April 2009 Rainfall Stats

[damianslaw]

Many rivers in this neck of the woods are already at summer levels, most notably the river Kent which is reported as being the fastest flowing river in the country. I am increasingly unfortunately believing that once again this summer will be a wet one - mother nature has a tendency to balance herself out after a cold winter and mild and dry spring - sods law that the summer will be a wet one!

[The PIT]

Looking like today's rain is going to happen either.

[The PIT]

Looking like today's rain is going to happen either.

Well it did rain not a lot but it did.

[HighPressure]

Well it did rain not a lot but it did.

Rainfall outside autumn and winter is often not must good as most will evaporate if in the form of showers and downpours can actually be detrimental as they wash contaminants into the rivers which causes nitrate problems. Like British rail it has to be the right type of rain to be of benefit although that bit of rain today will stop people from rushing out tonight and watering their gardens so helps demand

[Norrance]

15 mms here so far this month with any significant rain petering out to the West. 6mms on the 8th was my wettest day.

Feb and March were very dry too. March the dryest since records began at the Met O. site at Mylnefield [40 yrs aprrox] just a mile or two South of me.

Only the heavy snow earlier in Feb and one day with rain brought any significant precipitation in that month also.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Norrance

[The PIT]

Rainfall outside autumn and winter is often not must good as most will evaporate if in the form of showers and downpours can actually be detrimental as they wash contaminants into the rivers which causes nitrate problems. Like British rail it has to be the right type of rain to be of benefit although that bit of rain today will stop people from rushing out tonight and watering their gardens so helps demand

Well round here most missed it.

If the weather stays the same we will have a problem. Then it'll be the normal scare mongering fromm the AGW group saying rivers will dry up etc neatly forgetting about the floods we had recently.

[Andy Bown]

Friday night's cold front brought just 2mm of rain here, I think we got a section between the downpours, meaning the total so far this month is still only 15.5mm! I wonder whether it will be doubled tomorrow ?

[Snowyowl9]

26mm here when the E-ly low was with us, so wetter than most it seems but still been a mainly dry 3 months overall,it`ll make up for it I`m sure.

[TonyH]

44mm here, a very dry Spring, rivers very low this month. They still will not open the ford though! Health and Safety gone mad again -that rivers been a trickle most of the last 2 months.

[reef]

Just 13.7mm this month after 28.5mm in March. We've had no measurable rain for 15 days now.

Here at least, any calls of it being a drought are premature. 2008 had 172% of normal rainfall and 10 out of 12 months were wetter than average (the last dry month in the year being May). The fields around here are still flooded from all that, so it could be dry all summer and not be a major issue.

It only seems to be a problem in the south-east with the poor water management and high housing density. The 2004-06 period wasnt an issue outside of that area either.

Edited April 27, 2009 by reef

[Eugene]

The fields around here are still flooded from all that

Wow that is amazing, here the public footpaths through farmers fields are very dry, you can see dusty parts, yes some very low lying patches that are shielded by trees from the sun are damp and there is dew at night on grass from the cold nights in the past week but no floods and this is in a riverside valley so surprised its flooded up near you in hull, last proper rainfall was the amazing thunderstorms of April 15th.

Saying all that i agree with you no drought worries the countryside is doing great in warwickshire its very lush/green and river levels are healthy, April is traditionally dry anyway as the seas are still cool so LP systems don't pick up much moisture so nothing to worry about at all as we get towards summer and airmasses get more moister and seas warmer i think the dry spell will change May is showing signs of some torrential rainfall on latest runs.

It only seems to be a problem in the south-east with the poor water management and high housing density. The 2004-06 period wasnt an issue outside of that area either.

Yes i can't recall the last bad drought here in warwickshire must of been 1976, the southeast has like you say high housing density and poor water management and its own climate too in the summer, its much more oppressive down in London than in warwickshire and much drier too.

Edited April 27, 2009 by Eugene

[Thundery wintry showers]

1995 had a serious summer drought, though in Yorkshire (where in places it was comparable to 1976) the problem stemmed largely from the ineptitude of the water boards who somehow contrived to lose a lot of water from the notoriously wet winter of 1994/95.

[Andy Bown]

We're well on the way to doubling this month's total (15mm until today) in one day because 13mm has fallen so far and it's still raining.

[TonyH]

16mm overnight, so April could end up close to average (60mm so far).

[Snowyowl9]

Upto 46 mm now after todays heavy deluges,almost double in just a day.

[The PIT]

Davis VP2 reckons we had 8.8mm today. It tends to be on the high side so likely less than that. Little chance of getting up to average rainfall here.

[Terminal Moraine]

Very little chance of average being attained here either, despite 12.4mm falling from 0500.

[HighPressure]

1995 had a serious summer drought, though in Yorkshire (where in places it was comparable to 1976) the problem stemmed largely from the ineptitude of the water boards who somehow contrived to lose a lot of water from the notoriously wet winter of 1994/95.

I cannot speak for Yorkshire as my knowledge is only of the Thames region but you have to realise that a lot of the smaller companies do not have any storage capacity at all, particularly those who rely on ground water. Only the big companies here have storage and that all relates to surface water, Thames has no natural storage they are all man made clay core impounding reservoirs. This means that if water is not physically pumped from the river there would be nothing in them, the situation is different in many other areas where natural storage collects through out the winter. As I said in my post further up the page Thames can only fill and try to keep full its storage for as long as possible, which is only @50/60 days supply.

I think my support for TW stops there, as the system suffers from very poor investment as it is not monitored by OFWAT, it comes under the jurisdiction EA. Abstraction totals are not given to OFWAT which means that is where some massive discrepancies are hidden. Having access to all London data my calculations revealed that something in the order of 100-200 million litres per day left the River Thames but never arrived at any treatment works. That is equivalent to London's largest storage reservoir contents going missing each year, yet they claim to need more?

Edited April 27, 2009 by HighPressure

[Snowyowl9]

26mm here when the E-ly low was with us,it`ll make up for it I`m sure.

It has already made up for it. 28mm today alone and it`s made the brook muddy so that makes 54mm in total,it`s going to turn out a wet april afterall well here anyway,and with more rain to come later tomorrow and the rest of the week look rather uncertain.

http://www.wzkarten.de/pics/brack2.gif

Edited April 27, 2009 by Snowyowl9

[MP-R]

45.8mm of rain so far this month after 10.4mm of rain today. The garden really needed it as all the rain fronts in the first half of the month were seriously downgraded and we missed all the thunderstorm action 14th-16th of the month so the last big fall of rain was the 3rd-4th March which was followed by a dusting of snow! This so far has been the driest month since September 2007.

[damianslaw]

Well these last few days of April look like preventing a very dry April being recorded in these parts, we may just escape the rain tomorrow we are progged to be on its northern edge, but we could easily get hit, however, Wednesday looks quite showery and Thursday is looking a wet affair.

[La Bise]

The Rivington reservoirs don't look very good at the moment and Howden/Ladybower seemed also rather down for this time of the year. Incredibly dry up in the moors, even bog hells like Horton Moor in the Dales (along the course of the 3 Peaks Challenge) did not cause much problems last week. Quite glad to see a good dump of rain even if it means taking the gaiters out of the bag...

[Marcus_surfer]

Very dry April again here, same as last year, before it turned very wet in May, June, July etc.

[damianslaw]

Don't have the exact figures but I believe about an inch fell in these parts during yesterday and Monday, which has definately prevented this month being recorded a dry one.

Tomorrow looks like delivering possibly another 10mms at least.

[Andy Bown]

This month's lack of rainfall here, while heavier rain falls nearby, has continued right through this last day. While areas approximately 15 miles West and East have had 10mm+ in the last 12 hours there has been just 3mm here - heavier pulses ran up either side of here (see BA13 on NW Radar) with only light showers/drizzle to come this evening. So the total for the month will be just over 30mm of which half, give or take a mm, fell on Monday 27!

Edited April 30, 2009 by Andy Bown