Interesting. The vast majority of the country had below average rainfall then.

First drier than average year here since 2013. Note there is tiny darker brown anomaly close to Aberdeen. That is just about where my house is located and reflects when we had thunderstorms in July and the interesting tropical downpours transferred from the east of here to the west without managing to go overhead

Weekly bulletin: Wednesday 26 December 2018 to Tuesday 1 January 2019

"Summary

It has been a dry week across most of England. River flows decreased at over three-quarters of indicator sites and flows at more than half of all sites are lower than normal for the time of year.

Rainfall 

Rainfall totals over the past week range from 0.2 mm in south-east England to 6 mm in north-west England (Table 1 and Figure 1). Cumulative rainfall totals for December ranged from 101% of the monthly long term average (LTA) in north-east England to 134% in south-west England (Table 1).

River flow

River flows across England decreased at over three-quarters of the indicator sites. Daily mean flows are classed as normal or below for the time of year at most sites.

Outlook

High pressure is likely to remain dominant over the next week so the weather will be predominantly settled, dry and cold. There is the odd chance of a short shower, however, the rainfall totals are likely to be low"

https://t.co/hFBWrwDrV9

I know that this is a very old thread now, but I also haven't forgotten that the reason why I started this particular thread was because I have been very concerned about the recent lack of rainfall in this part of the world and the potential impacts which this might have going into the summer if our rainfall levels don't increase significantly by then. The fact that this month looks as though it may well be our driest January on record raises those concerns even more.

As a result of those concerns, I have done some research into how the local river levels have responded to that, and discovered this information from SEPA on the latest river levels on the Water of Leith next to Murrayfield Station in Edinburgh, which is the closest such station to where I live. What is perhaps rather surprising here is that the actual river levels are holding up quite well at the moment despite the currently ongoing lack of rainfall here.

However, the current levels are at the very low end of normal as shown on the diagram on the link which I have pointed to here. At some point during this year though, the weather is going to get warmer as we get further into the year and as that happens, I can see a great risk there that these river levels will drop even further when that happens if we don't start to get more in the way of rainfall by then. That in turn could bring some serious consequences for the summer if that turns out to be another hot and dry one. Here, I have only referred to one such site, but I'm pretty sure that it is the same story throughout this area.