There was some discussion in other threads of the late sowing of spring barley owing to wet conditions in March and early April; and that such barley ('cuckoo barley') sown after the cuckoo arrives) notoriously gives a poor yield.

So what's been happening? Did the late sowing not give the barley a chance to get its roots down before the drought? or did it manage to get established and is now profiting from the hot weather to catch up with growth? Anyone know?

This http://www.gleadell.co.uk/report/ is the best I could find on Google but it's mostly about global trade with brief UK references.

The grass in my garden is quite brown, admittedly there are lots of trees which doesn't help.

18mm in May and only 8mm in June so far.

Not my photo but taken at Temple Newsam park in Leeds earlier today, showing how dry the grass is. A bit of yellowing isn't too unusual, especially grass verges, but 2013 was probably the last time it was this extensive. The leaves have also lost their late spring/early summer vibrant green and now have the duller/faded green that is typical of July, August and September.

I can now confirm from this report that the UK's first official hosepipe ban of this summer has now been introduced and that this has happened not in the south of England (which would normally be where you would expect that to happen), but over in Northern Ireland.

With the short-term and even the medium term models continuing to look very dry for the foreseeable future, I would it to be only a matter of time before we see more of these bans and so, it will be interesting to how it takes for that to happen, and the extent to which all of this ends up happening during this summer.

Overall figures eg 4% of June rainfall for Essex conceal some local variability. The grass where we're staying in N Essex, near the Suffolk border, is still quite green in marked contrast to the area 30 miles away in Suffolk where we visited friends yesterday, Guess which area got one of the local thunderstorms a couple of weeks ago.

But then, the last hosepipe ban anywhere in UK (including Northern Ireland) according to that report was in 1995 which is 23 years ago now, so you never know.

Furthermore, those members and readers in the Irish Republic will no doubt be interested to know that there will be a hosepipe ban in Dublin which will come into effect on this coming Monday (2 July 2018).

Dublin is a city which I actually visited back in the autumn of 2010 (I know that because my birthday is in the autumn, and I wanted to make sure that I visited the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin in order to get my free pint of Guinness which would then be my way of celebrating my birthday).

I can remember being there for about a week then and there was one day in particular where it rained so heavily that this ended up going right through me when then led me to comment to a passer by: "I guess, you couldn't really call this place [as in Ireland] the Emerald Isle if it wasn't for the rain.".

From that, it's probably hard to believe that almost eight years later, they are now lacking that rainfall there to such an extent that they are now having to introduce a hosepipe ban there but then, that just shows what can happen in the world of weather.

(2012 being a good reminder that persistent dry weather can break at any time).

Then why did that BBC report say that this was the first hosepipe ban since 1995?

Was this because it was the first one in Northern Ireland since then?

Was it because this was the first one to have occurred during the summer since 1995?

Or, has the BBC reporter who has published that failed to bring the proper facts together before publishing?

You would think after all that a major organisation such as the BBC would be able to clarify things a lot better then this, especially since it is largely, the money from the TV License which goes towards paying for that.

 Not sure if the BBC worry too much about accuracy

You would think that water authorities would invest in contingency plans for drier than normal summers or years.

Saying that some places tomorrow down here might get a deluge whilst others stay bone dry....🙄

You've answered your own question correctly, it was the first in NI since 1995.

In that case, they should have said that instead of just saying "the first hosepipe ban since 1995". That at least, would have made things a lot clearer for the viewing public.

Looking at my rainfall records, we have just under half the average annual rainfall so far this year but the majority of that fell before the beginning of May. The last 6 weeks have been very dry indeed.

Just 1.6mm in June.

We're lucky where our water comes from - the reservoirs in the hills are usually well full from all the rain they get throughout the year.

Yup. Even when it's bone dry here the reservoirs up in the hills are usually fine.

Very close to an absolute drought here now. The last day with any measureable rain was 20 June, and even that was only 0.5mm. The models don't offer anything, with the next 10 days looking completely dry as well.

Looking further back, my station recorded 15 completely rainless days between 26 May and 9 June inclusive, with only 10.9mm falling across the next 11 days. This is turning into one very significant dry spell.

A lottery for the S and SE to come tomorrow; highest resolution models are unanimous in developing some heavy and quite slow-moving but also very small and well-scattered showers.

A few could see 5-10 mm while the rest see little or, in the majority of cases, nothing at all.

Assuming, that is, the models are right to do this - today's rain in the SW was less intense, more persistent and more 'spread out' than those models had been predicting.

A repeat of that sort of error tomorrow would go against the consensus of forecasting agencies though as that's for a lot of sunshine for the vast majority. That differs to today, for which there was some mention of cloudier weather in the south.

Will my 34-day run of less than 1 mm rainfall (in fact, 0.6 mm or less as things stand) come to an end tomorrow, or will it continue for what could well be at least another 8 days? 

I'm actually a bit tense about this, and can't make up my mind which I'd rather see happen.

I do know what I don't want though; for it to be broken by a total at or slightly above 1.0 mm, which would be of little use for watering anyway and feel like the weather taking the piddle! 

I'm sick of having to use tap water on my plants. There's only so much you can let outgass the nasties!

We did an experiment one year and used rain water for one pot and tap water for the other ( same food for both) and tap water pot was a quarter of the size of rainwater...... I suppose that's what happens when you bathe your plants in bleach?

What plants, and how hard is your water? It could be more to do with the pH (hard water being alkaline, rainwater being acidic) - some plants hate too much lime.

A narrow escape today as some locally heavy deluges rumbled close by (I'm pleased ). The ground was briefly dampened but it was insufficient to tip the bucket. 0.0mm was the total. Tomorrow marks Day 29 of absolute drought here in Folkestone.

Reservoir levels in this neck of the woods are pretty healthy - actually quite a lot fuller than average after a wet winter.

https://www.southernwater.co.uk/reservoir-levels

Hydrological drought is all about winter rainfall. Agricultural drought (the French call it simply “secheresse des sols) is about spring and summer rainfall plus evapotranspiration.