The southern half of the Borders around Hawick along with parts of Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire also remain at significant water scarcity status with restrictions on water extraction still in place.

Most of the rest of eastern Scotland including Edinburgh is still at moderate water scarcity status. There are two areas in NE Scotland and one area of Dumfrieshire which are at alert status and a number of other areas within central and SW Scotland which are at early warning status.

One area has had its status downgraded to early warning status with another area returning to normal, and all of the areas which have not been mentioned so far are at normal status.

River levels continue to be low to very low in eastern Scotland in particular, where groundwater levels are also low to very low especially in central Fife.

Indeed. We had a burgeoning sparrow population in our garden, many dozens whizzing about daily and breeding nearly constantly in our soffits. However they now seem to have moved on. The bird feeder and extra water bath i put out at the weekend is untouched.

Much of the rain these past 2 days has missed us. 3mm on Wednesday and 1mm on Thursday. The most we've had since early June. I watched the radar with incredulity yesterday as one particularly potent downpour literally parted as it approached and passed either side of us! 

This time next week looks like we will all see some significant rain and the pattern change looks set for some time. 

What an enlightened response, feel free to elaborate. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c05q45q8djno 

Actually, probably a good proxy measure for river levels - at least it creates an interest amongst the general public

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/datukgfshires.aspx?display=fax&model=fax 

I'm looking forward to a decent fall of rain this evening and during the rest of the week, it's badly needed. As someone else said, it's almost like the new snow.

GFS never go more than 2mm of rain spikes so either ths going to be wrong or MetO forecast go wrong too.  Thunderstorms don't deliver 2mm, it often deliever 25mm to 50mm tops each time.  I went to the Stubb lake near my home it still dropping as I see one of the stone which i check the warer levels dropped by a inch since last check 2 days ago.  That stone must had been under water for many years and some old guy walking told me he never see that low in his 40 years of living here.  I told him I thought 2018 did the job? he said not like this low.  I think what we had in 2018 the dryness was from May to mid July and no strong heatwve to dry them up fast.  This year the dryness occur from mid June to now right on the high summer peak and strong evaporatation than in Spring or late Spring which often we get more drier periods.

Looking at the daily data for Odiham the total drought ended on the 19th but there has only been 2.8mm in total in more than two months now since June 23.

As we were away on holiday for five days some of our garden shrubs that were just hanging on seem to have given up altogether now. I've cut the dead parts back and watered to see if any of them will come back.

I think that tonight might be when you get your rain, Rob. Saturday also looks like it will bring a fairly active system across Southern England too. 

We managed 15mm or so yesterday evening with a little more overnight. It spread up from the South and moved North so it didn't really affect Britain(except perhaps Western parts). With the rain that we look likely to get on Thursday and at the weekend, I'm pretty confident that the worst of the drought will be over by then here. I know that it will take time to refill streams, rivers, aquifers etc but vegetation should begin to return to normal with growth returning. It looks to me like the rain that Southern England will receive in the coming days will be significant too. The models do suggest a dryer interlude next week but hopefully, the rest of the month will see a return to more normal rainfall. 

As that occlusion passed by here a short while ago we had about 5mins of barely perceptible drizzle and the sky is brightening again.

My drought broke at last with 2.5mm. The only rain of any amount for 63 days. Still it did fill the water butts 2/3.

Pics of a local Nature Reserve and it's lagoon.

Bad and all as the drought has been here, it's even worse on your side of the water. I was in Oxfordshire for a week earlier in the month and we also visited places in Wiltshire, Berkshire and Hampshire too. Lovely places to see but the drought really was awful in those parts.

5 am should hit here. Probably reach you about 8

Will change today. 

Looks very autumnal because half the leaves of the beech and birch trees have been lost presumably because of the dry weather. 

Actually not a drop fell here from that first band of showers. 

As is routinely the case, a large gap appeared in the radar trace as it approached the Cam valley, the showers passed by either side and then merged again into a continuous band immediately after they had gone by.

Indeed ..very disappointing …about 10 minutes  of rain at about 5 am and 5 mins of drizzle around 9.30am…and that was it….drought in these parts continues unabated….

A fair soak.👍

Generally, this has been a much drier week here than it was originally forecast to be but in spite of that, this week's report isn't actually as bad as expected under these circumstances due to the fact that this month's rainfall hasn't actually been all that far below average here.

The town of Hawick in the Scottish Borders, along with the city of Aberdeen and parts of Aberdeenshire have had their status downgraded from significant water scarcity status to moderate water scarcity status and as a result, the water extraction restrictions which were in place in those areas have also now been lifted. The means that the whole of eastern Scotland away from the far north of Scotland (that includes Edinburgh and now includes the whole of the Borders) is now at moderate water scarcity status.

However, there are still two areas in SW Scotland which are at significant water scarcity status with water extraction restrictions still in place in those areas and SEPA have warned that there are a couple of areas within the Borders which could have their status upgraded to significant water scarcity status within the next week if there isn't any sustained rainfall in that time.

Meanwhile, there are still two areas within the Inverness area and the Dumfries and Galloway region which are at alert status for water scarcity.

However, Speyside has had its status downgraded from alert status to early warning status. This means that central Scotland along with most of SW Scotland away from those above mentioned areas which are at significant water scarcity status, are at early warning status.

Finally, the rest of Scotland which has not been mentioned so far are at normal status.

Whilst these downgrades are welcome, more sustained rainfall is needed if there is to be any continued recovery in the overall situation.

River levels continue to be low to very low in eastern Scotland but much higher further west whereas groundwater levels are particularly very low in central Fife, and generally low to very low across eastern Scotland in particular.