At least they’re sticking together!    

Yes, and at least it means they're playing outdoors and I'll accept the price of my rain gauge being turned over any day of the week if they keep playing football outside!

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Yes, and at least it means they're playing outdoors and I'll accept the price of my rain gauge being turned over any day of the week if they keep playing football outside!

  Absolutely!  

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[edit] He’s just sent me a photo of plastic tables outside his local pub with exactly the same melt marks. The landlord thought someone had been stubbing cigarettes out on them and it does look like that.  Bro has put him right though!  So Beast, if there are little melt marks on plastic furniture outside your ‘Spoons, you can tell the landlord how to prevent it happening again.  

Except in my pub, the locals do actually stub their fags out on the tables or usually throw the butts at passers by 

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But how much evaporation has there been? Knowing that would improve the picture of how dry things are.

The same as any other year, the sun doesn't change. It's very much normal for the grass to parch and top soil to dry up here in the summer months. On average between June & August it only rains on 20 days here which leaves 72 dry days each summer - from met office official stats.

Absolutely lashing it down here now , 6mm last couple of hours, plans ruined, not really forecast. Contrast to the SE and East Anglia, 31c in Norwich feels thousands of miles away.

the Met have been very poor when it comes to forecasting rain lately, I certainly didn’t expect 8mm today. First substantial rainfall since June. 

Up to 12mm now for July, which is (unsurprisingly) still well below average. I notice a big mass of rain crossing East Anglia now too so many places getting some much-needed rainfall.

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the Met have been very poor when it comes to forecasting rain lately, I certainly didn’t expect 8mm today. First substantial rainfall since June. 

Up to 12mm now for July, which is (unsurprisingly) still well below average. I notice a big mass of rain crossing East Anglia now too so many places getting some much-needed rainfall.

Rain all but missed here yet again, all its done it make it very muggy,  is 20C

 

the Met have been very poor when it comes to forecasting rain lately, I certainly didn’t expect 8mm today. First substantial rainfall since June. 

Up to 12mm now for July, which is (unsurprisingly) still well below average. I notice a big mass of rain crossing East Anglia now too so many places getting some much-needed rainfall.

The bottom part of that radar echo passed over here but didn't produce any rain. I think with the heat it is evaporating before reaching ground level unless it is very intense. 29.6C today, breezy and seemed almost cool. Jumper back on next week.

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About 10 small dots per 10cm² from that weak front just now - a real "blink and you'll miss it" event.

Here's hoping we get some showers in the next few days, but I'm not holding my breath...

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But how much evaporation has there been? Knowing that would improve the picture of how dry things are.

http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/soil4 gives an indication

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Just enough to barely damp the dust. That's all I got.

 

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We were at Hook-with-Warsash nature reserve today. Lovely area of coastal gorse between a shingle shelf beach and tidal creeks. In the last two years we have enjoyed phalaropes, godwits, Dartford warblers and avocets here among dozens of other less common species.

Walked the dog here for the first time since May and horrified to see more than three quarters of the coastal gorse turned to charcoal.

Straw that broke was the carcified corpse of a slowworm. I feel really down about this.

Broken glass? Discarded cigarette? All possible. But in this nature reserve if they've 'managed' this area by burning I will terminate my subscription to the HIOW Wildlife Trust.

Don't think they did though.

Sad as it is, gorse does come back very rapidly from burning. As I mentioned above, fires are a yearly occurrence on Yateley Common and by the following year it is all green again, with only the old blackened stumps to remind you there was ever a fire.

 

And just to stay on topic, the sky has looked very threatening at times today but has only produced a few spots in the breeze. Still just 4mm for the month and 207mm for the year if Blackbushe readings are accurate.

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Here in Edinburgh, there are a few hints that the current ongoing water scarcity situation might be starting to near its end as all of my local stations here have just recorded back to back official rain days for the first time in a very long time.

Not much in the way of being forecast for here over the next few days, but the weather is forecast to become more unsettled again by the weekend with more rain arriving on or by around Friday.

As a result of that, the outlook is no longer looking quite as dry here as was beforehand, although we will need to carry on getting more regular rainfall in this manner for quite a while if the overall deficit is to be fully made up here.

 

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Here in the South Cambs flatlands we were bypassed by the rain that showed on the radar over EA yesterday.

Today there was another failed attempt - I went outside and stood in the lightest of light showers. I could feel the drops touching my skin but could not see them once they hit me, and looking down could not even see a single drop on the ground, as it was evaporating instantly.

The garden is in a very sorry state - totally parched. The only green in the lawn is the weeds.

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Nothing here today although showers were forecast but they’ve managed to skirt around us yet again. 

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We've just had a band of rain pass through during the last hour and a half with some fairly heavy spells, first significant ppn for quite some time, just what the garden needed...

Looks like southern water are gearing up for a hosepipe ban

Looks like southern water are gearing up for a hosepipe ban

And not a moment too soon the way things are going. Now watch the panic with everyone filling up every container they can get their hands on thus exacerbating the existing issue.

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And not a moment too soon the way things are going. Now watch the panic with everyone filling up every container they can get their hands on thus exacerbating the existing issue.

Then the rains will come.  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62253581

Wildfire precautions come to cities

 

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Last couple of days have brought some welcome rain - approx 10mm in total

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