I think we ought to take this to the "drought thread" rather than here.

I don't want to once again incur the wrath of certain individuals. 

I'm a lot more placid after my health issues....

The models look like wanting to settle things down again in any case, so this may all be conjecture on my part.

?? This  is "The 2022 Drought" thread !!

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Something I really noticed today. I went west of London for the first time this summer. I was staggered at how green and lush it looked. Up until this week when we have at last captured a few short showers the ground is rock hard and a white/yellow colour. The golf course at Wentworth was lush and almost muddy where people had walked.

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Some of them round here sowed winter fodder crops like kale for livestock it has been total loss as has any other seeding such as clover being put in to attempt to use less nitrogen fertiliser.

Interesting - aside from a couple of fringe areas, the only reason the "lawn" looks green in my back garden is because of the clover and dandelions!

There have now been four days in a row with measurable rainfall here, with 10.6mm so far for the month. It's not had any noticeable effect on the vegetation yet but hopefully it will soon.

YTD of 232mm here now, compared to the 91-20 average of around 400mm by this point in September!

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?? This  is "The 2022 Drought" thread !!

It was moved from the model thread to here, as per my request.

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Interesting - aside from a couple of fringe areas, the only reason the "lawn" looks green in my back garden is because of the clover and dandelions!

There have now been four days in a row with measurable rainfall here, with 10.6mm so far for the month. It's not had any noticeable effect on the vegetation yet but hopefully it will soon.

YTD of 232mm here now, compared to the 91-20 average of around 400mm by this point in September!

That's funny because when we had our first rainfall in a while on Saturday night, I swear that I could see a difference by Sunday morning(we had had around 11mm). Then again, we weren't anything like as dry as your region(albeit we were in drought).

What I find fascinating is the way that the weather has so completely turned around in a short space of time. Since Saturday night, we've had appreciable rain everyday. As of early last night, we recorded 54mm(and more again since then). After the long warm and dry spell, it's like someone flicked a switch. It's funny how our weather can sometimes just flip like that - part of what makes it interesting, I suppose.

 

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With grass, what happens is wilted leaves do indeed recover and stand more upright within hours and new fine shoots appear within a day or two.
It is rarely killed completely once established but seedlings of grass (and clover) might germinate with trace of moisture, but can't establish and they only get one shot at it.

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With grass, what happens is wilted leaves do indeed recover and stand more upright within hours and new fine shoots appear within a day or two.
It is rarely killed completely once established but seedlings of grass (and clover) might germinate with trace of moisture, but can't establish and they only get one shot at it.

Grass is a very resilient species(then again, many plants are).

Presumably, the rain has come too late for most to allow a second cut of silage? 

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We have at last been catching some showers here in the last couple of days. Short lived but now up to 9.2mm for month and grass showing tinges of green now. Exactly following 1976 with it breaking down at end of August and rain building thereafter.

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Grass is a very resilient species(then again, many plants are).

Presumably, the rain has come too late for most to allow a second cut of silage? 

The nutritional value of grass at this time of years is poor compared to spring cuts but....

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/farmers-shouldnt-underestimate-the-feed-value-of-autumn-grass-teagasc/

Where's Four?

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Despite nearly 30 mm rain in the past week, the lawn here is still in a mixed state, patches of green among brown slowly transitioning to patches of brown among green as the week has gone on.

Local rivers remain notably low, as do the streams.

For large parts of the UK, the past 10 months have led to conditions that meet the conditionals for agricultural, meteorological and in many places hydrological drought.

Sure, it’s not been on the scale of 1975-76 or even 1995-97 in a fair few places, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a drought. Those were severe droughts, something this one could yet evolve into considering a moderate to strong La Niña tends to bring about below normal Nov-Dec rain widely and Jan-Feb rain in the south. Not a given of course but I’m not liking the raised potential for that to happen.

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Is there still a drought? Obviously it depends on where you live, if there is even ever was one, as rightly pointed out earlier in this thread.

I'm not a huge fan of dry days or wet days being used to show where things lie, for obvious reasons, however this week we finally hit the dry day annual record.

Albeit only over 7 years of recording at the current site, our previous record in the year was 185 totally dry days, we have now hit 187 by mid-October this year.

The grass is green again, mushrooms aplenty but in reality it has still been by far the driest year since we moved here, and probably well before that.

Any other notable obs from those with a PWS (Witney excluded of course, as when pictured on South Today this week, it was blue skies and not a drop in sight, sorry moomin)

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Here in Edinburgh, there has never been any actual official absolute drought (which is a period of 15 days or more in a row without any actual recorded rainfall), but the persistent low rainfall totals up until the end of the summer did raise a lot of concern for a while with SEPA going as far as raising the water scarcity levels to moderate or even significant in quite a number of areas.

That was especially the case in the east of Scotland but even in the west of Scotland, there was an increasing number of areas which had their water scarcity raised to at least early warning or alert by the time that we had got to the end of the summer.

Since then though, this autumn has been fairly wet here so far. September was wetter then average and substantially so in most areas, in terms of the actual rainfall amounts although that particular month was still drier than average here in terms of the number of official rain days.

So far, this month hasn't been particularly wet compared to average here but that is only due to the fact that October is our wettest month of the year on average according to the 1991-2020 averages. This month has actually been wetter so far than what it has been in virtually every other month during this year so far and had this been any other month, this month would almost certainly be going down as being wetter than average overall in terms of the actual rainfall amounts. Furthermore, it is also almost certain that this month will go down as being wetter than average even in terms of the number of official rain days for only the first time since February.

All of this has meant that the situation as regards to water scarcity has now improved a great deal over the last two months, and the latest water scarcity report which can be viewed here, and which was issued on 13 October 2022 shows that the water scarcity levels over most of Scotland have now returned to normal, even in parts of the east of Scotland.

In SE Scotland and parts of NE Scotland though, the water scarcity status is still at Early Warning whilst East Lothian and a small part of Aberdeenshire is still at alert level as regards to water scarcity. However, there are no longer any areas which are at moderate water scarcity level or higher.

It is important for us not to be complacent though because whilst the situation is gradually improving at the moment, we are still a long way away from actually seeing those rainfall deficits being made up altogether. This means that we need to at the very least get a wet winter with substantially above average rainfall in order for that to happen, and it won't take much for a serious water scarcity situation to recur by next summer if that doesn't end up happening.

According to that latest water scarcity report, rainfall totals across the UK are being forecast to be around average overall during the rest of the year with the highest totals being in the north and west of the UK (that is in line with what we would typically expect to see with a typical zonal weather pattern with high pressure to our south and low pressure to our north).

This would suggest that for here in SE Scotland, we may well never actually see the overall rainfall deficit being fully made up (especially here in the east of Scotland) and so, this year is likely to go down as being substantially drier than average overall although we have at least stopped the rot for now and arrested any further potential issues in the meantime as regards to water scarcity.

What I have described above though, only covers Scotland and I don't know what the overall situation regarding the rest of the UK is like.

 

 

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I think this needs a little reminder. I'm not in South West Water area but in Wessex which is in a similar dire state. 

Have a look at these reservoir levels and it's almost November. It's shocking.

https://www.southwestwater.co.uk/environment/water-resources/current-reservoir-storages

At this rate I can see emergency water rationing by the end of the year. Surely the rain has got to arrive soon?

The South West has experienced it’s fourth driest period since records began over 130 years ago alongside the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Cornwall this summer, and the Met Office is not forecasting significant rain. Reservoir levels across the region are exceptionally low and continue to drop. Without sustained rainfall, reservoir levels will remain low for the foreseeable future.

I'm in the Wessex Water region and the rainfall deficit is notably to exceptionally low too.

 

 

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Good spot there NMA. I brings to attention that droughts aren't just about long runs of dry weather, instead its a long-term water cycle imbalance which can take a LOT of rain to neutralise following a very dry summer.

September brought near to above normal rainfall quite widely, but only locally more than a little above.

Despite frequent rainfall, October has so far actually seen a third to half the normal rainfall across much of the southern half of the UK.

In many places this hasn't been enough to do much more than partially restore groundwater levels, with not a lot reaching reservoirs or rivers.

My local area of the far south (western New Forest) continues to see very low river and stream levels, in fact I can't recall lower for the time of year. The garden lawn here has largely recovered. While a couple of straw-brown patches remain that are seemingly dead, I suspect they are of a shallow-rooted invasive grass species, so perhaps it's for the best!

The weather outlook for the rest of the month is broadly wetter than usual in the west, but near normal in central and eastern parts.

Longer-range signals suggest an anomalously dry Nov and perhaps Dec too, which is typical during a moderate to strong La Nina event such as we currently have, so this feels like a race against time to get as much water into the cycle as possible before the weather pattern shifts.

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A lovely long spell of heavy rain here this morning. I'm enjoying the sound of it so much!
7.8mm so far.

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Looking at the radar it seems some useful rain in quite a large area of the east Midlands.

Here the suns out again with a small shower to the west.

Have a look at this. I can assure you that the River Frome in Dorchester has all but dried up.

https://riverlevels.uk/river-frome-stinsford-louds-mill

I've a theory that the rain we've had since September has only just begun to soak down. It's chalk here so flash floods are not normal as the ground is like a sponge at any time of the year. Any rain from now I think might though be the start of the aquifer replenishment. But the clocks ticking as they say.

For people in Devon and Cornwall reliant on their surface reservoirs, if they don't fill up soon, I feel it will be time to put standpipes in the streets for some areas to reduce usage. Imagine that in the middle of winter. Add in a frigid dry easterly drift, introduce some power cuts and it's not a pleasant situation. 

You would hope that the emergency planners are working on scenarios like this to ameliorate the effects if the dry continues. 

Thanks Stormchaser for your view. And I'm glad you're enjoying the sound of the rain Ulric. I really expected to hear the sound of water dripping off the thatch in the night but no it wasn't to be. The next bite at the raincherry seems to be tomorrow but I'm not counting on it.

Nick

 

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Looking particularly moist and breezy for most of us in the next fortnight, I think we'll be going from a rainfall deficit to having too much of the stuff. But at least it will be mild.

If we can reach plus 5 inch+ rainfall for November in old money I'd be happy. 

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If we can reach plus 5 inch+ rainfall for November in old money I'd be happy. 

It over now since October came with lot of rain and no way it drought anymore.  Lot of flooding around here and house in Meriden was flooded as it sit on the lowest part of the main road on my way to pick her up then on the way back a guy was unblocking the drain so half way of the road less flooding and another guy also unblocking drain in side street and large flood on the country road so our car managed to get though. 

We need a break from the rain now.

Remember UK is not Namibia, Death Valley or Sahara, it will always get very wet no matter what on our latitude level.

 

If we can reach plus 5 inch+ rainfall for November in old money I'd be happy. 

Trouble is, once it starts it usually never stop for weeks on end as it becomes part of a baked in weather pattern and we end up being sick and tired of it. 😤😂

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Definitely not over in Devon and Cornwall regarding drought. Our reservoirs are around 30% full and all the promises of weeks of rain haven’t happened yet.