Well, I guess it's not funny for you - but blimey, that has to be the weirdest way I've heard of to lose a weather instrument!

I guess that's why the one I've got came with anti-bird spikes. I'm especially glad I installed them, as ironically I was watching two pigeons following each other round the lawn earlier (and around the weather station)...

As for rainfall, it's been pretty dry here recently, so much so that the day before the really hot weather I emptied a bathful of water on the garden... didn't seem to do anything, really. We've had 4.8mm of rain since then - a lucky downpour in the middle of the night on Wednesday and a couple of showers today.

July's total here is 4.8mm and the year so far is 205mm. January and April were dry here (16mm and 11mm respectively), the other months up to June all having had at least 20mm.

 

    It’s OK, I see the funny side of everything!  Watch out for the pigeons!  They don’t care where they do it and they don’t half do some flapping!  

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A heavy shower has been stuck over Whitchurch for at least an hour. Rainfall rates showing as up to 16mm/hour although it's eased off a bit recently. It's the most rain I've seen for weeks!

I have no rainfall statistics for here but it feels like the driest period I've lived through since 1976. Comparable even to that period perhaps. There was some rare thundery rain on the 19th July but it was a feeble attempt and gave no more than a dampening to the ground. Trees especially silver birch are looking autumnal and loosing leaves like they do in November. 

 

Similar here. The pond in our garden is about 2 feet down from its usual maximum level and dropping steadily since the spring-fed supply dried up weeks ago. In normal times, for about 9 months of the year water trickles steadily in at one end and out at the other.

We have two large weeping willows, one at the pond end and one at the other end. The one at the pond end is still doing well, just losing a few leaves, but the other one is throwing off masses now, almost like mid-Autumn. 

 

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2 commemorative trees planted one and two years ago- the Covid memorial oak and the diocesan dwarf horsechestnut- have shed crispy brown leaves and there is no new growth. Have been unable to yank large water vessels the length of the school field every day.

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Just 8.9mm here in Galway this July so far. Very, very dry for the location. A front moving in later on might bring the first substantial rainfall in weeks. All looks very hit and miss though. 

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Hayling Island, the local MetO station, had 3mm today (I think Chichester had rather more); 0.2 mm on the 19th; 0.6 mm on the 1st; and no significant rainfall in the last 10 days of June.

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Edinburgh Gogarbank and the botanic gardens in Edinburgh have each had less than a quarter of their respective 1991-2020 July averages during this month so far, and there isn't much more than a week to go until the end of this month.

During this summer so far, Edinburgh has had roughly just around a fifth of its 1991-2020 summer average rainfall even though we are now just over half way through this summer

Furthermore, Edinburgh has had only around a third of its 1991-2020 annual average during this year so far, even though we are now well over halfway through this year.

To make matters even worse, even the rain which fell here in the Scottish Borders during this morning appears to have bypassed Edinburgh altogether, and there was no recorded rainfall whatsoever from that at either of those two local stations in Edinburgh.

If there is to be any hope of those large deficits being made up, Edinburgh cannot afford to keep missing out on that rainfall in this fashion.

 

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None of the NW England contingent have posted, and I was in Anglesey today, but before we left today, there'd beed light rain during the morning.

Coming home, we hit rain in NE Wales and at was raining more than not the rest of the way home. As we got home, the rain got heavier, and we had a period of really heavy stuff bouncing down.

My weather station's been out of commission for a few years now (nothing to do with dirty pigeons!) but I'd estimate at least 10mm today. 

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A heavy shower has been stuck over Whitchurch for at least an hour. Rainfall rates showing as up to 16mm/hour although it's eased off a bit recently. It's the most rain I've seen for weeks!

 Amazingly we caught a slow-moving heavy shower about 6 p.m. about 8mm according to my Neighbours rain Guage. From reading reports on a Farming Forum, the whole country is on the dry side, some parts very dry, others a bit wetter.

I planted just over 5,000 vines this April in my site in the Kent downs which is very wet by SE standards. Last year we had well over 1,000mm.

Since planting I had to wait almost a month for rain. We then had a few reasonable falls in May. Then it went dry again. 26mm in April, 80mm in May, only 36.6mm in June and a sum total of 3.2mm this month, as well as the excessive temperatures which hit 39.2C on Tuesday. 298mm year to date.

Nowhere near as dry as Essex or the lower estuarine parts of Kent but still worryingly dry when you have such an expensive new crop in the ground.

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None of the NW England contingent have posted, and I was in Anglesey today, but before we left today, there'd beed light rain during the morning.

Coming home, we hit rain in NE Wales and at was raining more than not the rest of the way home. As we got home, the rain got heavier, and we had a period of really heavy stuff bouncing down.

My weather station's been out of commission for a few years now (nothing to do with dirty pigeons!) but I'd estimate at least 10mm today. 

Yes yesterday we had a real soaking. 

Several hours of persistent rain that was very much needed. 

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https://www.sepa.org.uk/media/594305/220721-water-scarcity-report_final.pdf 

Just don't know how that could be the case because there is no drought here at all. Not remotely.

302.6mm here so far this year which is 83% of average up to 22nd July. Below average rainfall is something you would expect more than 50% of the time (as the averages are skewed by very wet months) and does not equate to a drought.

All the more ridiculous given that the 18 months July 2020 to December 2021 were exceptionally wet with a total of 1400.4mm compared to an average of 1128mm.

36.2mm this month which is average and 12-month running rain total still above average at 791mm. Only January and June have been dry in that time so if there are any water scarcities it's down to bad management and nothing to do with the weather.

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Just don't know how that could be the case because there is no drought here at all. Not remotely.

302.6mm here so far this year which is 83% of average up to 22nd July. Below average rainfall is something you would expect more than 50% of the time (as the averages are skewed by very wet months) and does not equate to a drought.

All the more ridiculous given that the 18 months July 2020 to December 2021 were exceptionally wet with a total of 1400.4mm compared to an average of 1128mm.

36.2mm this month which is average and 12-month running rain total still above average at 791mm. Only January and June have been dry in that time so if there are any water scarcities it's down to bad management and nothing to do with the weather.

Certainly dry in England too

Latest rainfall and river flow across the country shows where the driest areas are in England. 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1092995/Rainfall_and_river_flow_summary_13_to_19_July_2022.pdf

A number of rivers in bottom 5% exceptionally low category. 

It has been very dry across large swathes of the country. We are within the official definitions of hydrological, agricultural and meteorological drought. 

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Just don't know how that could be the case because there is no drought here at all. Not remotely.

302.6mm here so far this year which is 83% of average up to 22nd July. Below average rainfall is something you would expect more than 50% of the time (as the averages are skewed by very wet months) and does not equate to a drought.

All the more ridiculous given that the 18 months July 2020 to December 2021 were exceptionally wet with a total of 1400.4mm compared to an average of 1128mm.

36.2mm this month which is average and 12-month running rain total still above average at 791mm. Only January and June have been dry in that time so if there are any water scarcities it's down to bad management and nothing to do with the weather.

The river flow data show the dry conditions well: https://www2.sepa.org.uk/waterlevels/?sd=t&lc=368014 

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None of the NW England contingent have posted, and I was in Anglesey today, but before we left today, there'd beed light rain during the morning.

Coming home, we hit rain in NE Wales and at was raining more than not the rest of the way home. As we got home, the rain got heavier, and we had a period of really heavy stuff bouncing down.

My weather station's been out of commission for a few years now (nothing to do with dirty pigeons!) but I'd estimate at least 10mm today. 

That might be because large parts of the western half of the UK (and by that, I'm not necessarily meaning everyone) don't actually have any issues with any lack of rainfall, water scarcity or drought (I know that Jerry for example, was reporting that it was actually wetter than average overall where he was in the Lake District) because they are already getting enough rainfall.

I know that the west of Scotland for example, has been a lot wetter than the east of Scotland up until now, so the issue isn't that it isn't raining, it's just that this rainfall isn't getting through to a lot of central, southern and eastern parts of the UK.

The east of Scotland (excluding that tiny spot over RichardAbdn's house going by what he has just reported, although he is actually just taking the same view as Noodle Doodle here in Edinburgh on this matter) is included within that, and it is therefore, those areas which carry the highest level of water scarcity according to SEPA.

The west of Scotland on the other hand, has been a lot wetter and that is shown by the fact there are no water scarcity problems there, even according to SEPA which is therefore showing the situation to be normal in those areas.

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July has certainly been dry in Ireland. However, we've had near average rainfall totals until this month so growth conditions are still fine. That might change, of course, if we don't get some rain soon. I had hoped that today might be the day for a bit of a top up but only 1mm yesterday and 4mm today. Hopefully we might get a bit more before things get dryer again.

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Just don't know how that could be the case because there is no drought here at all. Not remotely.

302.6mm here so far this year which is 83% of average up to 22nd July. Below average rainfall is something you would expect more than 50% of the time (as the averages are skewed by very wet months) and does not equate to a drought.

All the more ridiculous given that the 18 months July 2020 to December 2021 were exceptionally wet with a total of 1400.4mm compared to an average of 1128mm.

36.2mm this month which is average and 12-month running rain total still above average at 791mm. Only January and June have been dry in that time so if there are any water scarcities it's down to bad management and nothing to do with the weather.

 It must be pretty dry in Aberdeen shire as there are farmer's having to put out bales for their cattle already and reports of failing Spring Barley. Probably localized but it must be on the dry side.

I would put this year up there with 1996, 2003 and 2005 for dryness thus far. Too young to remember 1976.
If I know the British weather we will end up getting a run of wetter months at some point.

I would put this year up there with 1996, 2003 and 2005 for dryness thus far. Too young to remember 1976.
If I know the British weather we will end up getting a run of wetter months at some point.

What about 1995? Last time we had threats of standpipes. Driest summer on record bar none. 

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I would put this year up there with 1996, 2003 and 2005 for dryness thus far. Too young to remember 1976.
If I know the British weather we will end up getting a run of wetter months at some point.

That is something which I've always believed in, but it seems as though I've been waiting that change for a very long time now and I am now just sick and tired of waiting for that.

That's why I made the decision not to start any more monthly precipitation threads until I at least start to some signs of that change happening and based on this month's data so far along with the latest model output, next month's precipitation thread is clearly becoming yet another one which I don't really want to be starting.

One member of the NW England contingent is of course, Bolty who reported on this month's precipitation thread that he had around 39 mm of rain in his area during this month so far. If we had 39 mm of rain in Edinburgh during this month so far, that wouldn't actually be all that far short of our average for this stage in the month so that for me, is just the perfect example of why I believe that there is probably no such problem with a lack of rainfall in NW England, even if the figure which Bolty has reported is well below his own local average for this stage of the month.

Furthermore, even today's weather sums up the overall problem really well because away from the west and north of Scotland, today's weather front looks very fragmented on the latest radar maps. In fact, it is actually bone dry here at the moment where I am with even the odd bit of brightness at times, at the very time when it was supposed to be raining according to the latest forecasts.

If we can't even get any decent rainfall from the synoptic set up which we have no entered, we are in very serious trouble indeed as regards to our chances of ever being able to even start to make up this deficit.

 

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