2012 UK Drought

[Village]

I suppose it was a frustrated rant from me of a kind.

You see I do live in the southeast. I live in the driest region. But we have perfectly normal water levels and our rainfall over the past year is running above average.

I didnt get to go sailing once last summer because of the atroscious weather. In the last month I havent been able to get out at all on my motorbike because it has rained almost every day. We have no hosepipe ban here because it is a fact we are not in a drought here.

Therefore, I feel that there is too much being made about the south being in a drought.

It isnt the south, it isnt the southwest, it isnt the southeast....its a small region in the central southern region where the water companies have not been investing to meet demand and taking too much river water to make up for their failings. There are three million more users in this country which have arrived in the last five years. They all need to shower, wash, clean etc.

Infastructure should have been put in place. It hasnt been.

Another point to add is that the London authorities are trying to reduce the water table because its baan rising and threatening to flood parts of the underground.

Therefore, I have built up a picture that 'the drought' isnt what it seems. The reporting of it is too general and poor. As a result he impression is different to the facts.

In support of this, one can see that many parts of the media are also now asking questions and making fun of what seems to be a nonsense situation.

[Lauren]

The data is out there if you look. Try the met office for starters. Simply as that. By the way where have you got the idea it's the whole country in drought from it isn't and that's never been announced? A strange misplaced rant which is out of character.

Well quite. The other evening they were showing the statistics in that althought this is the wettest April for 250 years, the rainfall last year was half of the UK average (presumably since rainfall started being measured). Hence if you were to spread the April rainfall over the year, we are still well under what we would expect.

[egret]

Village, may i suggest you do a little research into the source of your water supply - I believe it is Hanningfield Reservoir. Do a Google Search on the Ely Ouse Scheme and I think you will find that since the 1960s your water has been supplemented from Cambridgeshire - up to 35% of Essex's water in a dry year!

The drought order is because many reservoirs do not have the ability to abstract over such great distances and rely upon natural collection and springs fed from groundwater. It is that groundwater level that has been the concern. Many of Dorset's rivers have until the last week or so been running near to their autumn (lowest) levels and the fear is that when the current surface water has abated the background spring fed flows will be little better than they were in February. Many so called winterbournes (streams that run in winter but not in summer) were dry this winter.

[HighPressure]

I have not been back on this thread since the drought orders were imposed, I would bet money on a deluge the day after they came into force. Its difficult to generalise as different areas collect water in different ways and combinations of different ways. River abstracted reservoirs in the London area are full and were before any drought orders. Many surface collection reservoirs will now be getting a good fill rate and I guess some will get close to more normal levels, but there will certainly be a vastly improved picture now compared to the beginning of the month. The main problem area will still surround ground water levels which have been very low especially in the south. Water can and will still make it's way into the water table in April but I would be surprised if this makes a major difference as most of the rainfall will be runoff. The ground dries very quickly this time of year, I think within 30 mins if the rain stopping today the path and roads near me were dry.

I agree in sorts to what Village is saying, there is no drought, what there is, is a poor distribution network and a number of companies using a hosepipe ban as a smokescreen to hide their own investment and infrastructure short comings. There is always enough rainfall in the UK to sustain water supplies to everyone, and we are on a Island with several thousand miles if shoreline.

Edited April 29, 2012 by HighPressure

[Robbie Garrett]

That said HighPressure, have you seen Bewl Water recently??

I flew over it two Mondays ago and it was very low, compared to previous years.

[Village]

In Essex we have had much more rain than in other regions over the past six months, including a lot of snowfall in February. We in Essex have not had below rainfall. Therefore the drought in the south is too general a description.

My point is that much is being made about this ground water situation and the water tables due to lower than average rainfall over a longer period. However, we are just not getting the details from the media and what we are getting is deliberately confusing...the BBC graph today showing average monthly rainfall totals did not specify exactly which areas were included ...Also they have again used averages for the whole of the UK. They then confused that data with England only, then focussed on Sheffield while dealing with the so called drought which is only in specific regions the south. By amalgamating all southern regions this further confuses and disguises regional variation.

Also, the broader picture about rainfall variation is lost because they have only focussed on the last 29 months!

Why pick 29 months? why not three years.....five years, a decade, or even a century?

Is this because yet again somebody is trying to use specific data to paint a specific story?

Is it simply about sensationalisation again within the media and turning a relatively low key item into a national news item to sell media?

This is the feeling I am getting and the point that I am making. The data is deliberately confusing and coupled with media competition this masks the real reasons and any real message if there is one at all.

[Snowangel-MK]

This April is the wettest in the UK in records which date back to 1910, according to early Met Office figures to the 29th of the month.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2011/wettest-april-on-record

[Summer Sun]

This must be one of the wettest droughts there has been in the UK

[The PIT]

Village I dunno what you've been drinking but can I have some. You seem to be extremly confused at the moment. Again I suggest you look at the met office data for the last couple of years. Until this month Sheffield was only 8 mm above the same period 1975 to 1976 and if you can recall 75/76 was driest spell ever recorded.

[AderynCoch]

This must be one of the wettest droughts there has been in the UK

Same thing happened to those of us in NW England when a hosepipe ban was implemented in late June 2010.

This April hasn't vanquished the current drought problems but it will have helped a great deal. Perhaps we can get excited about the possibility of a hot summer this year without being made to feel guilty about it.

[Aaron]

In Essex we have had much more rain than in other regions over the past six months, including a lot of snowfall in February. We in Essex have not had below rainfall. Therefore the drought in the south is too general a description.

My point is that much is being made about this ground water situation and the water tables due to lower than average rainfall over a longer period. However, we are just not getting the details from the media and what we are getting is deliberately confusing...the BBC graph today showing average monthly rainfall totals did not specify exactly which areas were included ...Also they have again used averages for the whole of the UK. They then confused that data with England only, then focussed on Sheffield while dealing with the so called drought which is only in specific regions the south. By amalgamating all southern regions this further confuses and disguises regional variation.

Also, the broader picture about rainfall variation is lost because they have only focussed on the last 29 months!

Why pick 29 months? why not three years.....five years, a decade, or even a century?

Is this because yet again somebody is trying to use specific data to paint a specific story?

Is it simply about sensationalisation again within the media and turning a relatively low key item into a national news item to sell media?

This is the feeling I am getting and the point that I am making. The data is deliberately confusing and coupled with media competition this masks the real reasons and any real message if there is one at all.

That's the biggest load of horse manure I have ever read on this website, and that's saying something.

[Snowy Easterly]

I have not been back on this thread since the drought orders were imposed, I would bet money on a deluge the day after they came into force. Its difficult to generalise as different areas collect water in different ways and combinations of different ways. River abstracted reservoirs in the London area are full and were before any drought orders. Many surface collection reservoirs will now be getting a good fill rate and I guess some will get close to more normal levels, but there will certainly be a vastly improved picture now compared to the beginning of the month. The main problem area will still surround ground water levels which have been very low especially in the south. Water can and will still make it's way into the water table in April but I would be surprised if this makes a major difference as most of the rainfall will be runoff. The ground dries very quickly this time of year, I think within 30 mins if the rain stopping today the path and roads near me were dry.

I agree in sorts to what Village is saying, there is no drought, what there is, is a poor distribution network and a number of companies using a hosepipe ban as a smokescreen to hide their own investment and infrastructure short comings. There is always enough rainfall in the UK to sustain water supplies to everyone, and we are on a Island with several thousand miles if shoreline.

I have not been back on this thread since the drought orders were imposed, I would bet money on a deluge the day after they came into force. Its difficult to generalise as different areas collect water in different ways and combinations of different ways. River abstracted reservoirs in the London area are full and were before any drought orders. Many surface collection reservoirs will now be getting a good fill rate and I guess some will get close to more normal levels, but there will certainly be a vastly improved picture now compared to the beginning of the month. The main problem area will still surround ground water levels which have been very low especially in the south. Water can and will still make it's way into the water table in April but I would be surprised if this makes a major difference as most of the rainfall will be runoff. The ground dries very quickly this time of year, I think within 30 mins if the rain stopping today the path and roads near me were dry.

I agree in sorts to what Village is saying, there is no drought, what there is, is a poor distribution network and a number of companies using a hosepipe ban as a smokescreen to hide their own investment and infrastructure short comings. There is always enough rainfall in the UK to sustain water supplies to everyone, and we are on a Island with several thousand miles if shoreline.

Agree with this,

i thought Gavin changed his name when i saw the name High pressure

Edited April 30, 2012 by Snowy Easterly

[shedhead]

All this talk of drought represents an even bigger pile of BS now than it did before it started raining. There is no reason in the world why all the hosepipe bans and drought orders cannot now be lifted, but a combination of incompetence, greed, systemic mis-management and most of all enormous embarrassment will mean they will remain in place for the foreseeable, just like the fat cats that head these 'license to print money' organisations. Anyone buying into the drought bilge really does need to open their eyes imho.

Edited May 1, 2012 by shedhead

[Village]

Village I dunno what you've been drinking but can I have some. You seem to be extremly confused at the moment. Again I suggest you look at the met office data for the last couple of years. Until this month Sheffield was only 8 mm above the same period 1975 to 1976 and if you can recall 75/76 was driest spell ever recorded.

I have done. Have you looked beyond two years? If so you will note that a dryer than normal period of a year or so under a Meridional decade is absolutely normal.

By the way, they say the drought is in the south, I am in the south. I live in officially the driest place in the UK with only a third of the rainfall you get and where I always get six weeks or two months of drought between April and September at some stage every year. There is no hosepipe ban here, there is no drought here, and there are no plans for water restictions here.

So who is right? Is there a drought in the south? Is it in the north as you are saying? just what are the facts?

This is now officially the wettest drought on record.

[TonyH]

As far as I understand there is a drought (pronounced lack of rainfall over a couple of years) over a fair portion of central, southern and eastern England. Hence the need to conserve water supplies in these areas as the groundwater will take quite a few wet months to replenish.

[HighPressure]

What is drought?

Simple enough question but not easy to answer. A period of just 15 days without rainfall can be considered a drought in the UK whereas it is 2 years in Lybia.

We are suffering the perceived lack of water supplies should lower then average rainfall occur over an extended non defined period of time? Average rainfall is the measure by which water companies design and run their systems. I would argue that drought in our current state means a system shortfall rather then a water deficiency.

I would further pose the question that if the will existed and the money spent that it would be impossible for water shortages to exist at all anywhere in the UK in any of our life times.

[Aaron]

I have done. Have you looked beyond two years? If so you will note that a dryer than normal period of a year or so under a Meridional decade is absolutely normal.

By the way, they say the drought is in the south, I am in the south. I live in officially the driest place in the UK with only a third of the rainfall you get and where I always get six weeks or two months of drought between April and September at some stage every year. There is no hosepipe ban here, there is no drought here, and there are no plans for water restictions here.

So who is right? Is there a drought in the south? Is it in the north as you are saying? just what are the facts?

This is now officially the wettest drought on record.

You're comparing apples with oranges. Essex is always dry. Some places, especially in East Anglia, had one of the driest years on record in 2011. Some places saw less than 5mm of rainfall combined in March and April 2011. You need to stop looking at this from an IMBY perspective. There's no hosepipe ban here, heck, no drought has even been declared here yet we had less than 500mm of rainfall last year.

It's so easy to blame everything on water companies being irresponsible, but all that leaking water has to go somewhere. A lot of it probably finds its way back into the system. There has been a genuine lack of rainfall for the past 2 years, and you're being very pedantic by picking and choosing the time frame.

Edited May 1, 2012 by Aaron

[chionomaniac]

Here is a very good article from the BBC on why we still need more rainfall over the coming months.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17875456

[Coast]

Here is a very good article from the BBC on why we still need more rainfall over the coming months.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...gazine-17875456

Good article there Ed, certainly explains why even with this much rain, the ground is just not soaking up the valuable commodity and let it percolate down and into the aquifers in our region:

"Crudely, the amount of water needed to 'fill' or saturate the rock - usually chalk - is about 1% of its total volume, therefore to raise the water table by 10m requires approximately 100mm of water. However, you need to take into account as the weather warms up, water evaporates more readily from the soil," he says

This article also highlighted the same problem as seen by Simon Evans at Thames Water:

But why is the country still “in drought†after all this rain? Part of the reason is due to depleted aquifers, vast reservoirs of underground water stored in porous rocks that feed our rivers and streams. The dry climate for the past two years has dried out the soil and made it impermeable; even though there has been a lot of rainfall in the last month, much of it cannot seep through the hard ground and into the water table.

For this year, it’s too little, too late. Even if it rained every day for the next two months, the aquifers are at such low levels that parts of the country will still be in drought this summer. “I think we will be in drought for a while – what we need is solid winter rainfall to seep into the porous rocksâ€, says Evans.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/05/01/why-are-we-still-%E2%80%9Cin-drought%E2%80%9D-after-all-this-rain/

[Gowon]

I'm sorry but I don't have much faith in the BBC who support the MO and, with their super computers they still can't get it right.

Here's an interesting article

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/9150638/Water-why-we-are-paying-more-and-getting-less.html

[Coast]

I'm sorry but I don't have much faith in the BBC who support the MO and, with their super computers they still can't get it right.

I think the current drought situation is more about hydrology than what the BBC or MetO are forecasting?

[Summer Sun]

Drought fears continue in England despite recent rain

With the threat of another dry winter devastating England's water supplies, Inside Out investigates the looming water crisis.

Meteorologist Nick Miller looks at the wettest and driest parts of Britain as drought fears continue across England despite heavy rain in April 2012.

He also explains how the ongoing drought came about.

Inside Out Special: Drought 2012 is broadcast on Wednesday, 2 May at 19:30 BST on BBC One England and for seven days thereafter on the iPlayer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...ngland-17907133

Inside Out Special for London can be watched for 7 days on the iPlayer here - http://www.bbc.co.uk...don_02_05_2012/

Caroline Spelman: Dry winter may mean standpipes in 2013

Standpipes could be needed in the streets next year if England endures another dry winter, the environment secretary has suggested.

Caroline Spelman said the UK would have to look at other ways to supply water if shortages continued.

Large parts of England are in drought, despite recent wet weather.

Mrs Spelman said: "Whereas it's most unlikely we'd have standpipes this year, if we have another dry winter that becomes more likely."

http://www.bbc.co.uk...ngland-17907418

The maps below show how the drought spead from 10th June 2011 to 16th April 2012

[Coast]

Meteorologist Nick Miller looks at the wettest and driest parts of Britain as drought fears continue across England despite heavy rain in April 2012. He also explains how the ongoing drought came about.

Inside Out Special: Drought 2012 is broadcast on Wednesday, 2 May at 19:30 BST on BBC One England and for seven days thereafter on the iPlayer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...ngland-17907133

Inside Out Special for London can be watched for 7 days on the iPlayer here - http://www.bbc.co.uk...don_02_05_2012/

Watched that one last night and again it highlighted the fact that the aquifers deep down, where the majority of our drinking water is taken from, are at their lowest for many years, possibly more so than 1976!

[picog]

There is a drought. Ask anyone (like me) who gets their water from a borehole or well. Some people ran out of water here last year, and none of the boreholes or wells has refilled anything like normal over the winter period. The groundwater levels are really low, and they need urgent replenishing. If it's like that here, it will be worse in the east midlands, I would have thought.

Edited May 3, 2012 by picog

[Village]

It depends on whether they get their water from underground. If its reservoirs and rivers, they will be fine.

None of this is unusual over the long term. Its happened before and it will happen again. Its simply that the demand on fresh water these days is much greater and therefore the borehole supplies which reflect long term rainfall trends are now more pertinent.

The mistake is to believe that underground water supplies are simply reflecting the weather above with latency. That is only part of the story. There is a long term growuing trend on extracting more and more ground water as demand continues to grow. It is clearly not sustainable over the long term and there needs to be more investment.

Meanwhile, here in the driest place in the country we have had normal rainfall and all our rivers and reservoirs are healthy with no water restrictions planned.

In a few years from now the climate here will again flip back to a zonal synoptic set. When it does we will see all the levels back to normal again underground. It was more than a decade ago when this last happened and as a result an ancient undrground river started to flow again in Brighton....this was the first time the subteranean river was flowing for hundreds of years. You see....and that all happened in the last decade or so. The river has again stopped flowing as it was for the past three hundred years.

Expect there to always be a high variation in water levels, its nothing new, its only because the media have got the bone between their teeth on this one and nobody is investing in the water infrastructure to meet increased demand....

I say to those that are getting wrapped up in the hysteria about changing climate and weather: underground water levels can and do very tremendously...they are not door numbers.