Has Richard from Aberdeen moved there?

lol I'm sure the pond will be brimmed soon enough!

And if El Nino's usually increase the likelihood of a wet and stormy Autumn and early winter by 1.5 to 2 times, according to the Met. A record breaking one will just increase the likelihood further.  

https://wetterzentrale.de/en/topkarten.php?map=20&model=ukmhd&var=18&time=168&run=12&lid=OP&h=0&mv=0&tr=6 

South west water will be wading through knee high water to issue severe drought declaration leaflets. Just look at the weekly totals from now, nowhere in the south gets less than 100mm and most areas are over half a ft! 

It's like issuing a warning for a severe lack of daylight in February we all know what's coming. The United kingdom is a temperate Island in the mid latitudes right in the path of the Jet. This is the start of the wettest time of year by some degree and we are in record El Nino which will exacerbate all this. There are ulterior motives at play I'm sure. 

The pond up the lane continues to dry out: the water table is currently non-existent here.  Our pond won’t be full for many weeks: first the groundwater needs to be replenished and only then will water start to flow back into it.  It’s about 3 feet down at the moment and that’s a lot of water in a pond that’s 15m x10m.

As for the Met Office autumn forecast, that is based on the historical record for El Niños. This one is off the scale in intensity; remember that a normal El Niño is called when ocean temperatures reach an anomaly of +0.5c and this one looks to be heading for +3c or +4c.  Looking for patterns when it’s so exceptional has an element of guesswork.

That quite very deep for a pond as most ponds in Ewell is half metre to 1m deep and the Stubb pond here is 30cm on edges to 1m deep in centre. Last August was record low with shallow 30cm surfaced first time only the centre parts had water remaining which dropped to 50cm from 1m.  Recovered very fast which end the drought levels by end of that month.

Well that makes sense of course HPG but as I’ve said before, it’s better to be prudent and make people aware of the issues than suddenly throw major restrictions at them without advance warning. We cannot guarantee at this stage that the rains will fill the reserves but it seems likely that they will of course.  And then I’ll be satisfied and be able to sleep better.

There are connotations to the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. Or perhaps better put as Sir Winston Churchill famously said, “Those who plan do better than those who do not plan…even though they rarely stick to their plan”.

I’m intrigued as to what those ‘ulterior motives’ you mention might be. Could you elaborate, please?

Nick

Even last month when I waded in to remove some reeds it was still up to my thighs at its deepest part. When it’s completely full it’s approaching two metres at its deepest point.

As of today there’s still no water flowing in.

You might need a tin foil hat. 😉

Thanks to some recent rainfall, this week’s report is much better. There is one location in the extreme SE of Scotland which is still at significant water scarcity status with water extraction restrictions continuing to remain in place there. In addition to that, the Borders remains at moderate water scarcity status.

However, those two areas are now the only remaining areas which are still at moderate water scarcity status or above. East Lothian has now had its status downgraded from moderate water scarcity status along with NE Fife, the city of Dundee and the far NE of Aberdeenshire.

Meanwhile, Edinburgh has had its status downgraded from alert status to early warning status along with the rest of Fife and most of the rest of eastern and southern Scotland.

Large parts of central Scotland are still at early warning status but the rest of the country which hasn’t been mentioned here is at normal status.

There are still parts of eastern Scotland which are experiencing low to very low river and groundwater levels so more sustained rainfall is needed in order for the recovery to continue. With Storm Austen and Storm Boelo on the way in the coming days though, the omens are now looking much more promising for that for the foreseeable future at least.

The Stubb pond here filled up fast due to catching water from road drainage as there over 1m wide entrance and exit point other end.  The local man told me this is the lowest recorded depth so surprising that summer 1995 or 2018 did not drop this low.  I only moved here recently but sadly summer 2018 which could dry up all the Ewell ponds and Hogmillls river but not as they pumping out fresh drinking water out all the time despite restrictions on people using hose pipes.  They should stop wasting water.  What source of flow come from to fill your pond?  Garden ponds in gardens fill with hosepipe or watering cans to top up.

No problem, just quickly.

They now don't have to release compensation flows from their reservoirs, this is not good for pollution and ecology. So instead of building more infrastructure and fixing deployable output deficits (leaky pipes), they can simply just restrict water going back into the environment.

Securing the drought status a couple weeks ago means they can continue to restrict compensation flows until  28th Feb next year.

The overriding motivations of them all is to promote through what ever channels they can that it's the hydro-climate forcing anthropogenic scarcity.

Crossing statuary drought thresholds early facilitates this, It's just regulatory accounting that allows them to continue to not invest into or manage their assets for growing populations. 

So how should we regard/treat a situation where reservoirs are <20% full?

Further a water system that has no leaks is impracticable (people complain like mad if roads are dug up to repair leaks let alone to replace mains), and no on wants a new reservoir in their back yard...

Maybe people don't need to shower every day and a car that's washed twice a week.

Ours is a natural pond; this place was a working farm until about 25-30 years ago and the pond was for the horses and cattle. Water flows in from two pipes that take groundwater from the land a few metres higher than us. One is linked to the large pond about 200 metres up the slope, but the water level is rarely high enough for that to flow.  The ground here is unusual: you only have to go down 50cm to a metre and the subsoil is absolutely rock hard, so water just accumulates at the boundary and flows wherever gravity takes it. 

I think you are both correct. The million-dollar question is: how do we look at a situation and work around it, where places like Wimbleball and others are <20% full. The compensatory flows are one thing but we need better ways of collecting water from the new builds in particular

and that rarely happens. There are no statutory instruments to force this. The governments, past and present, have never addressed this which on the face of it, are quite easy to implement measures.

The average water consumption per household has risen by 70% in 40 years and population by 20%. Unsurprisingly supply has struggled to keep pace with what is about a doubling in demand.

There hasn't been a new reservoir built in the south west since Roadford 1989, guess which year the water companies were privatised? 

Pennon group just like all capitalists need to pay shareholder dividends and will do before they invest in new reservoirs 

Ofwat have been all over south west water for years for wasting water looking into it so it's not just lack of reservoirs, but no maybe people should just sacrifice their personnel hygiene and dignity and not shower every day on a wet temperate island!!

Won't somebody think of the shareholders..

When I worked in the Philippines, personal hygiene was an essential part of daily life, even in the middle of another El Niño at the time I arrived. And even in the poor areas with water rationing. So it can be done. The army here takes it seriously too, starting from feet up, concentrating on the nether regions, even with sponge baths, though not as good as a quick shower. Bathtubs on the other hand a no-no for me as you are washing yourself in dirty water as well as using too much. Enough of that. Desal plants as many suggest, are another no go mainly for the huge amounts of energy you need and then the disposal of the brine. Grey water now there's a thought...

It comes back to: should we re-nationalize these utilities?

Yes.

I read people going on about desal.. Another recurring theme I come across is 'Now is the time to dig out silt from reservoirs'. Now I really shouldn't use AI (for obvious reasons) but one comment I read suggested (a nice imperial/metric mix this) 'digging a metre off 150 acres'. so I asked AI how many lorry fulls that would be?  Want to guess? Well, it's staggering.

I did another (imperial) calc - a foot of 50 acres - 4000+ lorry fulls! Madness.

I've heard that one many times or rather read it too many times to remember. And where will the spoil go? As you say, madness. On a similar note, the only way to cure flooding is to dredge rivers from the sea to the source and get the water into the sea as fast as possible. A lot of people still subscribe to that idea, sadly.

Thanks for information it interesting to know.   Horse pond in Ewelli with a slope entrance from the road used to be for horses to drink water that time.  That why they called it Horse Pond, that next pond after Bourne Hall pond.

Other thing about lack of water storage that we don't have mountains with dam catchments which we don't have here as mostly flat only reservoirs which is not enough for everything.  In Cyprus have so many dam catchements around the foot of the mountains all around it that why they don't have drought problem.  Troodos cover about 1/3 of the island so if we have 1/3 of UK landmass are mountainous then we have more dams around.  Hills no use and too low to build a dam.  Mountains are very good source for pure fresh water feeds to drink straight away that we used to go to Troodos to collect free water from the 24/7 tap running open by the road side parking area.  I think there was 3 of them as you drive along the mountain roads.  

34cm rise at Charlton today, however most  are showing a rise.  Mid to late October is the normal time of year that the under ground water tables would typically start to show signs of rising, and peaking sometime around early May. 

It's been quite a week. You wouldn't think so given that we're back to high pressure yet again and will be for the foreseeable future, something which I've been absolutely sick to the back of this year (this current spell of high pressure is also going completely against the grain in terms of the idea that El Nino would result in this autumn and the start of the winter becoming increasingly wet and stormy, so there must clearly be something else at play which is competing against that El Nino effect, and which keeps on sending us back to high pressure all the time in the end).

We did recently have a significant break from all of that high pressure though, especially during the last week. Storm Boelo caused a lot of wind issues to such an extent that the buses even stopped running across most of the Borders when I was down there, but we also had quite a lot of rain from both Storm Austen and Storm Boelo which has now resulted in this month being wetter than average overall here in Edinburgh. That has brought quite a significant recovery which in this week's report has made quite a huge difference.

First of all, I can report that the area close to the English Border which was at significant water scarcity status last week has now had its status downgraded all the way down to early warning status with all of the water extraction restrictions which were in place there now being lifted as a result. In addition to that, the rest of the Borders has also had its water scarcity status downgraded from moderate water scarcity status all the way down to early warning status.

All of the areas which were at alert status last week including East Lothian, NE Fife, the city of Dundee and parts of Aberdeenshire have now had their water status downgraded to early warning status and there is now not a single area in Scotland which still has a status which is any higher than that.

In addition to that, Edinburgh has now completely returned to normal status along with every single area which I haven't mentioned on here so far. River levels are still fairly low in parts of the east, but have generally recovered to normal and even higher than normal in some areas. Groundwater levels are still fairly low in the east, so it will probably still take a bit more for that to catch up.

Finally, SEPA have said that this is the final weekly water scarcity report for this year, so this is the last such report which I will post on here for now until these reports return next year.