Quite a bit of rain tonight so its game over.  The outlook looks horrendous with full blown monsoon conditions with a low sitting on top of us.  I guess similar thing happened in 76

Yes, 1mm of rain at Wisley  today so far. It was an impressive run, wasn't it , just over 2 months!

A light shower yesterday evaporated almost immediately within a few minutes, akin to spraying your gas hob with water vapour. 

Overall water levels continue to drop, although remarkably Sussex and Kent are not under a hosepipe ban, just a ‘use water wisely’ policy which means car washing and full on lawn sprinklers are still allowed. 

Not sure where the notion of a ‘monsoon’ is coming from. 

No heatwaves on the horizon either, with mostly average or below average temperatures. 

Very impressive - the 2nd longest ever recorded in the UK

What is laughably called a front is passing through now - not enough drizzle, let alone rain, to be worth taking the umbrella out of storage.

Same here just slight dampness this morning so the dry days continue.  Yes there are full of hope casting that made me puke especially on other side all about rain and hope cast posts.  The behaviour was not like this in 2018 drought as everyone was enjoying it and then want thunderstorms to end the drought, so we got storms that time.  This time light rain or phantom rain did not help but wasting time and won't end the drought.  It need to be minimum 25mm or more to end it properly as it will soak the ground properly. 

Just slight dampness here this morning but the front was useless no clearance and left behind clouds again.  I really want to see the end of this nonsense that been around for 3 days, the cooler sunnier weather that supposed to come 3 days ago did not turn up but instead extensive time wasting clouds and light few minutes drizzle,  

Lawns and fields here look like toast, Jires,  except for the woodlands and hedgerows. Just over 1mm last night.

first measurable rain since 24th June

Need proper thunderstorms to make it all green, 1mm wont cut it, it just wet the surface and the ground under trees which act like canopy stay dry so the roots cannot get water feed. Trees in Nicosia never died out unlike here some are because it rain so heavy every time so it give enough supply of water to the roots system for weeks or months and they got healthy water supply underground thanks to heavy rain every time, it never drizzle there. I read about Oak trees are drying due to dryness which is sad to see like this.  

Just had a brief walk round our local nature reserve, and there's not a lot of nature on display. The open areas are brown and the trees and shrubs look stressed. The most unnerving thing is the almost complete silence, and absence of any birds or insects flying or buzzing around.

With the ground so baked and hard it would all run off, flash flooding would be inevitable and totally useless for soaking into the ground.

Monsoons can be dry or wet, though many people only think the word applies to heavy rain. Not true.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/blog/2025/met-office-explains-what-are-monsoons 

When I worked in Palawan, the change of wind direction often happened fast. It might be the NE dry monsoon one day and then the next the wet SW monsoon would appear. Watching the upper clouds change from one direction to another as whichever monsoon was on its way was amazing for me. The SW one after the long dry season, particularly so. But not everyone found it interesting. The locals took it all in their stride. I sometimes went to the airport to chat to the PAGASA staff in their office under the control tower. And talk about the weather and look at the latest sat images. They were interested in fronts and weather-related things and why they happened but my co-workers, like so many people, were of the "Oh it's raining so what."  Or vice versa.

Not true, Temporary hosepipe ban for Sussex came into force on 25th July.

The cost of this fire must be immense.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g31e82z17o 

Things should start to green up a bit soon.

The A 31 is one of the few fenced off roads on the Forest being a dual carriageway,most roads are not fenced which is good but leads to many animal collisions.I have Forest Grazing rights but never use them as it is a lot of hassle if your land does not border the Forest.

Some grazing rights are attached to land a fair way away.

.... and continuing for me, even today. Still zilch here!

I drove back down the A1 from York this afternoon, Roger. Did you get any luck with the downpour I had at Grantham services about 3pm? Nothing between Peterborough and Stansted which had a heavy downpour until I got home when I saw a hefty downpour past a few hundred metres south of me!

Very similar here Rob. I drove through Cambridge this afternoon and noticed the lagoon (nature reserve?) alongside the A14 looked very low.

Wrong on all counts really.

This also followed one of the driest summers on record (2025) and only above average rainfall in the last two months of winter 2026.

All in all the worst and longest drought in my living memory.