My WS is out of action so I don’t know how much rain we actually had, but it has been moderate to steady all weekend, exactly what was needed for it to soak in and quench the earth.  My lawn is showing signs of recovery but the grass verges are still the colour of the corn stubble fields. The trees in the forest don’t look too stressed but those along roadsides have littered the ground with yellow leaves and some small branches brought down by gusty winds.

OK, we’ve had enough rain for now, bring back the heat!  

Amazing how quickly the lawn has recovered since Friday's rain. We've now had more rain in the last few days than the past few months combined and the grass is getting greener by the hour

The weather has flipped and looks like staying wet and warm for the rest of summer

Still waiting for more than a very patchy greening-up of the lawns and public grass areas here, despite it raining for so many hours on Sunday and with a few showers since (only light, mind).

Much to the disdain of many locals, it's the weeds and mosses that appear to  have stolen the lion's share of the water, with very rapid growth on their part at the expense of most of the grass plants! 

This is probably due to a combination of quite porous soils in these parts (water quickly percolating down to where the thirsty trees dominate the drinking scene) and having missed out on the heaviest of the recent rain events (sometimes by mere miles!); the total was not enough to satisfy the weeds and mosses and leave enough over for the grass to perform much of a recovery.

A fair few stretches of (mostly south-facing) grasses appear, however, to have simply died, as they're strewn with dirty brown-coloured patches (sometimes exposed dirt, other times the grass itself has blackened) and show no sign of recovery whatsoever. This area did, after all, experience one of the longest observed runs in the UK of days that the Met Office classify as dry (under 1 mm total rainfall).

It all serves as a reminder that we're not out of the woods yet in terms of longer-term drought development; for that we'll need a wetter than average run lasting several months. Ideally starting in October, when evapotranspiration rates are much lower.

I was wondering what the situation might be in the Scilly Isles. I do know that on tropical islands salt water ingress is sometimes a serious issue with greater freshwater use.

I have had quick look and found this document closer to home you might well know about.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/593955/IOS_SPZ_delineation_v2_-_2.pdf

Something I was unaware of was this.

'Prior to 2010, the Isles of Scilly were exempt from UK environmental legislation. This situation was ended in 2010, with the introduction of the Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR). Due to the extension of EPR to the islands, the Environment Agency has produced SPZs there.'

Nick

Interestingly the islands have become more reliant in recent decades on the aquifers, previously most homes, especially on the off islands supplemented with rain water harvested from roofs. My brothers home had this until 2 years ago - it meant the extra stomach bug or two as it wasn't filtered but the water tasted wonderful. Looking back I can't help wondering if the seagul poo added a certain something!!

I looked at this link and was quite surprised to see how much Scilly depended on ground water. AFAIK Scilly is mainly granite so although the granite will be fractured (think Dartmoor tors) there isn't going to be the big 'sponge' which is chalk aquifer of southern England. So - limited capacity, and more rapid ingress of salt water along well-defined channels in the granite?

That's almost what I am thinking. The islands are not like say Palawan Island in the South China Sea/ Sulu Sea with a significant portion of potable water in the main urban area extracted from fossilised coral aquifers and the danger of salt water/septic/cess tank ingress, a situation with which I am familiar to a degree. But granite that is not well endowed in water retention, so I was surprised to hear about it thinking the Scilly potable supply must be roof harvested rainwater combined with the de-sal plant.

As to bacterial issues I would have thought that rain water harvested from roofs which is a potable solution in many parts of the world could be treated with a UV system like this, though I am sure it's teaching grandma to suck eggs. 

https://www.rainwaterharvesting.co.uk/filtration/ultra-violet-filter-112

Now you have fired me up I found this.

https://www.thisisscillynews.com/single-post/2018/07/30/Water-usage-on-St-Marys-unsustainable

All in all a serious situation for the islands.

Nick

Over in Guernsey things looked very scorched and parched...the only green vegetation was the gorse growing along the cliffs on the South of the island...My Mum's lawn looked barely existent apart from a few weeds breaking the monotony of brown....

United Utilities have called off their hosepipe ban.

Just shows how 'return to mediocrity' the last couple of weeks have been further north.

Flood warnings next week? 

the daily express will be very disappointed. No drought apocalypse this year anyway!

My grass is green again and the heat is really helping the growth

There has been plenty of warm/hot and reasonably sunny weather in the last two weeks. Not as sunny as the day after day of clear blue skies we had in late June into July admittedly but every bit as warm if not warmer. Yes, we had a 'blip' of wet weather last weekend and into the the very start of this week but in any other summer the last two weeks would have been considered pretty good overall. Perhaps we are becoming rather spoilt?

Having missed the worst of the rains, the continued brown hue to things here has started to feel that bit more special for being a more localised/regional situation as opposed to country-wide or national.

Also, to add to the sense of occasion, the local streams have now fallen to lower levels than they were at before the rain on Sunday, after a small and short-lived rise.

That rain basically filled in a big 'hole' of deficit in the local ecosystem, with only surface runoff feeding the streams. Perhaps some deep ground flow will help mitigate further losses later in the month, though odds are there will be at least one decent spell of rain to add to that within the next fortnight.

Spokeswoman for UU said that ban was called off as demand had slackened due to forecast of cooler weather, rather than expected rainfall.

It looks as if the NW will continue to get some rain, though not much, while we in the SE are back to hot and dry - at least until about next Wednesday when it looks as if this thread will become redundant for everyone. At least it means that the farmers in cereal growing areas around here will be able to finish off what remains of the harvest, not a lot to do now, and the dairy farmers will be able to eke out stocks of grass until there's enough rain to get the grass growing again.

I'm assuming that has been the case here, having been away for a few days.

My front lawn looks no different than before I left.

Wouldn't have followed it anyway. Ridiculous how an island in the middle of the Atlantic can get even remotely close to a water restiction. The Egyptians must piss themselves at us.

I know that this is an old thread. However, despite the fact that we are in a more changeable weather pattern now, the rainfall amounts which I am reporting for both Edinburgh Gogarbank and the botanic gardens in Edinburgh are continuing to be small with less than 20 mm of rain being recorded at both of those stations during this month so far, as at 8am on 13 September 2018.

That follows on the dry summer which we had and in fact, you need to go all the way back to the end of April to find the point in time when all of this dry weather started. What I have been reporting though is just typical of what the situation has been like across the east of Scotland in general and on that note, I have come across this report on SEPA's website which gives the latest report (in PDF format) on the current water shortages which have arisen from that, especially in the NE of Scotland and over the Highlands.

 Yes , indeed. I have relations up in Sutherland and it has been remarkably dry there since April. I was there end of July and Lochs were very low and rivers a trickle. There has been rain recently, but not enough .

Lawnwatch 2018 - No 6 (dedicating my life to watching grass grow). The Green Green Grass Of Home.

After what has been a long, parched & tiresome Summer, it is good to see the colour finally return to my beloved lawn.

Have the BBC called yet to express an interest? 

Notty posted this interesting (to me at least) observation.

Off topic I know but our local reservoir is at the lowest level that I have ever seen now. If Nature is to reset the balance we are due a very large amount of ‘precipitation’ in the next six months or so - rain or snow. If not we are in for a serious drought next year (unless the summer is a washout of course).

The unusual weather (imho) continues.

I agree and apart from a wet spell that brought up the local river levels for a short time, the Frome is still at summer level.

I noticed this story too. Is this the reservoir you know Notty?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-46236792

Maybe we need a new 2019 Drought thread?