Right - time to watch the lionesses!!!!!!!

I prefer watching wolves!

Talking of which, it was noticeable how much greener things are in Reading as compared to here.

Yes, there are signs of yellowing, but it's a complete contrast to here (where there are signs of green amongst the yellow!)

 

I prefer watching wolves!

Talking of which, it was noticeable how much greener things are in Reading as compared to here.

Yes, there are signs of yellowing, but it's a complete contrast to here (where there are signs of green amongst the yellow!)

Jackals are similar to foxes/wolves found in Namibia, I never seen a wolf over the waterhole.  Not sure if wolves live in other parts of Namibia.

Enjoyed all the above stories, thanks all.
Meanwhile things are greening up well here following rain every day , soil is damp. Still a dry month and year overall so the risk of water shortages is still there.

 

I prefer watching wolves!

Talking of which, it was noticeable how much greener things are in Reading as compared to here.

Yes, there are signs of yellowing, but it's a complete contrast to here (where there are signs of green amongst the yellow!)

Not a million miles away, here.  I think a lot has to do with what's underneath.  Heavy soil seem to fare better than light soil on chalk.
The village is half-and-half, and you can see the difference.

My sister has a small holding near Salisbury (Cholderton).  It's fed from a borehole into the chalk.  They have been there 1/3 of a century and for the first time it's dry. It's really going to screw them as they have no mains water !!  She suspects it is partly due   to increased abstraction by Southern water, dropping the water table below the bottom of their well.

Both then and I will be on a hose pipe ban come Friday.   Won't really impact me, as I rarely use a hose pipe and never a sprinkler (I'm on a water meter ..... that  is mandated in this area now).

Of course there are phantom tree poisoners too and I assume this drought will encourage some to get out and about in the dark for a bit of drilling. It's a problem in Dorset along with other places too.

https://news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/2022/05/11/poisoned-trees-appeal-for-information/

One was prosecuted not so long ago.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10316437/Homeowner-ordered-pay-80K-poisoning-65ft-protected-pine-tree-overlooking-Dorset-home.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-58746399

Nick

 

We had substantial rain last night, Retron - still heavy when I got up. I'd left buckets under the edge of the roof of the log shed and there were several inches of run-off in them. No point it wasting it. It can go on the beans and tomatoes. It's a grand lettuce and tomato year - credit to my other half.

I detect a faint trace of green to the lawn. I had mowed off dead stuff earlier in the week, not too brutally. It's not all weeds - there's grass too.

Right - time to watch the lionesses!!!!!!!

My local July total is a record low 3.2 mm, smashing the previous 1957-2021 July record of 6.7 mm set in 1999 (who remembers that one?).

The monthly totals and anomalies since Aug '21 paint a decidedly dry picture with one glaring exception:

Last October has proved to be a massive outlier and a crucial lifeline - where we'd be without that soaking wet month, I dread to think.

Nearly half the usual rainfall has been missing during these past 12 months. Notably, two record lows have been set just 9 months apart, the other one being Nov '21.

This month was very nearly even drier, as my location caught the very edge of a very heavy shower on 22nd that hammered the hill just to my northwest. Up there, as much as 20 mm may have fallen based on radar estimates. A mere mile or two to my southeast, less than 1 mm.

Here, it put down 2.8 mm which is 87.5% of the monthly total. Most of that was in the space of half an hour and it was peculiar seeing water rushing down the roads all of a sudden. The impact on vegetation has been surprisingly tiny, with grass showing barely any response and trees continuing to shed leaves at an accelerating rate. Clearly, most of the water ran straight off the hard-baked ground or evaporated before it had time to soak in.

Without that one shower, the total of 0.4 mm would have been the driest month on record for any time of year. It's the closest I've come to a bone dry month.

Today featured numerous showers but all were very light and short-lived, speckling surfaces for a few minutes at a time. Story of most of the month whenever it did manage to rain.

Wow that's crazy November was nearly  as dry then this July, bet that don't happen to offton

 

 

Not a million miles away, here.  I think a lot has to do with what's underneath.  Heavy soil seem to fare better than light soil on chalk.
The village is half-and-half, and you can see the difference.

My sister has a small holding near Salisbury (Cholderton).  It's fed from a borehole into the chalk.  They have been there 1/3 of a century and for the first time it's dry. It's really going to screw them as they have no mains water !!  She suspects it is partly due   to increased abstraction by Southern water, dropping the water table below the bottom of their well.

Both then and I will be on a hose pipe ban come Friday.   Won't really impact me, as I rarely use a hose pipe and never a sprinkler (I'm on a water meter ..... that  is mandated in this area now).

Not here. Heavy clay and not a hint of green anywhere around here now. In fact the cracks in the ground are now over a foot deep and several inches wide. I hope we don't start to get subsidence issues again but with no rain for six weeks now I guess it was possible. I see some rain formed in situ over East Kent this evening - don't know if Darren caught any of it.

 I see some rain formed in situ over East Kent this evening - don't know if Darren caught any of it.

The heavy stuff missed me by a mile! 0.4mm in the end, enough to wet the road (briefly) but not enough to do anything much to the parched landscape. That leaves July's rainfall total at a shockingly low 6.4mm.

GFS suggests there might be some very light rain today (another 0.4mm), but I'm not going to get my hopes up. Beyond that, no sign of anything for at least a week - as you mentioned, I think we'll see increasing subsidence issues in the weeks ahead down here as more of the clay shrivels up and cracks.

 

The heavy stuff missed me by a mile! 0.4mm in the end, enough to wet the road (briefly) but not enough to do anything much to the parched landscape. That leaves July's rainfall total at a shockingly low 6.4mm.

GFS suggests there might be some very light rain today (another 0.4mm), but I'm not going to get my hopes up. Beyond that, no sign of anything for at least a week - as you mentioned, I think we'll see increasing subsidence issues in the weeks ahead down here as more of the clay shrivels up and cracks.

Certainly didn’t miss us! 16mm of rain between 8pm and midnight. Lovely and damp outside this morning 

Lucky Kent! West Sussex, not a million miles away remains and is forecast to remain bone dry (well, a 20% chance of rain overnight on Tuesday -Ha!)

Enjoyed all the above stories, thanks all.
Meanwhile things are greening up well here following rain every day , soil is damp. Still a dry month and year overall so the risk of water shortages is still there.

Hi Tim, do you have records on how we are placed compared to the average for this year? I've been looking for a reliable set of averages for round here and the nearest I can find is Bingley which I imagine is a fair bit wetter than here?

 

Hi Tim, do you have records on how we are placed compared to the average for this year? I've been looking for a reliable set of averages for round here and the nearest I can find is Bingley which I imagine is a fair bit wetter than here?

So after going back to a manual rain gauge at start of 2020 (electronic ones were unreliable/inaccurate and kept breaking):

2020: Total 1042mm  Jan - July 542mm

2021: Total 907mm Jan- July 606mm ( dry August- December)

2022: Jan - July 378mm.     If it wasn't for a very wet February 151mm - which some eastern parts didn't get it would be a very dry year. 

Above is more or less correct, sometimes I make mistakes/forget to empty etc but overall it can't be far off.

Guessing annual average here is about 900mm , 2020 was wet, but need more years to know for sure.

Wow that's crazy November was nearly  as dry then this July, bet that don't happen to offton

Yes last Nov was even more exceptional here than the July just gone, with the old record having been over the 10 mm mark.

Broadly, the far south has been driest in both months.

Some food for thought - what defines a drought exactly?

I've seen some people using 'run of X dry days with no rain / less than X rain' but that's not really a very representative measure; a single heavy shower doesn't typically end a drought, for example, as so much of its water will run-off or be lost to evaporation.

The page linked below has a nice roundup of drought definitions with three main types identified:

https://drought.unl.edu/Education/DroughtIn-depth/TypesofDrought.aspx

By these definitions, large parts of the UK are in either agricultural or hydrological drought.

This is a result of not just rainfall shortfalls over the past 6-12 months, but predominantly above average temperatures and near to above normal sunshine totals, along with a fair bit of breezy or windy weather too. 

It's not what I'd call 'severe drought' at this time. It's a bit scary how much worse droughts have been known to become on some occasions past, such as 1995-1997 in some parts of the UK and of course 1975-76 widely.

This tells us that it doesn't always turn sufficiently wetter after 6-12 months of overall shortfall to turn a drought around.

1975-1976 took place during the late and departing stages of a 'triple dip' La Nina. We're currently about level with 1975 in what looks to be a comparable La Nina that has a final peak this winter then gives way next year. So honestly, I'd not be surprised if rainfall stayed predominantly below normal through the coming autumn and winter, especially late autumn through to mid-winter when the strongest correlation exists between prolonged La Nina conditions and below normal UK rainfall.

 

 

So after going back to a manual rain gauge at start of 2020 (electronic ones were unreliable/inaccurate and kept breaking):

 

2020: Total 1042mm  Jan - July 542mm

2021: Total 907mm Jan- July 606mm ( dry August- December)

2022: Jan - July 378mm.     If it wasn't for a very wet February 151mm - which some eastern parts didn't get it would be a very dry year. 

 

Above is more or less correct, sometimes I make mistakes/forget to empty etc but overall it can't be far off.

Guessing annual average here is about 900mm , 2020 was wet, but need more years to know for sure.

Brilliant, thanks for that 

Have had a few (sometimes unexpected) showers now over the last week or so, some fairly prolonged, but within 24 hours the ground kicks up dust again.

This is a reflection possibly of the topsoil's reduced infiltration capacity leading to evaporation at the surface- much quicker than drying out deeper down.