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Prolonged Dry Spell


reef

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Posted
  • Location: Dundee
  • Weather Preferences: Snow, thunderstorms, gales. All extremes except humidity.
  • Location: Dundee

A couple of months ago the EDO drought maps of Europe showed much of NE England and Eastern Scotland in drought conditions. Much changed now with only East Anglia remaining in drought with the paler colours further North and West showing recovery from drought conditions. It certainly feels that way here with recent rainfall making everything green again. Even my front lawn has now pretty much recovered. 

37AC961A-ACC3-4268-ACBF-F3537B296163.png

Edited by Norrance
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Posted
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
  • Weather Preferences: Varied and not extreme.
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
4 hours ago, Freeze said:

The ground is still wet here with puddles everywhere after yesterday and everything is green, it’s not the bone dryness of the last couple of months, so those statistics almost mean nothing here as that covers a wide area and a long time scale, there are big variations 

They cover the East Anglia region as I understand it.  In fact, only a few miles east of here, on the Broads, the May average is only 40mm, so it would have been >90% of average.

Edited by chrisbell-nottheweatherman
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Posted
  • Location: Shoreham-by-sea, West Sussex
  • Weather Preferences: T storms, severe gales, heat and sun, cold and snow
  • Location: Shoreham-by-sea, West Sussex
21 minutes ago, chrisbell-nottheweatherman said:

It also goes without saying that drought is not the same as below-average rainfall.

A drought is caused by below average rainfall over time obviously.. but there’s a bit of a lag effect where even if we cross over into above average rainfall territory, the river levels and brown grass will not recover instantly 

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Posted
  • Location: Shoreham-by-sea, West Sussex
  • Weather Preferences: T storms, severe gales, heat and sun, cold and snow
  • Location: Shoreham-by-sea, West Sussex
35 minutes ago, chrisbell-nottheweatherman said:

It also goes without saying that drought is not the same as below-average rainfall.

 

9 minutes ago, Freeze said:

A drought is caused by below average rainfall over time obviously.. but there’s a bit of a lag effect where even if we cross over into above average rainfall territory, the river levels and brown grass will not recover instantly 

But I also suppose you could have a years worth of above average rainfall and flooding and then 2 months of no rain at all which would be a relief then, where as if we had that now it would only fuel the drought 

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Posted
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
  • Weather Preferences: Varied and not extreme.
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
1 hour ago, Freeze said:

A drought is caused by below average rainfall over time obviously.. but there’s a bit of a lag effect where even if we cross over into above average rainfall territory, the river levels and brown grass will not recover instantly 

Indeed.  In a region like mine, where much of the water comes from groundwater reserves and rivers rather than reservoirs, it takes even longer to refill supplies.

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Posted
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
  • Weather Preferences: Varied and not extreme.
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.

:wallbash:Still dry here today - all the rain is missing us to the west AGAIN!

Edited by chrisbell-nottheweatherman
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  • 3 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
  • Weather Preferences: Varied and not extreme.
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.

If we have very dry conditions through July, as currently forecast by Met Office, it might cancel-out the rainfall we've had this month. 

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Posted
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
  • Weather Preferences: Varied and not extreme.
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.

July sounds as though it will be entirely rainless for southern and eastern areas - incredibly, this would see June and July below average despite the June rainfall.  It feels as though nothing can bring prolonged rain back to the east of England - something fundamental appears to have changed, IMO.

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Posted
  • Location: North York Moors
  • Location: North York Moors
1 hour ago, chrisbell-nottheweatherman said:

July sounds as though it will be entirely rainless for southern and eastern areas - incredibly, this would see June and July below average despite the June rainfall.  It feels as though nothing can bring prolonged rain back to the east of England - something fundamental appears to have changed, IMO.

Apart from the prolonged rain in June then.
July and August aren't supposed to have prolonged rain - at least not away from NW Scotland.
It's when we make hay with a greater or lesser degree of difficulty, because most years you can hope for at least two weeks with little or no rain.

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Posted
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
  • Weather Preferences: Varied and not extreme.
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
1 hour ago, 4wd said:

Apart from the prolonged rain in June then.
July and August aren't supposed to have prolonged rain - at least not away from NW Scotland.
It's when we make hay with a greater or lesser degree of difficulty, because most years you can hope for at least two weeks with little or no rain.

Apologies - I didn't make that at all clear!:oops:What I meant to type was "..it feels as though nothing can bring prolonged rain that isn't immediately cancelled-out by a lengthy dry period..."; I was distracted as I wrote that.  I do understand that some dry, warm weather is a good thing in July for hay production; I'm concerned, though, that we might be in line for a dry late summer and first half of autumn.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
  • Weather Preferences: Varied and not extreme.
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.

Dry July...dry August as well by the sounds of the Met Office - the eastern drought intensifies.

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  • 5 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
  • Weather Preferences: Varied and not extreme.
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.

After a dry July in East Anglia and the south-east, the forecast for the rest of August and most of September is much the same.  Local news earlier today reported that some rivers in the region are being supplied by water from deep boreholes as the aquifers that supply them have dried up.  While the north and north-west has had excessive rain this summer, this region has seen below-average rainfall since June.

Edited by chrisbell-nottheweatherman
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Posted
  • Location: Coniston, Cumbria 90m ASL
  • Weather Preferences: wintry
  • Location: Coniston, Cumbria 90m ASL
4 hours ago, chrisbell-nottheweatherman said:

After a dry July in East Anglia and the south-east, the forecast for the rest of August and most of September is much the same.  Local news earlier today reported that some rivers in the region are being supplied by water from deep boreholes as the aquifers that supply them have dried up.  While the north and north-west has had excessive rain this summer, this region has seen below-average rainfall since June.

Feel free to have some of ours!

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Posted
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
  • Weather Preferences: Varied and not extreme.
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
12 hours ago, JeffC said:

Feel free to have some of ours!

I had thought that...

Edited by chrisbell-nottheweatherman
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Posted
  • Location: Sheffield South Yorkshire 160M Powering the Sheffield Shield
  • Weather Preferences: Any Extreme
  • Location: Sheffield South Yorkshire 160M Powering the Sheffield Shield

Until today it has rained everyday this month. Despite that rainfall for the month is average. The summer as a whole very wet.

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Posted
  • Location: Sheffield
  • Location: Sheffield

Til Next Wednesday unless the forecast changes!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2638077

all it needs is at least one shower to get us over the above average line for August! As for the whole Summer we must be heading into at least the top 10 wettest if not the top 5 but we're defintely not going make it to the wettest Summer on record (2012) with only a week to go! 

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Posted
  • Location: North York Moors
  • Location: North York Moors

Rather average rainfal here through summer, June was -17mm, July +45mm an August so far -24mm 
Following on from a relatively dry winter and spring, there is still an underlying dryness though which belies the statistics.
In fact we still seem to have a deep dryness overhang from last summer rather than an underlying wetness as was the case in the horrid summers of 2007 and 2012

Recharging ground water levels is a slow process and timing of rainfall through the year is important.
Most summer rain is taken up by vegetation and lost to the air with only a short lived effect on upper layers of earth.

Many soil types become quite hydrophobic when they are very dry, its like if you spill water in the kitchen - a damp mop or cloth works infinitely better than a dry one to soak it up.
 

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Posted
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
  • Weather Preferences: Varied and not extreme.
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
On 23/08/2019 at 12:33, The PIT said:

Until today it has rained everyday this month. Despite that rainfall for the month is average. The summer as a whole very wet.

 

22 hours ago, Weather26 said:

Til Next Wednesday unless the forecast changes!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2638077

all it needs is at least one shower to get us over the above average line for August! As for the whole Summer we must be heading into at least the top 10 wettest if not the top 5 but we're defintely not going make it to the wettest Summer on record (2012) with only a week to go! 

Just shows the extreme nature of the positioning of fronts - Sheffield isn't far (in an NH sense) from here, yet we're only around 50% of average rainfall for August, with July being between 60 and 80% depending on exact location.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Darlington
  • Weather Preferences: Warm dry summers
  • Location: Darlington

Southern Water granted River Test drought permit

A water supplier has been granted a drought permit so it can continue to take water from a Hampshire river. Southern Water applied for the permit on the River Test in July after water in the river dropped close to the minimum agreed level. The restriction on taking water from the river was put in place by the Environment Agency in March to protect its chalk stream habitat.

The drought permit has been granted to the water firm for six months. The Environment Agency said the water firm's current licence allowing it to take water from the river had been in place for 37 years.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-49631541?ns_mchannel=social&ns_linkname=news_central&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_weather

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Posted
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
  • Weather Preferences: Varied and not extreme.
  • Location: South Norfolk, 44 m ASL.
2 hours ago, Summer Sun said:

Southern Water granted River Test drought permit

 

There seems to be a reluctance on the part of regonal media to mention the shortage here in East Anglia.  Whether the same applies in Hampshire I wouldn't like to say, but it almost feels that the BBC are so scared of the climate sceptics that they think that any mention of rainfall shortage is going to cause a controversy.

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Posted
  • Location: Sheffield South Yorkshire 160M Powering the Sheffield Shield
  • Weather Preferences: Any Extreme
  • Location: Sheffield South Yorkshire 160M Powering the Sheffield Shield
1 hour ago, chrisbell-nottheweatherman said:

There seems to be a reluctance on the part of regonal media to mention the shortage here in East Anglia.  Whether the same applies in Hampshire I wouldn't like to say, but it almost feels that the BBC are so scared of the climate sceptics that they think that any mention of rainfall shortage is going to cause a controversy.

I'm surprised it hasn't been splashed all over the news as an example of climate change with news presenters stood in dry river beds saying they'll never run again.

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Posted
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire

We're in another dry period here again, with only 9.8mm since 17th August and apart from a few mm on Sunday afternoon/evening there's pretty much nothing showing on the models until after the 22nd September.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire

Well that ended abruptly! We had 7.8mm from 18th August - 21st September (35 days) and then 50.6mm in the last 6 days.

It has been a theme of this year of little rain for weeks followed by short spells of lots of rain:

1st January - 1st March: 43.2mm
2nd - 17th March: 64.0mm

18th March - 23rd April: 12.8mm
24th April - 11th May: 63.4mm

27th June - 18th July: 2.4mm
19th - 31st July: 48.0mm

 

Edited by reef
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