https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62253581

Wildfire precautions come to cities

 

It is inevitable they will get more fires with the current vogue for leaving areas unmown and scrubby, often combined with large amounts of litter and plenty of copy cat deliberate arson where there is stuff to burn 
It has little to do with heat as peak fire season is in spring when there is most dead fine fuel material and low humidity.

We had about 5mm yesterday which is a useful drink for grass, that aspect is probably much less worrying now but water supplies need a good deal more to be more comfortable.
Round here private spring supplies are commonplace and the lowest flows are late summer and autumn even into November in dry years - as it takes far more rain than you would think to get down to deeper sources. 

---

Following a meeting today, the National Drought Group has decided not to declare a Drought and instead urged people to use water wisely.

Has anybody seen this BBC report?

According to that report, England has had its driest start to any year since 1976.

Furthermore, a hosepipe ban is also due to come into effect as from Friday on the Isle of Man.

I did say a number of months ago (and was the first person on this forum do so) that water restrictions would end up coming into effect in at least one part of the UK and now, I have been proved right in the end with these upcoming restrictions on the Isle of Man.

 

---

No recorded rainfall still for July but ground did look damp this morning. Baby steps!

---

Has anybody seen this BBC report?

According to that report, England has had its driest start to any year since 1976.

Furthermore, a hosepipe ban is also due to come into effect as from Friday on the Isle of Man.

I did say a number of months ago (and was the first person on this forum do so) that water restrictions would end up coming into effect in at least one part of the UK and now, I have been proved right in the end with these upcoming restrictions on the Isle of Man.

 

Technically you are incorrect as The Isle of Man isn't a part of the UK.

---

 

Technically you are incorrect as The Isle of Man isn't a part of the UK.

I couldn't care less. It's British territory and so, I'm going to claim that one anyway.

I know that in response to that, you might say that I would be as well including somewhere like the Falkland Islands if that is the case since that is also British territory, but the Isle of Man is also a part of the British Isles and so from that perspective, we might as well call it a part of the UK and to say that it isn't just on that technicality is just pointless nit picking as far as I am concerned.

 

---

 

IMBY its been drier than average but I've recorded a few drier years this century e.g 2010 and 2013

---

Close to average rainfall here so far.  Which actually makes it quite wet compared to some recent years! 

---

An unexpected but welcome 4.4mm of rain at the vineyard this morning. Nothing here in SE London.

---

Close to average rainfall here so far.  Which actually makes it quite wet compared to some recent years! 

Really? Evesham must be a local wet spot as BBC was showing rainfall average for that area as 16% of normal so far for July; and I was at Broadway Tower just down the road a week ago, and it was looking definitely parched - but not as dry as the South-East at 6%. Two places were instanced as having zero rainfall in July, Odiham and Hurn (nr Bournemouth)

---

It is inevitable they will get more fires with the current vogue for leaving areas unmown and scrubby, often combined with large amounts of litter and plenty of copy cat deliberate arson where there is stuff to burn 
It has little to do with heat as peak fire season is in spring when there is most dead fine fuel material and low humidity.

We had about 5mm yesterday which is a useful drink for grass, that aspect is probably much less worrying now but water supplies need a good deal more to be more comfortable.
Round here private spring supplies are commonplace and the lowest flows are late summer and autumn even into November in dry years - as it takes far more rain than you would think to get down to deeper sources. 

It seems to me most of the general population think a shower of rain means a drought is over, farmers know (from bitter experience) better. We'll need several months of above average rainfall to get SE Devon back to anything like normal soil moisture. Sadly, the outlook is anything but wet and (from a farming pov if no other) worse is to come here.

As to fires, well, such is your usual refrain. The reality is vegetation can burn if it's tinder dry and it burns better if it's hot and dry and there is a wind blowing. Some of recent fires were indeed in scrub land but most of them were in cereal crops, grassland or heather heath. How fires start is hard to say but most of them with be anthropogenic in one way or another.

 

 

---

 

 Some of recent fires were indeed in scrub land but most of them were in cereal crops, grassland or heather heath. How fires start is hard to say but most of them with be anthropogenic in one way or another.

 

 

It's about a supposed new problem of more fires in urban areas where cereal crops and heather heath are not found.
Heat has little to do with it humidity is key to combustibility of fine fuels like dead grass and the ratio of dead grass to green grass is highest in the spring if it has not been cut in the previous growing season.

People are more likely to be out doing stupid things with barbecues or the usual throwing stuff about outside when it is hot of course.

---

Having/had a few mm from a decaying shower need many more to get back on track sadly will make little to no difference.
And the outlook is still very dry over all. But a few more precipitation spikes showing in the latest ens


https://www.meteociel.fr/cartes_obs/gens_display.php?ext=1&x=312&y=94 

 

I couldn't care less. It's British territory and so, I'm going to claim that one anyway.

I know that in response to that, you might say that I would be as well including somewhere like the Falkland Islands if that is the case since that is also British territory, but the Isle of Man is also a part of the British Isles and so from that perspective, we might as well call it a part of the UK and to say that it isn't just on that technicality is just pointless nit picking as far as I am concerned.

 

It was just a bit of a joke really as your original post seemed a little boastful - look at me, I was the first to predict this and now I've been proved correct! So I thought I would 'burst your bubble' as it were and show that due to this technicality you weren't right at all.

All just for fun :)

---

Really? Evesham must be a local wet spot as BBC was showing rainfall average for that area as 16% of normal so far for July; and I was at Broadway Tower just down the road a week ago, and it was looking definitely parched - but not as dry as the South-East at 6%. Two places were instanced as having zero rainfall in July, Odiham and Hurn (nr Bournemouth)

It's been dry this month, although even then nearer 30% than 16% - most of which fell on the 2nd.   But a wet Feb and May means I'm on just over 300mm for the year to date.  About 50% of annual ave.   In 2018 I only had 457mm all year.   

The scorched ground around here is entirely down to the past 3 weeks weather - before then all was green and lush.

---

 

It was just a bit of a joke really as your original post seemed a little boastful - look at me, I was the first to predict this and now I've been proved correct! So I thought I would 'burst your bubble' as it were and show that due to this technicality you weren't right at all.

All just for fun :)

I had already known that the Isle of Man is not officially a part of the UK itself even though it is British territory because it isn't part of any of those constituent countries which make up the UK (that is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), but there's no harm in trying to claim that anyway just for a bit of fun (as you say).

I don't recall you posting anything here about the likelihood of water shortages and/or restrictions  in the UK before I first discussed it in that earlier thread which I had started (which if my memory serves me, was my first discussion of that on this forum).

However, this forum has been extremely busy just lately due to the ongoing discussions both here and elsewhere about the recent extremely hot weather (I shall refrain from calling that a heatwave here in case there are any technicalities about that spell of weather not having gone on for long enough for to be actually termed as an official heatwave).

This means that although everything is now a lot quieter after that, I haven't really had the time to read every single post on here, so it's possible that I might not have seen at least one post which you might have made on this subject.

To me though, it doesn't really matter who was actually the first to predict that there would be water shortages/restrictions in the UK.

From what I have seen, Southern Water in the south of England might be (and I say "might" here, because there is always the chance that I might be wrong here) considering imposing a hosepipe ban in the very near future and if that happens, that will definitely mean that I will have been right in my original prediction as there can be no arguments about the south of England being or not being a part of the UK.

If that happens, I will take my pride from that so although your intention might have been to burst my bubble (albeit just as a bit of fun), I have to say that you have not actually succeeded in doing so.

Even if Southern Water don't impose an hosepipe ban in the very near future, I still think that it is surely only a matter of time before somewhere in the UK does impose such a ban because I can see no signs according to the latest model output of the prolonged dry spell down south breaking any time soon.

Even here in Scotland, the previous forecasts for more unsettled weather but this coming weekend has once again been downgraded, especially here in the east of Scotland with most of any rainfall now looking likely to be more confined to central and northern Scotland.

This is something which has happened time and time again over recent months and what will happen is that the models will point towards a more unsettled period coming, only for that to be cancelled altogether by the time frame in question, or reduced to lasting for no more than a day or so.

With the last interruption to our own prolonged dry spell, we got two days of rain instead of one, but the end result continues to be the same as it continues to remain virtually bone dry for days on end afterwards here in Edinburgh.

As long as that pattern continues, our rainfall deficit will never be fully made up, and will only continue to grow even further. Because of that, I still wouldn't completely rule out the possibility of future water restrictions here in the east of Scotland despite that recent rainfall on Sunday and Monday.

 

---

Big ol' model failure today. This was the forecast (GFS and UKV):

The reality? Just a few clouds, the sun's been beating down and it's already 19C. The nearest rain on the radar is over 300 miles away!

Pah. Never trust a forecast of rain (or snow!) on an easterly...

---

Some more rain in the forecast next week, but not much for the areas than need it

No heat either so thats a plus

 

---

 

From what I have seen, Southern Water in the south of England might be (and I say "might" here, because there is always the chance that I might be wrong here) considering imposing a hosepipe ban in the very near future and if that happens, that will definitely mean that I will have been right in my original prediction as there can be no arguments about the south of England being or not being a part of the UK.

 

The SE of England is luckier than most people realise in that water supply depends on chalk aquifers (using both boreholes and river abstraction) which store more water than surface reservoirs could ever do. 

There were some hosepipe bans in 1976 but the local reports in Kent suggested these were precautionary rather than necessary. The level of the water table currently and locally in Sussex is not so different from about half of the last 10 years

 https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/groundwater/datainfo/levels/sites/ChilgroveHouse.html 

What has been changing steadily over the last 50 years or so is the number of houses which have been built and thus the demand. The problem with an 'invisible reservoir' is to assume that it will always be there; no dramatic photos of drowned villages as water levels in surface reservoirs drop.

But we are going to get a new surface reservoir just down the road at Havant https://www.portsmouthwater.co.uk/new-reservoir/ though it's a second-class site for the purpose. It's shallow and subject to evaporation; it will be filled by pumping from nearby chalk streams in winter where they are about to enter the sea so little ecological effect on the chalk streams but a big energy bill. However, there aren't any top class sites in the SE with porous rocks and built-up areas ruling projects out. 

Bring on the 'water grid' to export water from the north to the south!

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/canals-plan-revived-as-answer-to-southeast-s-water-shortage-9878680.html

There is in fact a modest scheme already in operation pumping water from the Great Ouse to  a reservoir at Kirtling on the watershed with the Stour in Suffolk. The photos show water being released down a series of weirs (to prevent erosion) to flow into the Stour from which it can be abstracted downstream near Ipswich. (GtW  should recognise these photos - they're pretty well in his back yard)

---

I'm surprised we don't see more "floatovoltaic" floating solar farms on reservoirs given their dual purpose of generating a lot of electricity (a solar farm covering the surface area of a medium sized reservoir would be generating several MW) and protecting the water from evaporation. Presumably still not as cost competitive as they need to be. Or perhaps it's resistance from the local sailing or fishing clubs.

---