The winter and spring here were reasonably wet so I think what we are potentially looking at is soil / agricultural drought rather than hydrological drought.

I think that's correct, though here is SE Devon the top layers of the soil are amazingly dry - obviously if it carries on there will be deeper impacts.

I'll make a prediction (hoping to be wrong), I doubt my Davis rain gauge will tip again due to rainfall before, at the earliest, the month of July.

 

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I think that's correct, though here is SE Devon the top layers of the soil are amazingly dry - obviously if it carries on there will be deeper impacts.

I'll make a prediction (hoping to be wrong), I doubt my Davis rain gauge will tip again due to rainfall before, at the earliest, the month of July.

 

 

Well that's what the models are showing.....

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Summer grass has arrived a little earlier then normal here but nothing out of the ordinary.

Had about 3 weeks or so now with very little rain, but to be honest a 3 week period with no rain can happen (most years) from May to Septwmber... so 3 weeks with a little rain is nothing of concern.

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Well that's what the models are showing.....

Indeed, and I think they're right.

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Tonight's weather has shown us even more that there is no drought in this part of the world just now as it is absolutely chucking it down with rain here in Edinburgh as I write. This has led to a total of 3.0 mm of rain being recorded for today so far at the botanic gardens as at 11pm tonight. Since there is still no data coming from Edinburgh Gogarbank, I can't get any up to date rainfall total for there but according to SEPA, a total of 3.0 mm of rain had been recorded for today at Edinburgh in total as at 10pm tonight. This means that today will go down as an official rain day at both of those stations and in fact, today is now the fourth day in a row which has failed to stay completely dry at either of those stations with two of those days being official rain days (days where there has been at least 1.0 mm of rain).

A number of forecasts have that rain clearing away to the south during the night but the latest BBC forecast doesn't have that rain clearing away until around 7am tomorrow morning so if it keeps on raining as heavily during the night as it is just now, those rainfall totals are going to be quite big by the time that this all clears away. If the latest forecasts are correct though, this is actually likely to be the last significant rainfall that we see for quite a while. For that reason, I think we can safely say that what we are getting just now is very welcome rainfall which should now help to keep our gardens well topped up in preparation for any long dry spell which begins once this rain has cleared away. That in turn should prevent the grass from getting too much of a yellow/brown colour in this part of the world.

 

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There was some discussion in other threads of the late sowing of spring barley owing to wet conditions in March and early April; and that such barley ('cuckoo barley') sown after the cuckoo arrives) notoriously gives a poor yield.

So what's been happening? Did the late sowing not give the barley a chance to get its roots down before the drought? or did it manage to get established and is now profiting from the hot weather to catch up with growth? Anyone know?

This http://www.gleadell.co.uk/report/ is the best I could find on Google but it's mostly about global trade with brief UK references.

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Becoming quite a chore to water the plants now on a daily basis.
The grass in my garden is quite brown, admittedly there are lots of trees which doesn't help.
18mm in May and only 8mm in June so far.

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I think the rest of June and into the start of July can now be ruled out for any meaningful rain. The only complication will be whether next week's heat triggers a few thunderstorms. Still for most areas, June is looking like it will finish as a remarkably dry month.

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Not my photo but taken at Temple Newsam park in Leeds earlier today, showing how dry the grass is. A bit of yellowing isn't too unusual, especially grass verges, but 2013 was probably the last time it was this extensive. The leaves have also lost their late spring/early summer vibrant green and now have the duller/faded green that is typical of July, August and September.

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I can now confirm from this report that the UK's first official hosepipe ban of this summer has now been introduced and that this has happened not in the south of England (which would normally be where you would expect that to happen), but over in Northern Ireland.

With the short-term and even the medium term models continuing to look very dry for the foreseeable future, I would it to be only a matter of time before we see more of these bans and so, it will be interesting to how it takes for that to happen, and the extent to which all of this ends up happening during this summer.

 

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I can't imagine a hosepipe ban here - the last one was over 20 years ago.

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Overall figures eg 4% of June rainfall for Essex conceal some local variability. The grass where we're staying in N Essex, near the Suffolk border, is still quite green in marked contrast to the area 30 miles away in Suffolk where we visited friends yesterday, Guess which area got one of the local thunderstorms a couple of weeks ago.

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I can't imagine a hosepipe ban here - the last one was over 20 years ago.

But then, the last hosepipe ban anywhere in UK (including Northern Ireland) according to that report was in 1995 which is 23 years ago now, so you never know.

Furthermore, those members and readers in the Irish Republic will no doubt be interested to know that there will be a hosepipe ban in Dublin which will come into effect on this coming Monday (2 July 2018).

Dublin is a city which I actually visited back in the autumn of 2010 (I know that because my birthday is in the autumn, and I wanted to make sure that I visited the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin in order to get my free pint of Guinness which would then be my way of celebrating my birthday).

I can remember being there for about a week then and there was one day in particular where it rained so heavily that this ended up going right through me when then led me to comment to a passer by: "I guess, you couldn't really call this place [as in Ireland] the Emerald Isle if it wasn't for the rain.".

From that, it's probably hard to believe that almost eight years later, they are now lacking that rainfall there to such an extent that they are now having to introduce a hosepipe ban there but then, that just shows what can happen in the world of weather.

 

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We’ve had loads of hosepipe bans since 1995, in various parts of the country. Generally due to dry winters. I think the last one was 2012, just before the deluge.

(2012 being a good reminder that persistent dry weather can break at any time).

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We’ve had loads of hosepipe bans since 1995, in various parts of the country. Generally due to dry winters. I think the last one was 2012, just before the deluge.

(2012 being a good reminder that persistent dry weather can break at any time).

Then why did that BBC report say that this was the first hosepipe ban since 1995?

Was this because it was the first one in Northern Ireland since then?

Was it because this was the first one to have occurred during the summer since 1995?

Or, has the BBC reporter who has published that failed to bring the proper facts together before publishing?

You would think after all that a major organisation such as the BBC would be able to clarify things a lot better then this, especially since it is largely, the money from the TV License which goes towards paying for that.

 

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Then why did that BBC report say that this was the first hosepipe ban since 1995?

Was this because it was the first one in Northern Ireland since then?

Was it because this was the first one to have occurred during the summer since 1995?

Or, has the BBC reporter who has published that failed to bring the proper facts together before publishing?

You would think after all that a major organisation such as the BBC would be able to clarify things a lot better then this, especially since it is largely, the money from the TV License which goes towards paying for that.

 

 

 Not sure if the BBC worry too much about accuracy

I won't be happy if we get a hose pipe ban here.. In April the farmers were saying they were having difficulty sowing crops already a month late due to water logged fields!!

You would think that water authorities would invest in contingency plans for drier than normal summers or years.
Saying that some places tomorrow down here might get a deluge whilst others stay bone dry....🙄

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Then why did that BBC report say that this was the first hosepipe ban since 1995?

Was this because it was the first one in Northern Ireland since then?

Was it because this was the first one to have occurred during the summer since 1995?

Or, has the BBC reporter who has published that failed to bring the proper facts together before publishing?

You would think after all that a major organisation such as the BBC would be able to clarify things a lot better then this, especially since it is largely, the money from the TV License which goes towards paying for that.

 

You've answered your own question correctly, it was the first in NI since 1995.

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You've answered your own question correctly, it was the first in NI since 1995.

In that case, they should have said that instead of just saying "the first hosepipe ban since 1995". That at least, would have made things a lot clearer for the viewing public.

 

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Looking at my rainfall records, we have just under half the average annual rainfall so far this year but the majority of that fell before the beginning of May. The last 6 weeks have been very dry indeed.

 

Just 1.6mm in June.

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