For quite a while, we have experiencing quite a significant lack of rainfall here in the east of Scotland. That has been on-going since May 2018 and although we did get a wetter than average month during November, that was only just above average here in terms of actual rainfall amounts with that month being our only wetter than average month since the summer droughts.

In addition to that, we have had a very dry start to the winter with this month bringing us only just over half of our average December rainfall here in Edinburgh and with high pressure predicted to be in charge for the foreseeable future, this dry weather is looking set to continue well into the first half of the first month of 2019 as well.

With today looking set to be yet another dry day, the rainfall totals during 2018 will now go down as being 138.1 mm short of the 1981-2010 annual average at Edinburgh Gogarbank and 107.1 mm short of the 1981-2010 annual average at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh. I'm sure that this will vary across the UK from station to station, but it is clear that nothing has happened since the summer to suggest that we have even started to make up that deficit which is now growing even bigger once again as a result of the dry winter which we are experiencing just now.

According to the water scarcity reports which are periodically produced by SEPA, this has resulted in record low groundwater levels in a number of places in the east of Scotland, where an early warning is still in place due to potential issues which could arise during 2019 as a result. The rain which we got during November in particular has helped those groundwater levels to recover to a small extent.

However, it has been consistently stated in SEPA's reports that the question of whether a full recovery of these groundwater levels can take place or not, depends very much on whether or not, there is an adequate amount of rainfall during the winter months. The fact that we are just not getting that rainfall just now which is needed for those groundwater levels to properly recover is therefore, very worrying indeed and unless we start to get that much needed rainfall soon, I fear that there could be some serious issues arising from that next year, especially if we then go into another dry spring and yet another hot and dry summer in 2019.

Because of this, I have started this thread where anyone is free to discuss this if they are in an affected area here in the east of Scotland, or if they are also being affected by low groundwater levels in their area due to the lack of rainfall during 2018. In response to that, I'm not interested in that standard English reply of "well, you're in Scotland after all so you're never likely to have any problems from that anyway" which I have seen on many occasions on this forum.

That does not add anything constructive to this discussion and so even if this doesn't affect your particular area in any way, I would at like to hear from you on how long you think that this lengthy spell of dry weather in the east of Scotland will go on for by using any model output as guidance, even if you don't think that this will actually cause any problems here in the east of Scotland after all.

I think it is quite localised to the Edinburgh region and given the geography and geology if the area I suspect any major issues are unlikely. We are in the meteorological East of Scotland region and I can assure there are no water shortage issues - everything is rather “average”

Here is a look at the autum rainfall anomaly

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/anomacts/2018/15/2018_15_Rainfall_Anomaly_1961-1990.gif

Yes it has been dry in places but drier than average is unlikely to be a problem unless there are serious infrastructure issues as well. Is suspect a few people with private water supplies could be affected if dry weather persists over the coming months.

Did you read his post?

Do you (or anyone else for that matter) have any ideas as to what might have actually caused one particular region (Edinburgh in this instance, although that could equally be any region within the UK) to therefore, be singled out as having a completely different rainfall pattern in this fashion from that in the rest of the UK?

I know that we have what is known as the "Lothian precipitation shield" which results in the city of Edinburgh being sheltered by the Pentland Hills and Southern Uplands to our south, and by the Ochil Hills and the Trossachs to our north. However, most of the east of Scotland usually has lower rainfall rates on average anyway compared to the rest of Scotland due to the more westerly nature of our prevailing winds over the course of any given year.

However, this would normally mean that if Edinburgh is dry, other cities in the east of Scotland such as Aberdeen would be expected to be dry as well for the same reason as a result of that city being sheltered by the Grampian and Cairngorm Mountains to its west. Yet, it would appear as though this just isn't happening on this occasion either (as confirmed by at least one report on this forum by richardabdn).

This is something which has been puzzling me for quite a while now, but no-one on this forum has of yet been able to solve that mystery for me. I therefore hoping that by starting this thread, I will be able to find those answers here which I am looking for.

It has been a dry year in Aberdeen mainly due to the exceptional spell between mid-April and mid-July. I've recorded only 556mm compared to an average of 741mm over the last 13 years.

No problems at all with drought though. There is still a lot of standing water in places at the moment due to the wet spell from mid-November to mid-December. Edinburgh is less exposed to SE winds which meant it wasn't so wet there. This is what the Deeside Railway line in Aberdeen looked like the other day:

Drought is never really likely to be a major issue here because there's always plenty of rain over the mountains where the water is sourced from. The 1970s saw a prolonged period of well below average rainfall from 1971 to August 1976 and no problems ever arose from it. 

I have noticed a few things which could have played a part in that and so I shall put that to everyone to see if they agree with that.

First of all, I have noticed that there has been quite a few Atlantic weather systems which have taken a much more southerly track across the UK in recent times, thereby resulting in them mainly affecting England and Wales and missing out all or most of Scotland. However, this would also have resulted in everywhere to the north of here being drier than average if everything was solely down to that although this is bound to have made quite a big contribution to that.

When those weather systems move more directly across this part of the world though, it tends to be wetter than average even here in Edinburgh during such an Atlantic dominated period as a lot of the bad weather tends to get funnelled through the Forth-Clyde valley towards this part of the world.

With an easterly wind, we actually need the winds to be coming from roughly the ENE for those winds to then be coming straight in from off the North Sea. That then leaves us fully exposed to those winds to such an extent that our wettest months tend to come from that being the prevailing wind direction as a result of the path which areas of low pressure just to our south take across the country with their wrap-around occlusions being stuck over this part of the world as that is happening.

What has been happening recently, is that that the winds have been coming more from the SE quite a lot of the time. Of course, you don't have to look at too many of Richard from Aberdeen's posts to see that this is his least favourite wind direction and of course, this is due to Aberdeen being fully exposed to those winds. Edinburgh on the other hand, is actually largely sheltered from those SE winds by the Lammermuir Hills to our SE which would therefore keep Edinburgh drier than average as a result.

Those are the only two factors which I can think of here, but anyone else is free to come up with others as they crop up.

Yeah he's talking about in his yard but I really think that should have been in some way included in the thread title - Scottish problems or Edingburgh area problems or something along the lines perhaps? 

Considering the majority of the UK has seen average or above average rainfall for the year.

To that end, I have just added a sub-heading to this thread which should clarify what you are looking for.

I suspect Edinburgh problems are quite localised, even Glasgow might not be affected, as it gets its water from Loch Kathrine and Glen Fingles in Trossachs. To the South the massive Keilder reservoir was only designed to pump water South, not North to Scotland. There isn’t really a water grid where pumping allows refilling (a few are filled this way, but it is for planning reasons as reservoir site doesn’t have natural catchment)

Early Autumn reservoirs were low at Derwent area (Peak District) and in South of Northern Ireland, but I think these areas have been wet since.

Probably never going to be a rainy area, so long term might need something more strategic

Yes, we have a London-centric media no doubt. 

I must declare an interest in this thread.

We are just a little North of Edinburgh (for those interested IFIFE37) and in the last two years we have noticed that we have what we call the 'Kingsbarns weather force field' similar to your "Lothian precipitation shield" (is that really a thing? I can find no reference to it except from you) e.g.

Which is typical.  We just don't seem to get 'weather'.  We see the rain coming on the radar and it ducks sideways before arriving or just fades away.

The last twelve months was 548.4 mm and SEPA recorded 494.2 a kilometre or so away at Cambo Sands.

Rainfall At Cambo

Lack of rain in the East Neuk is a problem with the farmers not having enough equipment to supply the irrigation needed so only a percentage of the crop is getting sufficient.  More reels and pipes are needed with the consequent capital expenditure.  Not good.

By the bye has anyone got an easy way to make a Wind Rose from my last year's data?

I can vaguely remember Jerry from the south of Edinburgh using that term in the past, resulting in me going on to use that as well. However, I wouldn't like to swear blind on that as I could well be wrong.

Generally when I refer to the Lothian Precipitation Shield, I'm referring to the rain shadow effect which we sometimes get when a weather front approaches from the west with a southerly wind ahead of it. This often results in us being sheltered from those winds by the Pentland Hills to our south which often prevents any rain to our south from actually reaching here.

That is often shown up well on rain radar maps because to the south of here, there may well often be some very bright colours and yet, this always just about dissipates by the time that they reach here.

I love the Edinburgh climate, much drier and sunnier than here in Manchester. 

Also gets its fair share of snow from a cold easterly, or cold westerly.

I remember Codge telling me it never snows in Edinburgh when I asked, prior going to University there in 2006. He was right for the first couple of years but then December 2010 happened ;-) 

If only it was a bit warmer in the summer months! Oh and the Edinburgh wind should have a name. It’s absolutely relentless. 

One of the reasons I decided to move my rabbits into the shed, cleaning their hutch is a right ball ache when there's a constant wind blowing. I feel like Leeds is often windy, or at least breezy, for some reason. Might be the wind blowing down the Pennines or something. 

Did Edinburgh not do too badly for snow during the 2009/10 winter as well, Joe? We had a pretty heavy fall of it here just outside Glasgow during the weekend before Xmas 2009 and it then lay on the ground until nearly the middle of January IIRC.

Can’t really remember... it certainly snowed a bit. 

I think Manchester got more snow than Edinburgh in 2009/2010, the best in the city since 1981. 

Western Scotland also got loads of snow that winter - I remember as my train got stuck for a while on the WCML on my way home for Christmas, Glasgow certainly did very well.

John - sorry for taking your thread off topic. 

If my memory serves me right, Edinburgh actually did quite well for snow during large parts of the winter of 2009/10 as well as that infamous early part of the winter of 2010/11. Indeed, I can remember there not being much snow here until just before Christmas back in 2009. However, I then went to a Christmas meal and night out with my work at that time just before the Christmas holidays back in 2009 and although I managed to get to that meal, I was unable to keep up with my work colleagues at that time when it was time to go to the pub afterwards as the pavements in the centre of Edinburgh were just too icy after all of the snow which we had.

As a result of that, I had no option other than to go home, miss out on going to the pub and then wait until after I had returned to work after Christmas as that was the earliest opportunity which I had to inform my colleagues about what had happened, and why I wasn't able to make it to the pub when they had been been expecting me to be there.

We then had similar conditions during the following winter in December 2010 and rather than go through the same issues yet again which I had in 2009, I decided not to go to my work's Christmas meal and night out on this occasion for safety reasons, and had informed everyone well in advance about what was happening. Since then, we have never had those conditions at that time of year again and in fact, those conditions have only ever really occurred twice since then in March 2013 and February/March 2018.

I don't mind as this is helping to keep the discussion going, and I would much rather be off topic on this thread than to have done so on the MO thread only to discover that Brian had deleted my account as a result.

I missed my 2017 Xmas meal in Edinburgh cos the pavements were lethal. And I had a cold.

As for snow, I live in South Edinburgh and we seem to get a lot. Partly altitude, partly being buttressed against the pentlands. Dec 2010 I had 20 inches accumulated in the back garden. Feb)mar 2018 gave us about 5.

Biggest media drought story last year was the fire on Saddleworth moor in Lancashire.

And I notice the “typical English replies” on this thread about this not being a problem all came from people based in Scotland.

Par contre, the French media has been covering the very severe agricultural drought across huge swathes of the country in great depth. That really is a drought:

http://www.lafranceagricole.fr/actualites/elevage/de-la-france-ala-suede-une-secheresse-historique-1,5,3238493739.html 

And it’s been on the warm side too.

http://www.bioaddict.fr/article/climat-2018-annee-la-plus-chaude-jamais-enregistree-en-france-a6144p1.html