First drops of rain here in Watford for 25 days but nothing has registered on my rain gauge.

Its come down heavier now and 0.9mm has fallen so far, so the drought is broken!

As this evening has gone on, there has been a couple of showers which have fizzled out on their arrival here in Edinburgh without adding anything more to today's rainfall totals and now, those showers are dying out altogether.

From that, it is pretty clear now that we are just not going to be getting that further addition to today's rainfall total at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh today which is still needed to officially end the drought there and thus, end the drought across all of my three local stations with the drought at Edinburgh Gogarbank having already been officially brought to an end by this afternoon's showers.

This means that whilst the drought at Edinburgh Gogarbank was brought to an end on its 23rd day, the drought at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh now looks set to carry on into its 24th day at the very least.

Just 0.2mm in the last 36 days.

25 days since that 0.2mm of drizzle fell.

Things are quite dry now 

Last night’s black cloud didn’t bring thunder, just a light, brief shower at 10 pm that wet the ground but went no way to quenching it.  Still no measurable rain since 30th May and it’s all dry again this morning but it will have stopped the chaff rising, although most of the local corn has been harvested now. 

Apart from a very light and very brief mist shower the other day, which was not enough to 'tip the bucket', it has been totally dry here. Yesterday my 23rd consecutive dry day. A weak front expected to pass through later but I'd be surprise it if gave anything more than 1.0mm, and to be honest, I'd be surprised if it gave anything at all. 

Looking through the records for the major stations here in Edinburgh, the data from Jerry's neck of the woods at Swanston is still to come through and that information isn't available from SEPA. From the Met Office's own observation site though, I have been able to get yesterday's total for Swanston which came out as 3.6mm.

That is a much higher figure than the ones for the other stations which I usually report for, but that also comes as no surprise since it was really the south of Edinburgh which bore the biggest impact from yesterday's showers, whereas the north of Edinburgh got nothing more than a glancing blow from them.

That not only ended the drought on what was actually its 24th day (since just 0.1 mm of rain was recorded there on 20 June), but also made yesterday, the first official rain day at that station since that really wet day on 19 June when the staggering amount of 36.5 mm of rain was recorded on that one single day.

This then leaves the botanic gardens in Edinburgh as the only major station in Edinburgh where an official absolute drought is still in place and today, we have now gone into day 24 of that drought there with today being forecast to stay dry.

EDIT:

For Edinburgh Gogarbank, I can now confirm that the data from SEPA has now caught up with the data from weathercast.co.uk, so both of those sites are now in total agreement that yesterday's total at Edinburgh Gogarbank was 0.4 mm. That isn't much, and was not enough to make yesterday an official rain day there, but it was enough to officially end the drought at that station. Therefore, this is the final confirmation that the drought at Edinburgh Gogarbank did indeed, end yesterday in its 23rd day.

On my 6pm break I saw ckear skies over East from Langley, Berkshire area then leaving work at 9am greeted with pitch black skies toward London and north of Heathrow.  It seem to formed overhead, storming and clear away same time.  Nothing at work or home area here but this reminded me in July 1997 when the storm formed over my area and gave out highest 78mm of rain in 3 hours.  I was leaving work when it burst with 50p rain drops banging my Ford Escort car and water gushing out from the drains so I never forget this amazing driving experience.  

Despite very bright echoes sitting slap bang over Central-West London for nearly 2 hours and plentiful thunder, it seems London got barely anything from yesterday’s storm: 2mm at SJP and zero at Heathrow.

Charlwood got 28mm though.

I think this is an example of the positive feedbacks of extreme summer weather. The ground is so dry that there is no soil moisture feedback to convective clouds so a. They are fewer to start with, b. it is harder for them to build a saturated column from cloud to ground.

Likewise the dry ground makes 30C maxes possible with 10C uppers, like tomorrow, which simply doesn’t happen in damp summers.

I am absolutely loving it every minute of it and love to sight seeing the parched landscape and glad to see the stubborn weeds that keep growing finally dead now.

I agree, seeing lawn weeds and stinging nettles dying from drought gives me much pleasure. Seeing small trees turn orange isn’t so great - looks a bit too autumnal.

It pee'd down again yesterday late afternoon. Mercifully not for too long, and everywhere dried up again fairly quickly.

Nice today, but it's the fact it's a last hurrah before the dross returns is all too depressing.

The ground is very dry and cracked and I'm looking forward to some real rain!

What dross? I see nothing in the models that sugests an imminent return to mobile westerlies or dartboard lows or whatever. Rather a perod of somewhat showery conditions but still warm, followed by possibly a re-load.

A lot of murky drizzle here yesterday that didn't amount to much, but a couple of short lived heavier pulses brought yesterday's total up about 3.5/4.0mm, with 3.6mm gathered in the bucket since midnight. Thick mist/fog at the moment and trying to rain a bit heavier but failing. 

Total summer rainfall for England and Wales: 19mm up to 13th July compare to 28.3mm up to 13th July in 1976.

So I reckon it's the driest first half to summer since possibly 1925. June of that year was the driest in record and although daily reports only go back to 1931, I do know that the first half of July 1925 had well below average rainfall, with most of it falling during the second half. Without daily figures, we can't be 100% sure but it it has been exceptional whatever

What’s most remarkable for me is around these parts is I have photos of the local park in April with pools of water and drainage channels the council dug to prevent flooding bursting at edges with water and just three months later the same park is parched to a crisp as I stated earlier. Most remarkable weather turnaround I can remember in my lifetime. 

Is today not pretty decent as well? Looks it on reports.

And dross? There are recent summers which have been so dark rainy and windy that next week would have looked like a 'return of summer'.

On Friday, a grand total of 0.2 mm was achieved by a near-stationary shower early-afternoon. Not far west of here, it deposited a good few mm, but no such watering here.

By the curious absolute drought definition that John's been using (where does it come from? TIA), that means it's still ongoing here having got going on 18th June, now 28 days ago.

Not that there was much rain between then and 30th May anyway; just 2.1 mm, with no single day getting above 0.6 mm. It's been 45 days since I last saw at least 1 mm of rainfall in a day.

Tomorrow has a chance of breaking the absolute drought and maybe even the run with less than 1 mm on any single day. It will come down to just how fast the decaying front loses its rainfall. Most models keep it going just long enough to deliver close to 1 mm here. Below is the ARPEGE 12z's accumulations for reference.

After that, the models have trended drier for Tue-Fri with most models bringing no more than trace amounts here. In fact, the 12z GFS brings no more than that right out to July 30th. ECM takes until 'only' 25th but is extremely progressive in moving up LP from the south days 9-10, having already been strangely weak with the ridge across the UK, so I'm very sceptical of that evolution.

For the prospect of adding another 10 days to my absolute drought, I won't deny that I'm hoping for that front to fizzle out before it gets here tomorrow; it's not like 1 mm is going to make any appreciable difference to the garden anyway!

This dryness looks to continue to be accompanied by mostly very warm to hot temperatures; a blend of the 12z GFS and ARPEGE runs suggests that after mid-high 20s tomorrow (depending on just how fast the decaying front advances), the coolest day this week, Tuesday, will top out at a 'mere' 21-22*C, but Wednesday may bring a swift return to the mid-20s, with Thursday stepping things back up into the high 20s. By the weekend the maximums could well be near 30*C again based on the modelling trends and latest consensus.

I'm going to remember this summer for a long, long time. Unless we do a '75-'76 and this proves to be only the prelude .

Agreed on the term of record dryness so far but what strike me that the temperatures had been extremely stabilized and no extreme heat or coolness this summer, so far I only recorded once 24C last Tuesday so probably the same this coming Tuesday and highest only 32C.  Just the temps stabilizes is amazing and see 27-28C are easily reached when past summers was so hard to get it even for a day or 2.  Not likely to see 76 in term of extreme heat this time but I feel the 24-32C will carry on into August, maybe September might spring a surprise extreme heat to finish off what a good summer of 2018.  Take the factor of 21C sea temps now in SW UK coasts to south Ireland and very warm in W France so that aiding the HP to easily stay put here.

No rainfall recorded for 28 days now. Only 3mm since 1st of June. Only 14mm in May as well.

Was forecast heavy showers for tomorrow but that is now being degraded every 2 hours. Only light rain for an hour the latest, doubt we will get any.