Drought Watch

[minus10]

4 minutes ago, h2005__uk__ said:

What's up with their scale? Surely it should show it as a percentage of expected rainfall. I know the July average for me is 44mm which would still (misleadingly) be at the darker brown end of this scale. I suspect most other places would still show dark brown even with an average amount too.

There are 30 year anomaly periods, including this one that shows the rainfull amount percentage of the 1991 to 2020 average. ...

As you can see the dark brown area relates to areas where the rainfull percentage of the 30 year average is at or less than 20%..this includes Essex..

[Mapantz]

12 minutes ago, h2005__uk__ said:

What's up with their scale? Surely it should show it as a percentage of expected rainfall. I know the July average for me is 44mm which would still (misleadingly) be at the darker brown end of this scale. I suspect most other places would still show dark brown even with an average amount too.

It says on the map "actual value"

July totals, in other words.

[HighPressure]

13 hours ago, mountain shadow said:

The difference is, the Chinese are loaded, the UK is massively in debt.

That said, surely it can't be that expensive to pump water from the North to the South? Provided, the North are suitably compensated.

The point being is that our island is not short of water and engineering wise the solutions are quite simple. Given that 10s of billions of pounds has been taken in profits since privatisation, I do not think it unreasonable that these companies should be made to put supplying their product at the top of their list.

During my time in the water industry, I even discussed the plausibility of powdered water, I kid you not, dry water in the form of powder exists 

[Mapantz]

Lawn watered on the 20th July:

11 days later:

[danm]

Greenwich looking parched:

[Weather-history]

Why don't the Met Office wait until all the stats have come in before making press releases? They said "driest July since 1911 for England", the media caught onto this and of course they spread this info out to the populace. 

It now turns out to be the driest July since 1935 for England.

 

[Bradowl]

8 hours ago, minus10 said:

New month, same location of rain areas...

 

Still coming down and quite thundery at times, my lawn as recovered now and looking great after all recent rain. 

[seb]

56 minutes ago, Weather-history said:

Why don't the Met Office wait until all the stats have come in before making press releases? They said "driest July since 1911 for England", the media caught onto this and of course they spread this info out to the populace. 

It now turns out to be the driest July since 1935 for England.

 

Blame our media (especially papers and online) and bad journalists.

The MetO press release was based on final July stats and they show that for England as a whole it’s the driest July since 1935 while for Southern England it’s the driest on record (note that this includes the Southwest which makes the overall stats appear better than they are in the Southeast).

Tye 1911 “confusion” stems from this sentence in the press release:

”July 2022 has been a significantly dry month for Southern England, only 10.5mm of rain has been provisionally recorded on average, less than the previous record of 10.9mm set in 1911.”

Driest July in England since 1935

WWW.METOFFICE.GOV.UK

---

July 2022 was the driest July for England since 1935, and the driest July on record for East Anglia, southeast and southern England, according to provisional statistics from the Met Office.

 

Edited August 2, 2022 by seb

[kold weather]

7 hours ago, danm said:

Greenwich looking parched:

Seeing what the land looks like further NW I can see why those in the North possibly don't realise quite how severe the dry conditions are in the SE as whilst it may well have been drier than normal still there have been some frontal rains during July, even if they were modest.

Absolutely drought conditions however in the SE. Pretty much every single front almost without exception has just fizzled away upon approach.

[minus10]

1 hour ago, Bradowl said:

Still coming down and quite thundery at times, my lawn as recovered now and looking great after all recent rain. 

Can you pass some water down in a bucket chain

Oh dear....the only green here is that of the flat green precip line of the above gfs 0z run...

[damianslaw]

1 hour ago, kold weather said:

Seeing what the land looks like further NW I can see why those in the North possibly don't realise quite how severe the dry conditions are in the SE as whilst it may well have been drier than normal still there have been some frontal rains during July, even if they were modest.

Absolutely drought conditions however in the SE. Pretty much every single front almost without exception has just fizzled away upon approach.

Yes Lake District just had over 100mm reportedly in less than 24 hrs. A different world.. 

[minus10]

9 hours ago, danm said:

Greenwich looking parched:

Looking at that ....just a reminder to folks with gardens in the south and east to leave out some water and bird food for the birds as they are suffering at present not being able to get their usual creatures from the soil or indeed water...

Edited August 2, 2022 by minus10

[Nick L]

Grass is no longer brown in places here, it's just becoming non-existent, dust. EC has not even a hint of rain down here for the next 10 days.

[kold weather]

1 hour ago, Nick L said:

Grass is no longer brown in places here, it's just becoming non-existent, dust. EC has not even a hint of rain down here for the next 10 days.

Yeah the GFS is pretty bone dry right out to 15 days as well.

I think this is about as bad as it got in 2018, this summer looks like going to the next level, particularly if another hot spell does develop.

[matty40s]

Solihull (now turning green)is less than 50 miles from here, we have had no rain, and none forecast.

[ThundersnowDays]

the Avon here in town is the lowest I've ever seen it, you can see the rocks at the bottom and all the fish, normally its too deep to see that, we need more than drizzle to change this!

[Bristawl Si]

Our area well below normal rainfall levels but

A spokesperson for Bristol Water said: "Rainfall this year has been below average and as a result reservoir storage is lower than normal. However, our modelling and forecasts do not indicate the need to impose hosepipe bans or any other water supply restrictions during 2022."

Bristol and the area gets 50% of water from reservoirs and quite a large percentage from Wales via River Severn.

I believe the south east and London water comes more from underground reserves, which causes the water shortage issues.

As for dry brown grass i struggle to see why peeps get so hacked off about it; if your lawn is brown then so what?! Grass is resilient and will soon recover when rain comes, it basically lies dormant in drought. Let's be clear, water for human consumption is 1000x more important than hosepipe water for gardens.

Edited August 2, 2022 by Bristle Si

[Wynn D Woo]

1 hour ago, Bristle Si said:

Our area well below normal rainfall levels but

A spokesperson for Bristol Water said: "Rainfall this year has been below average and as a result reservoir storage is lower than normal. However, our modelling and forecasts do not indicate the need to impose hosepipe bans or any other water supply restrictions during 2022."

Bristol and the area gets 50% of water from reservoirs and quite a large percentage from Wales via River Severn.

I believe the south east and London water comes more from underground reserves, which causes the water shortage issues.

As for dry brown grass i struggle to see why peeps get so hacked off about it; if your lawn is brown then so what?! Grass is resilient and will soon recover when rain comes, it basically lies dormant in drought. Let's be clear, water for human consumption is 1000x more important than hosepipe water for gardens.

Absolutely agree - watering the lawn should be forbidden regardless of potential drought. Anyway why water the lawn, just means you got to carry on mowing it...

[Rammie]

3 hours ago, matty40s said:

Solihull (now turning green)is less than 50 miles from here, we have had no rain, and none forecast.

Had very little in Kettering last Sunday morning. Would love to see the figures for the last few weeks. They must be incredibly low. Even when we've had those showery days, they all seem to pass by, missing by a couple of miles. Or any larger area of rain, just breaks up and vanishes just before it gets here. 

[Met.]

Sounds bad for the SE for sure. Up here rainfall amount's been a bit below average but it's after a few wet years like 2019/2020 so swings and roundabouts.

[seb]

All anomaly maps back to 2001 are available here.

There is not one year where my area had as little rain as 2022. Every single month apart from Feb and May (both had the average rainfall amount), every month is 50% or less than the expected amount. January in fact was almost as dry as July at less than 10% (July obviously had zero rain).

Even November 2021 had less than 20% of the average amount.

UK actual and anomaly maps

WWW.METOFFICE.GOV.UK

---

Maps of climate variables for previous months, seasons and years

 

Edited August 2, 2022 by seb

[phil nw.]

Here in Warks the ground is very dry.

We have seen some odd splashes off dying rain bands but nothing to make a difference.

Lawn very brown and have lost some perennials in spite of watering.

[minus10]

23 minutes ago, phil nw. said:

Here in Warks the ground is very dry.

We have seen some odd splashes off dying rain bands but nothing to make a difference.

Lawn very brown and have lost some perennials in spite of watering.

 

Yes i have come across many plants that are in stress due to the dry conditions. Have also come across some that seem fine. A lot of it is due to how strong and healthy the plant is in the first place and whether it can tolerate dry conditions such as mediterranean plants/herbs etc. Hydrangeas definately do not like these conditions so they need to be watered daily at the base of the plant ....grass will come back once the rain comes however i expect there will be gaps where it has withered away to nothing...

[richie3846]

3 minutes ago, minus10 said:

 

Yes i have come across many plants that are in stress due to the dry conditions. Have also come across some that seem fine. A lot of it is due to how strong and healthy the plant is in the first place and whether it can tolerate dry conditions such as mediterranean plants/herbs etc. Hydrangeas definately do not like these conditions so they need to be watered daily at the base of the plant ....grass will come back once the rain comes however i expect there will be gaps where it has withered away to nothing...

It's not just the plant, as I've learned recently, soil type is vitally important. Some soils hold moisture and some don't.

[minus10]

29 minutes ago, richie3846 said:

It's not just the plant, as I've learned recently, soil type is vitally important. Some soils hold moisture and some don't.

Yes absolutely...clay soils hold moisture and become very hard when they dry out whereas sandy soils drain very quickly ....thats why adding organic matter to all soils e.g compost helps both drainage but also retaining moisture which in turn helps the plants....