Its getting better here 6.9mm in total yesterday and 5.7mm so far today,
Wonder when and if we will hit double figures.
God knows what I got today but it must of been a lot because my lawn has become very boggy. Considering it was bone dry and cracks were forming a few days ago...i would say we have received copious amounts.
The latest model output and ensemble forecasts would suggest that in a couple of weeks time we may be able to wave goodbye to the drought.
Edited by user 20 April 2012 12:13:21(UTC) | Reason: Not specified
Not around here either, we need months and months of rainfall to quench ours .
Only 0.3mm so far but I did hear thunder earlier
Once the losses to surface run off, floral and faunal intake, evaporation and channel flows (rivers etc) are taken into account, I wonder how much water is actually making it to the ground water stores at the moment.
The local streams in west Hants were fluctating upward after the few bigger showers that crossed the area, but then they have subsided back to low levels, if not quite as low as they were before.
Aren't we the lucky ones!!! After being one of the driest areas, we're probably getting more rain than anyone now! Heavy thunderstorms this afternoon and torrential rain for the past 3 hours has topped us up even more. Now at 82mm this month with 18mm this evening and still it rains!
Very little here today just 0.9mm thunder dark clouds but no rain
[quote=Steam Fog;322411]Think it would be good to incorporate a QI style claxon for every who goes, "ho ho, they called a drought! Now we've had some heavy April showers! Drought over!" Except that is not at this stage really the case. Here's a piece from the Met Office. It’s raining – why have we still got a drought? http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/guest-blog-its-raining-why-have-we-still-got-a-drought/[/quote]
I think those who are saying that, simply don't understand the implications or the meaning of the word drought and no doubt the press will be adding fuel to the fire in their ignorance too! It's common sense that after so many dry months we'd need a heck of a lot of rain to get us back to a stable situation with good reserves of water.
There's more to it than the amount of rain that falls, it's important how and when it falls as well. Steady prolonged rain is more useful to topping up groundwater levels. When it's torrential, most of it runs into drains rather than soaking into the ground and having very dry ground already means we need more rain than usual as dry ground takes longer to saturate and permeate. I'm probably preaching to the converted on here, it's the general public that have difficulty understanding it and the water companies will no doubt be in for some stick!
Well what a day, thunder lightening and heavy showers 9.3mm so far, wonder if we will make double figures by midnight
44.4mm this month so far
BBC news - on the drought "we need weeks if not months of rain to bring water levels upto near normal" and that the soil is still very dry.
We made it into doubles 13.2mm now
Having read this thread, and reviewed the Env Agency Water report and Drought report, I'd definitely agree that depsite the latest rain it's not done a lot.
Down here, the aquifer levels (at least as of Apr 17th) hadn't shown any sign of recovery. I'll be interested to read the 18th to 24th report when published, as I'd hope the more recent rain might finally have percolated down. I do note that soil moisture deficites have been reduced as of the 17th, so the additonal rain might have made a small difference.
It's slightly anti-intuitive when you read that we're still in drought when on the surface there's flooding But the problem is deeper down, especially down here where we rely on aquifiers.
We're lucky up here, most of our water comes from reservoirs and they are currently 96% full - so no drought
You still don`t seem to be getting the amount of rain you need in the southeast,( Patricia in northwest Kent has recorded around 50mm so far).
Yet there are plenty of posters on the forum complaining about the wet weather and hoping for settled sunny conditions.
We have had 110mm so far, and I`m quite happy to see a few more weeks of unsettled weather.
OK if it doesn't screw up my plans LOL. I have time off in mid-May so am hoping for a dry spell then
I'll be happy for more unsettled weather, too. Though, the grass in my garden has become quite long and is in urgent need of cutting, and my electric lawn mower doesn't really like wet grass!