire first officer; and overweight landing possibility [were contributing factors].Use of standard procedures to prevent task saturation and delegation of duties.
As we had a lot of tasks to accomplish in a short space of time; the best thing we could have done at the time was to have asked ATC for vectors around the airspace to give us time to run our checklists more calmly and effectively rather than rushing towards our alternate airport. Our first concern was for the passengers and not keeping them in the air for hours while we burned off fuel and to get them to a safe landing site so that we could investigate the pressurization problem further without tying up ATC.
EMB145 flight crew reported overspeeding the flaps when they became task saturated dealing with system failures and weather.