I remember 1995-97 as an incredibly prolonged dry spell ..
Then 1998 happened and suddenly we were getting soaked on a regular basis with one of our wettest April's ever kicking off a 2 to 3 year spell where heavy rain dominated and dry months were the exception . Autumn 2000 was the pinnacle.
Likewise 2003-06 saw alot of dry conditions but then from autumn 2006 the heavens opened again and in 2007 we had that miserable wet summer . The 2010s are probably best remembered for higher rainfall generally with summer 2012 and winter 2013/14 in particular being memorably soggy.
All these changes have been quite abrupt and not easy to predict .
But the overall picture certainly isn't pointing to a drier climate overall so for the moment I have to suspect this period is an outlier

I remember 1995-97 as an incredibly prolonged dry spell ..
Then 1998 happened and suddenly we were getting soaked on a regular basis with one of our wettest April's ever kicking off a 2 to 3 year spell where heavy rain dominated and dry months were the exception . Autumn 2000 was the pinnacle.
Likewise 2003-06 saw alot of dry conditions but then from autumn 2006 the heavens opened again and in 2007 we had that miserable wet summer . The 2010s are probably best remembered for higher rainfall generally with summer 2012 and winter 2013/14 in particular being memorably soggy.
All these changes have been quite abrupt and not easy to predict .
But the overall picture certainly isn't pointing to a drier climate overall so for the moment I have to suspect this period is an outlier

I remember one of the mods on this forum replying to a post which I made on here earlier on this year and in that reply, he said that he wouldn't be surprised if by this time (the second half of this year), we would then be getting so much rain that I would then be getting sick and tired of that.

Now, we have reached the time frame in question which that particular mod was referring to in that reply and yet, absolutely nothing has changed and the rainfall deficit just keeps on growing.

So much then for that prediction, and for Hungry Tiger's previous assessment of me treading on dangerous ground, the last time that I started a thread of this nature (I wonder if he now has any regrets about that).

 

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None of the NW England contingent have posted, and I was in Anglesey today, but before we left today, there'd beed light rain during the morning.

Coming home, we hit rain in NE Wales and at was raining more than not the rest of the way home. As we got home, the rain got heavier, and we had a period of really heavy stuff bouncing down.

My weather station's been out of commission for a few years now (nothing to do with dirty pigeons!) but I'd estimate at least 10mm today. 

Might be an odd suggestion, but you can use a common mug to record rainfall. (one which has an equal circumference top and bottom), or better still, a cheapo plastic rain gauge that you can just stick in the ground, which you can get in most hardware/garden shops. 

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July has certainly been dry in Ireland. However, we've had near average rainfall totals until this month so growth conditions are still fine. That might change, of course, if we don't get some rain soon. I had hoped that today might be the day for a bit of a top up but only 1mm yesterday and 4mm today. Hopefully we might get a bit more before things get dryer again.

Just 5.1mm here today, and that came in the form of sporadic drizzle spells rather than from anything remotely moderate or heavy, but the very humid conditions once again (DP 18c ) should ensure that that pitiful amount of rain can penetrate into the ground with a relative ease.  

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Might be an odd suggestion, but you can use a common mug to record rainfall. (one which has an equal circumference top and bottom), or better still, a cheapo plastic rain gauge that you can just stick in the ground, which you can get in most hardware/garden shops. 

True CP- but hard to record rainfall to 0.1mm in a mug.

The contrast-stretching that a narrow diameter tube provides can enhance the accuracy. The difficulty is the accuracy of the calibration and cheaper models seem quite relaxed about that.

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Drier than average, definitely, but not dry enough to start aridifying the landscape. July had been very dry so far, until a deluge came yesterday evening, as John pointed out.

For the country as a whole, this is looking like it's turning into the driest spring and summer combination on record.

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A nice view of the drought in Kent taken from a weather balloon earlier today. And yes, that's Sheppey at the bottom centre of the image!

 EDIT: And as recently as a month ago it was much greener. Here's a drone shot of Bay View, where I live (and the eagle-eyed will be able to spot my flat-roofed house in the shot...) Picture via SATS Dronography.

(And yes, a good deal of yellowing is due to the wheat ripening. The paddocks and grassy fields though have also gone yellow, as have most people's gardens. The trees in my garden are still nice and green though!)

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One thing I noticed on Tuesday when that breeze got up later is there were leaves everywhere like it was autumn. I mean literally the sides of the road were caked in dead, brown leaves from several different types of tree. This must be down to how little water they’ve had?

The grassland here is brown or white and the soil is badly cracked in areas. My back yard for one.

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One thing I noticed on Tuesday when that breeze got up later is there were leaves everywhere like it was autumn. I mean literally the sides of the road were caked in dead, brown leaves from several different types of tree. This must be down to how little water they’ve had?

It could be lack of water, although there's still a fair bit of moisture deeper down:

http://wxmaps.org/pix/soil4.png

(35-45cm of liquid water in the top 2m of soil, at least according to the satellites). Much of that should be within reach of established tree roots.

I wonder if in some cases the leaves were simply scorched by the hot weather? It must have been quite a shock to the system to suddenly get a massive hairdryer-esque blast to the leaves, especially with low humidity such as you had inland.

Or, to put it another way - 6mm of rain here in the last month, but humidity stayed relatively high - dewpoints in double figures - despite the near 40C heat earlier in the week. Very few trees around here have shed leaves, but there are one or two which have done it.

 

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It could be lack of water, although there's still a fair bit of moisture deeper down:

http://wxmaps.org/pix/soil4.png

(35-45cm of liquid water in the top 2m of soil, at least according to the satellites). Much of that should be within reach of established tree roots.

I wonder if in some cases the leaves were simply scorched by the hot weather? It must have been quite a shock to the system to suddenly get a massive hairdryer-esque blast to the leaves, especially with low humidity such as you had inland.

Or, to put it another way - 6mm of rain here in the last month, but humidity stayed relatively high - dewpoints in double figures - despite the near 40C heat earlier in the week. Very few trees around here have shed leaves, but there are one or two which have done it.

 

Possibly. I genuinely don’t know. I have seen this before in previous very dry summer spells, but not to this extent. They must have been hanging there until the first decent breeze took them off, and I was quite a blustery spell later Tuesday. We talk about hairdryers. This was exactly like being in the face of one

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Drier than average, definitely, but not dry enough to start aridifying the landscape. July had been very dry so far, until a deluge came yesterday evening, as John pointed out.

For the country as a whole, this is looking like it's turning into the driest spring and summer combination on record.

Given that January was also an exceptionally dry month in Edinburgh (at least), it wouldn't surprise me if some parts of the UK were possibly on course for their driest year on record with the way that all of this is going just now.

 

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True CP- but hard to record rainfall to 0.1mm in a mug.

The contrast-stretching that a narrow diameter tube provides can enhance the accuracy. The difficulty is the accuracy of the calibration and cheaper models seem quite relaxed about that.

Fair points there BW. 

The manual gauge I bought a couple of years ago is of this design:

Has an inner tube that helps to magnify very small amounts of rain. More expensive than basic garden shop ones, but well worth it if you are big into measuring rainfall. Plus, can help to prevent evaporation of collected rain during hot, dry weather. 

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Possibly. I genuinely don’t know. I have seen this before in previous very dry summer spells, but not to this extent. They must have been hanging there until the first decent breeze took them off, and I was quite a blustery spell later Tuesday. We talk about hairdryers. This was exactly like being in the face of one

You’re right.  Leaf drop in summer is generally due to drought and hot weather as it’s the tree’s survival mechanism!  Fewer leaves means it needs less water to survive.  Also, trees lose water through transpiration in leaves, so the fewer leaves, the less the water loss.  It’s happened here a lot too this year. 

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Hayling Island, the local MetO station, had 3mm today (I think Chichester had rather more); 0.2 mm on the 19th; 0.6 mm on the 1st; and no significant rainfall in the last 10 days of June.

Yes, I saw that on the radar. I watched it longingly as it tracked NE towards me. But as ever it lost some of its strength and missed us by a relatively short distance just to the East. 

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None of the NW England contingent have posted, and I was in Anglesey today, but before we left today, there'd beed light rain during the morning.

Coming home, we hit rain in NE Wales and at was raining more than not the rest of the way home. As we got home, the rain got heavier, and we had a period of really heavy stuff bouncing down.

My weather station's been out of commission for a few years now (nothing to do with dirty pigeons!) but I'd estimate at least 10mm today. 

Yes - I should live near a cricket ground because you can guarantee some there even in a drought. Old Trafford yesterday!

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I planted just over 5,000 vines this April in my site in the Kent downs which is very wet by SE standards. Last year we had well over 1,000mm.

Since planting I had to wait almost a month for rain. We then had a few reasonable falls in May. Then it went dry again. 26mm in April, 80mm in May, only 36.6mm in June and a sum total of 3.2mm this month, as well as the excessive temperatures which hit 39.2C on Tuesday. 298mm year to date.

Nowhere near as dry as Essex or the lower estuarine parts of Kent but still worryingly dry when you have such an expensive new crop in the ground.

Is that the North Downs. I imagine a vineyard will be on the South Face. I often wonder if I'm in the rain shadow of the western end of the  N.Downs when it moves up from the SW like those showers yesterday.

P.S - I'm available for wine tasting. 

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Might be an odd suggestion, but you can use a common mug to record rainfall. (one which has an equal circumference top and bottom), or better still, a cheapo plastic rain gauge that you can just stick in the ground, which you can get in most hardware/garden shops. 

The best cheap gauge for excellent accuracy is to buy a plastic funnel close to standard diameter (13cm) (in Poundland or equivalent). Place the funnel tightly through the hole of an upturned flowerpot and then stand the whole over a container. (Anything that will fit under the flower pot, not fall over and hold a decent amount of rainwater). Pre-weigh the container on digital kitchen scales to the nearest gram. Then after rainfall re weigh the container on the scales and subtract the tared weight. Then at STP 1g of water = 1ml of water. (Much more accurate than measuring depths with a rule). Then it is just simple maths that you can do on a spreadsheet then forever after just enter the weight of water.

mm of rain =  wt of water in g (ml)/area of funnel in sq cm,  multiplied by 10.

e.g in this case with say 50g of rain,  [50/ pi * 6.5²] *10  =  3.8 mm

The x 10 is to get cm to mm. Once you've entered the formula in the spreadsheet you won't have to do it again.

This produces results close to a standard Snowden rain gauge if placed in a decent location with much higher resolution than any eyeballing method, including the Snowden glass tube.

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It could be lack of water, although there's still a fair bit of moisture deeper down:

http://wxmaps.org/pix/soil4.png

(35-45cm of liquid water in the top 2m of soil, at least according to the satellites). Much of that should be within reach of established tree roots.

I wonder if in some cases the leaves were simply scorched by the hot weather? It must have been quite a shock to the system to suddenly get a massive hairdryer-esque blast to the leaves, especially with low humidity such as you had inland.

Or, to put it another way - 6mm of rain here in the last month, but humidity stayed relatively high - dewpoints in double figures - despite the near 40C heat earlier in the week. Very few trees around here have shed leaves, but there are one or two which have done it.

 

I noticed that even well watered outdoor tomato plants, standing in water, had the growing tips dried out and killed. Never seen that before but never had 39.8C, a steady breeze and -1 DP before either !

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Some patchy light rain yesterday & tonight has brought July’s rainfall to 4mm.

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I'm not sure how dry it has been here. My garden can get quite boggy even during the summer months but that hasn't happened this year. The grass has been suitable for sock walking even a day or two after rain. That's my measure! At the same time though the grass is still green so the multiple showery days must be enough to keep everything ticking over. So probably on the dry side here but not a drought.