I tend to go for the aesthetics here, Jiries and would put the tanks underground. Not on the roof, exposed even when painted white to reflect the sun. Whichever way, though, a pump to pressurise the water is almost essential. However, for my garden watering tanks, I'll be using a surface slimline tank(s) back of the shed. Watering cans for me you see. I won't be entering the greywater field this time. 

I remember on a Classical tour of Turkey the owner of a pension explaining the principles of the underground cistern they used to capture rainwater. And then the Romans and others of course, with their water management. In some ways, we are more advanced than the Romans in water treatment when they operate at their optimum. Ask Fairweather. He's TWO's expert. But in others we fail miserably. (see sewage dumping).

For hot and arid countries in particular, this makes a good read.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat 

But there are other ways, and then we enter contour farming... There is enough fresh water to sustain our current human populations if we used it properly.

At the rate we are depleting our water stocks here in the South, there won't be any bathwater to siphon, David.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/15/severe-drought-declared-six-areas-england-public-water-supplies-threat 

The weather has to change sooner rather than later, surely.

Add to collection of 'famous last words'?

Yes, we're in one of the severe zones, just east of Ardingly. Whilst the garden has recovered somewhat since the heat has abated, its my property that now increasingly worries me - not a single room that isnt crazed with cracks, the floor has sunk in my kitchen, doors & windows are sticking, and seemingly our extension has started to detach from the house. At night we hear our property creak and moan. Its an absolute nightmare. The total ar*eholes who applaud this type of weather really need to take a long hard look at themselves and consider the environmental, financial and emotional damage extreme weather causes. 

Indeed, '76 caused similar problems. It drives me mad when the weather forecasters go on about the glorious weather and talk about 5mm of rain as 'it's been a wet day'. How will they cope if we ever get a cold spell, let alone frost and snow..

Whilst there has been some recent rainfall (more so in the last few days or so than of late with today being our wettest day of this month so far), a lot more rain is still needed, especially in the east of Scotland where one area in the extreme SE of Scotland continues to remain at significant water scarcity with restrictions on water extraction still in place there as a result.

One area in NE Scotland has had its status downgraded from alert status to early warning status but apart from that, there has been no other changes since last week.

East Lothian and most of the Borders is still at moderate water scarcity level with Edinburgh and much of the rest of eastern Scotland still at alert status. A large part of central and NE Scotland is at early warning status with the all of those areas which haven't been mentioned so far, at normal status.

River levels and groundwater levels continue to be normal or high in the west, but low or very low in parts of the east.

I remember they mentioned a lot in 2018 summer with many properties but why this year not a single news about this as if properties are stable and no problems.  it also depend on the foundation quality if strong or not.

Who issues things like these in a el Nino year just before the autumn proper? 

Haven’t you seen the half decayed animal carcasses around the cracked and dusty watering holes? Honestly the streams and rivers…in mid and west Cornwall are low but all have water running freely into the sea. 

All of that water is from ground water and mine run off so there is plenty of water down below.

Most miserable summer since 1987.

Since 2024 maybe?

I find it stupid really to declare it when it already mid Autumn and it will never match the African drought which consist of high temperatures, sunny days and year around that UK cannot match that due to our lattitude.

The drought declaration actually comes from the Environment Agency and is triggered when a number of factors are met. 

Whilst El Niño is associated with greater frequency of wetter late Autumn and early Winter weather in the UK there's no way of predicting where in the UK any very wet weather might be if it occurs; if it will definitely occur or indeed whether if it does happen that it'll be enough to alleviate the drought conditions in the areas affected.

Drought status is based on the current conditions and is not a forecast of what may, or may not be to come.

There's a handy explainer from the Met Office here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ3VkLXk0TE

Hopefully all that helps explain why the severe drought status is neither farcical nor deliberately alarmist.

And also it's worth bearing in mind that droughts do not need to occur in warm or hot weather. 8 mm from today's front but I'm expecting more during this week. As Devonian says, 500 mm for this winter should be enough to take us into the spring next year and replenish the below- and above-ground water supplies. I agree on this figure and it's a long way to go. But it's the chronic effects of low rainfall that impact the environment. For me, from a fisheries background, this means plentiful river and stream flows that allow upstream migration of salmonids for example and other water life. This isn't happening right now in many parts of the South. 

Perhaps it’s the people who actually understand the state of our rivers, reservoirs, groundwater levels, soil moisture levels in the affected areas….?  Why do choose to use provocative, emotional language?

Here one of the village ponds is now almost half empty, with huge swathes of mud. The level of our pond continues to drop - in the middle of October.  

As for ‘autumn proper’ we are now over half way through autumn; properly defined as the months of September, October and November.

El Niño?  There are so few of this intensity that I wouldn’t put much money on how the climate system will respond.

Don't know about Southwest but if they are anything like southern water then they are a bit of a joke. Utterly useless. Portsmouth water hasn't had to implement any restrictions yet this year despite the dry weather.

Reading a report from the last time Portsmouth water implemented restrictions which was back 2022 you could sense an almost sarcastic dig at the way the neighbouring companies get their water.

No ,since 87

There is an article in the Kyle of Sutherland Chronicle.It has been endlessly wet and cool up there as locals will testify.One chap who is 80 thought it was the worst Summer he could remember.

The timing did seem strange. I'd understand it in the middle of Summer but the middle of Autumn when rainfall levels invariably build up and rivers/reservoirs fill up it did seem somewhat scaremongering.

Agreed, it been very wet here since 17th August onward and like today rain are more than enough and still have months of rainy season.

Real drought should come in like this:

No rain for several months that UK cannot get due to lattitude zone.

Sunny and warm to very hot days for months and months that UK cannot get due to lattitude zone.

Water cuts time daily.

The problem is they way of copycat and want to show UK act like Africa drought and also copycat to USA with named storms that really every srorm was bog standard.  

I understand the water companies did this because of a precedent. It would be a calamity to repeat this, especially with the huge increase in population since that era. Trucking lorry loads of water from places like Kielder or further afield would strain the economy in ways best not thought about. Though of course, there are people planning for this kind of situation.  "The winter of 1975–76 in England and Wales was exceptionally dry, recording around 61% of average rainfall and ranking as one of the six driest winters in a century". It's a risk they are well aware of, having learnt that lesson the hard way.

You cannot guarantee that rainfall this winter will recharge our reserves. We assume rainfall will fall like last winter but...

https://premium.weatherweb.net/weather-in-history-1975-to-1999-ad/ 

So is it worth taking that risk with some people predicting another dry summer next year? I wouldn't call it scaremongering at this point in the season. Prudent is the best way to describe it.

But it was 50 years ago. Surely they could have waited until the end of the Autumn to see if that event was likely to repeat itself? And have we not got better at storing water in 50 years?

As I said, it's prudence. But we have got better at moving water around but not so much in the storage field perhaps? Planning ahead is important. So I wouldn't call it scaremongering. 

Food is another area. 'Just-in-time' with just a few distribution warehouses is not prudent IMO.

Population has grown 20% and average daily consumption per person has grown by over 50% since the mid-1970s, so over 60% up.  In that time our climate has become less predictable with longer and more severe droughts and more heavy rains and flooding.

Given that running out of, or very low on, water in any particular area is what you would classify as low probability but very high impact I would have thought a measure of caution was absolutely the right approach?

Reading a report from the last time Portsmouth water implemented restrictions which was back 2022 you could sense an almost sarcastic dig at the way the neighbouring companies get their water.

picturesareme;1723364

Portsmouth Water is fortunate in drawing its water from a large aquifer - slow to rise and slow to fall. Since it was overtopping last winter, they've been able to hold out as have some areas supplied by Southern Water also drawing on the chalk aquifer. It's the Southern Water areas  e.g. in the Weald around Haywards Heath which depend on surface reservoirs of far less capacity than a chalk aquifer that are in trouble. Nevertheless, the managers at Portsmouth must have been getting worried at the possibility of a dry winter, the current water table level is about the same as this time last year when it was close to the lowest recorded.

https://sites.google.com/view/groundwatergraphs/home/groundwater-data