Drought Watch

[Snowy L]

21 hours ago, Weather Enthusiast91 said:

If the weather conditions being forecast in the model thread for early October comes to pass, then it looks like we are in for yet another longish dry period with little meaningful rainfall for many areas, which means that there is no end in sight to the current drought.

This has become very predictable and boring now. I miss the days when British weather was unpredictable.

Friday looking good for a countrywide soaking.

[richie3846]

49 minutes ago, Snowy L said:

Friday looking good for a countrywide soaking.

Much disagreement about the track of Friday's low. It does look deep though, I imagine we'll all get at least some rain, as always, the devil is in the detail. Desperate for a splash round these parts, autumn leaf loss has picked up pace, about 4 weeks earlier than normal.

[dryfie]

It's been a long time coming, but at last it seems that the worst is over in the south and east of the country.  Drought-browned summer trees now being replaced by proper seasonal autumn progress.

Heavy rainfall helps ease water scarcity concerns

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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Most parts of the country have seen a recovery after abstraction bans in some areas this summer.

 

[*Stormforce~beka*]

2 hours ago, dryfie said:

It's been a long time coming, but at last it seems that the worst is over in the south and east of the country.  Drought-browned summer trees now being replaced by proper seasonal autumn progress.

Heavy rainfall helps ease water scarcity concerns

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

---

Most parts of the country have seen a recovery after abstraction bans in some areas this summer.

 

That doesn't relate to the South but to Scotland. We are still in heavy drought here

[reef]

As are we here. We only had 47mm in September and 10mm in October so far.

Still just 291mm here for all of 2022 which is ridiculously dry.

[dryfie]

2 hours ago, *Stormforce~beka* said:

That doesn't relate to the South but to Scotland. We are still in heavy drought here

Writing from Scotland, this is naturally the country to which I was referring.  If a Geordie talks of the northeast, do you assume he means Aberdeen?

[Freeze]

1 hour ago, dryfie said:

Writing from Scotland, this is naturally the country to which I was referring.  If a Geordie talks of the northeast, do you assume he means Aberdeen?

No, but it's easier for everyone if you're more specific in where you're referring to, to avoid confusion. 

[*Stormforce~beka*]

1 hour ago, dryfie said:

Writing from Scotland, this is naturally the country to which I was referring.  If a Geordie talks of the northeast, do you assume he means Aberdeen?

South and east of the country I thought meant the country as a whole - As in the UK

[richie3846]

4 minutes ago, *Stormforce~beka* said:

South and east of the country I thought meant the country as a whole - As in the UK

Yes the article is written without regarding how we commonly use 'south and east' terminology to refer to England. I had to double check the details in the article again to check that I had interpreted correctly. It was the second read I paid more attention to the wording, and then could be sure that the reference was to Scotland only.

[*Stormforce~beka*]

1 hour ago, richie3846 said:

Yes the article is written without regarding how we commonly use 'south and east' terminology to refer to England. I had to double check the details in the article again to check that I had interpreted correctly. It was the second read I paid more attention to the wording, and then could be sure that the reference was to Scotland only.

I didn't even think Scotland had a drought issue anyway?!

 

[richie3846]

45 minutes ago, *Stormforce~beka* said:

I didn't even think Scotland had a drought issue anyway?!

 

Yes in parts. There were limits on abstraction for farmers etc, at the peak of their drought.

[*Stormforce~beka*]

1 hour ago, richie3846 said:

Yes in parts. There were limits on abstraction for farmers etc, at the peak of their drought.

Wow I didn't realise. That's mental!

[richie3846]

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Water situation: area monthly reports for England 2022 - GOV.UK

WWW.GOV.UK

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Monthly local reports on rainfall, soil moisture deficit, river flows, groundwater levels and reservoir levels.

As I mentioned a while ago, rain that fell in early September was unlikely to be useful for targeting drought, because it was so warm, and vegetation quickly took it up. IMBY soils ended August with a deficit well above average, needing 149mm to saturate the ground. Despite having 58mm of rain during September, most of it fell earlier on, and by the end of the month the deficit was still a huge 141mm, against the average of 86mm. This means 50mm was lost leaving only 8mm in the ground from all that early September rain. Neighbouring areas in the Cotswolds and White Horse Vale are also suffering similar levels of drought, not good for replenishment of Farmoor reservoir which is severely depleted.

 

The report uses end of month measurements, and now well into October, rainfall is well below average for many, less than half what would be expected by this stage in the month. 

 

Some areas had more rain during September but most places still have above average soil dryness, which is the first thing that needs to be rebalanced before groundwater can begin its annual recharge. 

 

You can check your own back yards in these detailed reports. They are very informative and helps our understanding to go beyond 'green grass' as a measure, as that doesn't tell us much at all, other than if the top portion of soil has some water in it. Green or brown grass is a bit like the tip of the iceberg, with most of the situation out sight. This is where these reports come in handy, to show us what's really going on beneath our feet.

[richie3846]

Drought in England forecast to remain beyond spring 2023

WWW.FARMINGUK.COM

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Average rainfall levels over winter will still not be sufficient to avoid drought or drought conditions next year, the National Drought Group has warned.

Mods, it may be time to change the title of the thread!

So for some areas, above average rainfall is the only way out of this drought by next spring. I'm not hearing enough noise about this in the news or from Thames water (can't talk for the other water companies). People will not even know this is an ongoing concern, as there is now little visible evidence.

Thames water say that usage last week was actually higher than the 5 year mean. Fat lot of good that hosepipe ban!

[Nick L]

Still nowhere near enough rain around here. Ponds are still dry.

[richie3846]

25 minutes ago, Nick L said:

Still nowhere near enough rain around here. Ponds are still dry.

5 to 6 inches needed to wet the ground in the south. It'll be a while before ponds fill back up I suspect.

[Climate Man]

33 minutes ago, richie3846 said:

5 to 6 inches needed to wet the ground in the south. It'll be a while before ponds fill back up I suspect.

Our water reservoirs,  Severn Trent, have finally shown a small increase in their levels.

[mike57]

On 15/10/2022 at 19:52, richie3846 said:

Thames water say that usage last week was actually higher than the 5 year mean. Fat lot of good that hosepipe ban!

What percentage of water ends up being used by hosepipes? I suspect the reality is a very small percentage. It feels to me like the 'Hosepipe ban' is a way of bringing home to people the need to save water generally rather than something that is going to make a significant difference on its own.

On 11/10/2022 at 16:21, reef said:

Still just 291mm here for all of 2022 which is ridiculously dry.

Is this in the running for the dryest year ever? For Bridlington the average annual rainfall is 743mm as far as I can determine, but I cant find any data for the driest year.

[reef]

4 hours ago, mike57 said:

What percentage of water ends up being used by hosepipes? I suspect the reality is a very small percentage. It feels to me like the 'Hosepipe ban' is a way of bringing home to people the need to save water generally rather than something that is going to make a significant difference on its own.

Is this in the running for the dryest year ever? For Bridlington the average annual rainfall is 743mm as far as I can determine, but I cant find any data for the driest year.

In my records, yes by far. We're on 301.8mm at the moment and the driest year (2011) had 455.8mm.

Locally, Hull Pearson Park has records back to 1847 and the driest year was 1864 with 338.3mm. That site was generally within 5% of here so its probably a good guide to where we are. The other driest years on that series were 1865 (445.2mm), 1921 (445.3mm),1887 (445.4mm) so if we finish 2022 on under 400mm then its safe to say its the driest since 1864.

Edited October 17, 2022 by reef
Wrong year!

[mike57]

8 minutes ago, reef said:

In my records, yes by far. We're on 301.8mm at the moment and the driest year (2011) had 455.8mm.

Locally, Hull Pearson Park has records back to 1847 and the driest year was 1864 with 338.3mm. That site was generally within 5% of here so its probably a good guide to where we are. The other driest years on that series were 1865 (445.2mm), 1921 (445.3mm),1887 (445.4mm) so if we finish 2022 on under 400mm then its safe to say its the driest since 1865.

Interesting that the 1864/5 event looks significant, I wonder if it was a local effect. I have found a few references to 1864 being dry, but nothing that would indicate that level of drought, and taking these figures it carried on into 1865.

[reef]

1 hour ago, mike57 said:

Interesting that the 1864/5 event looks significant, I wonder if it was a local effect. I have found a few references to 1864 being dry, but nothing that would indicate that level of drought, and taking these figures it carried on into 1865.

It was quite prolonged dry period that extended from December 1863 to April 1865. This came after consecutive quite dry years from 1861-1863 (all were between 500-525mm) The months in that period had the following rainfall totals:

Dec 1863: 39.0mm
Jan 1864: 16.1mm
Feb: 1864: 38.4mm
Mar 1864: 41.2mm
Apr 1864: 21.7mm
May 1864: 32.8mm
Jun 1864: 21.7mm
Jul 1864: 11.1mm
Aug 1864: 30.6mm
Sep 1864: 25.1mm
Oct 1864: 32.8mm
Nov 1864: 39.0mm
Dec 1864: 27.8mm
Jan 1865: 16.1mm
Feb 1865: 20.6mm
Mar 1865: 2.8mm
Apr 1865: 2.8mm

It was unusual that Summer 1864 was very cool too. Winter 1864/65 and early spring were also rather cold so it must have been quite unusual synoptics in that spell.

[Dorsetbred]

5 hours ago, richie3846 said:

5 to 6 inches needed to wet the ground in the south. It'll be a while before ponds fill back up I suspect.

Last year at this time we were at 722.4mm, this year we are currently 500.8mm so we are currently 31% down in our rainfall total between last year and this.

[richie3846]

5 minutes ago, Dorsetbred said:

Last year at this time we were at 722.4mm, this year we are currently 500.8mm so we are currently 31% down in our rainfall total between last year and this.

It's only northwest England that's had normal rain over a 12 month period, not sure about Scotland and Wales as they have seperate reporting. We should be in no doubt that the rain that falls from now until early March is vital, and much more important than summer rain, especially so with such large deficit such as yours.

[Weather Enthusiast91]

Looks like some areas are in need of rain again, but the middle of this week onwards is looking promising. That is unless it gets pushed back, watered down or cancelled altogether which has often been the case with forecast unsettled spells in 2022.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Weather Enthusiast91

[minus10]

On 15/10/2022 at 19:52, richie3846 said:

Drought in England forecast to remain beyond spring 2023

WWW.FARMINGUK.COM

---

Average rainfall levels over winter will still not be sufficient to avoid drought or drought conditions next year, the National Drought Group has warned.

Mods, it may be time to change the title of the thread!

So for some areas, above average rainfall is the only way out of this drought by next spring. I'm not hearing enough noise about this in the news or from Thames water (can't talk for the other water companies). People will not even know this is an ongoing concern, as there is now little visible evidence.

Thames water say that usage last week was actually higher than the 5 year mean. Fat lot of good that hosepipe ban!

Re thread title...yes have been looking at how you change it as i started the thread however not sure if i can...mods can you advise/ enact the change?