In the end, a total of 1.2 mm of rain fell during yesterday at Edinburgh Gogarbank along with 0.6 mm at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh.
However, today has been completely dry so far at both of those stations as at 8am this morning.
For Edinburgh Gogarbank, this takes the total for this month so far to 19.0 mm, the total for this winter so far to 67.0 mm and the total for this year so far to 29.2 mm as at 8am this morning.
For the botanic gardens in Edinburgh, this takes the total for this month so far to 16.0 mm, the total for this winter so far to 62.0 mm and the total for this year so far to 28.2 mm as at 8am this morning.
So far, this has been an extraordinarily dry month and although there is still over a week to go until the end of this month, we might not actually get all that much rain during the rest of this month if the latest model output turns out to be correct.
It would not surprise me in any way if this winter as a whole, ended up being one of our driest winters on record, especially since this has traditionally, tended to be one of the wettest and stormiest seasons with the worst of that weather, usually coming in the early part of the winter, at around Christmas.
Yet, this winter is by far, going to go down as the driest season which I have recorded by quite some distance, since I first joined this forum back in 2016. During that time, every single season until now had at the very least, always produced a total of more than 100 mm of rain, and usually well over that. Indeed, that was the case even during the very dry summer which we had last year when we had those droughts and yet, this winter is going to produce a rainfall total in the end which is well short of that 100 mm mark.
In addition to that, it also wouldn't surprise me if this was also one of our driest ever starts to any year on record. The only caveat to that comes from the fact that this month isn't going to be the driest month of this winter here since we have already had more rain at both of those above stations, than what we had during January, but the only reason why this is is the case is because January was such an exceptionally dry month and it turns out that this month's totals aren't likely to be all that much higher in the end, than what we saw during January.
Back in December, I was commenting on just how dry it was then and indeed, that was also a very month. Since then though, it has got even drier and now, it is looking as December is actually going to end up being the wettest month of this winter which in itself, is extraordinary since that was a month which produced less than 40 mm of rain at both of those above stations.
Given that this has been an ongoing pattern for so long (since before last summer), this makes me extremely concerned about where all of this might be going. This is Scotland after all and yet with the way that things are going, I am becoming increasingly fearful that at some point in time if this carries on, our climate could end up being more reminiscent of that in the Sahara Desert, than in a maritime nation such as Scotland.
This might not bring us more general water shortages in the meantime. However, this slowdown of the Atlantic jet stream which we are seeing (possibly as a result of climate change that might at least, have been at least partially brought on by mankind itself) together with the rapidly growing global human population means that those types of general water shortages might becoming much common over time, and that could well be very concerning for our descendants, especially since we might not actually be all far into the future before these effects start to be fully felt.
The north of Edinburgh, usually always missing out on snow events which occur not just within the rest of Scotland or the UK, but also within the rest of Edinburgh.