seb

And the UKV has reduced convective activity by roughly half, as has the DWD’s MOS-Mix (the German version of UKV which runs to Wednesday 21z and is updated hourly).

No. Just no. GFS vs ECM accumulated rain amounts by Wed 18z below. Barely a difference. 10mm or thereabouts over three days is a wet run? Sure. You are aware that we need 150% of average rainfall between 1 Aug and 31 March to end drought conditions I hope.

Your area yes. Down South there’s only two days below 25.

Wow that GFS 0z never really gets rid of the heat. Bit cooler Wednesday, back to 25 Thursday slowly increasing and then by the following Wednesday we are back to 30. We then keep 31-32 to the end of the run. As for rain - forget about it. All but gone from the large majority of England at less than 10mm by the end of the run.

That’s one bold claim. I guess the same applies to the ECM as well then considering it’s keeping the same strip in the South and half way up the East coast as dry as the GFS. I refer to data up to next Saturday, just to be clear. What happens afterwards is unclear but the signs currently are as per previous posts from a number of members.

Well… let’s see if the ECM sticks to what it was hinting at because the GFS has just followed suit. It has also further reduced storms/showers along the entire South and half way up the East coast… which again is falling into line with other models.

Yeah I don't know what they did. Some posts further down I posted the BBC's map and also a link to the official Environment Agency areas.

Page 14 onward... https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1097885/Water_Situation_Report_for_England_July_2022.pdf We need 120% of the average rainfall between now and end of March for a refill of rivers. Average still leaves many below normal; 80% leaves us roughly where we are now and 60% put more or less all rivers at exceptionally low by March.

I think Sky couldn’t place the Solent & South Downs area Part of Sussex is included in that... I think! EDIT: Here's the EA area map whic kind of explains the confusion https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/549638/Environment_Agency_areas_map.pdf

Official drought areas (Sky News)

Haha good point re the warnings although I’ve just checked all high res models on Kachelmannwetter and there is general consensus for only minute amounts (0-10mm) of accumulated precipitation in the non-warned areas up to midnight Wednesday. Models checked: UKMO, Swiss MRF, ICON. Yes, it’s early to look at convective precipitation but we are getting closer and neither the models mentioned, nor the first few UKV frames look hopeful. The big exceptions are ECM and GEM. GFS sides with the high res models.

You could not make it up. The rain and storm shield for the worst drought areas remains in full force.

Or… for all but the worst drought areas!

It's a bit baffling. Where a drought has been declared, the water companies in that region do not have to go through the whole "request" process.

GFS does it again. The “monsoon” front it showed for several runs, pushing in from the West next Saturday evening… has been entirely removed. Instead it is now showing a dry weekend across the large majority of the country. As with any frontal rain modelled by it at T+10, first it shows up with large amounts of rain, each run weakens it and then it vanishes. This has been the case pretty much since last November with less than a handful exceptions. 00z generally warm, closer to average after Monday, but what would normally be considered perfect summer weather - mid 20s with some areas getting to 27. Rain amounts obviously not to be taken literally but significantly drier compared to the previous few runs. As per other posters this morning… there’s some model consensus appearing.

But why…? I think most of us have a good handle on model flaws but this isn’t one. In fact the GFS appears to have solved the issue of underestimating temps at long last.

Yes I think that's right but there are also those that source water from reservoirs and rivers but aren't/weren't considering restrictions but that decision is effectively taken away from them by declaring an official drought. I am not sure re EA etc. but could well be but Anglian Water says it used 50% reservoirs and 50% aquifers. In the SW, Wessex Water gets 75% from groundwater so that doesn't appear to be the issue. Southwest Water on the other hand gets 90% from reservoirs which are at 50% and lower. But they're adamant that they won't impose any restrictions as they say they're resilient due to having increased the number of reservoirs and they're proud to have avoided restrictions since 1996.

This. The majority of the rain and the lower temps on the GFS are post next Saturday, FI territory. We’ve seen this so many times. Of course and as expected, the 6z has roughly halved the rain amounts already when compared to the 00z. Oh and judging by a little MetO sneak peak I've just seen, showers appear to be very unlikely in my region between Sunday and Wednesday. 5mm currently less than a 10% chance.

The reason for it being the Southwest is very much linked to the fact that the EA can force water companies to impose bans. In most of the the Southeast bans are already in force or are about to be. Also support for farmers is easier to sort out of a drought is declared and there’s a lot more farming in the SW compared to the SE.

The GFS has been close to perfect when it comes to heat. For any low pressure systems, in particular coming from the Atlantic, it has been abysmal since last autumn. I cannot count the occasions where it showed a system pushing through, with copious amounts of rain at T+10 just for all of it to disappear closer to the time or, if it came off, to be significantly weaker than modelled resulting in next to no rain by the time it got to to the Eastern half of the country.

The 00z GFS keeps the SE effectively dry all week until late Saturday with temps in excess of 25 degrees every day. From Saturday night onwards it goes a bit mad with precipitation amounts in typical GFS FI fashion. By the end of the run it wants to give many areas in the West 100+ mm of rain with the S & E looking at 40-50mm. However, the large majority of this comes from late Saturday, so is well in FI.

You've not misread it (although I don't know why you say 24 hours) but the GFS is notoriously bad at precipitation charts, especially this far out and for showers. Accumulated amounts maps are slightly better... and this is what GFS expects from 6PM Wednesday to 6PM Thursday. In other words, the driest areas see around 5mm if lucky, most of them nothing at all.

This and also, a similar setup was modelled for Tue/Wed just two days ago in a number of runs. It's now back but 4 days later.

Lovely day today (if we ignore the desert landscape). Max so far 27.7 at the local WOW station and not a cloud in the sky. The next few days will be a different story with 32, 32, 35, 32 being forecast.