As just about all of you know who have been following this forum, this spring has been exceptionally dry so far and regardless of what happens between now and the end of the month, that is how this spring is now likely to end up.
Here in Edinburgh, we had just 23.6 mm of rain at Edinburgh Gogarbank during March and a total of just 24.4 mm of rain at that same station during April. February was a very wet month here but apart from that, every single month during this year so far has been exceptionally dry with a total of just 21.6 mm of rain being recorded at Edinburgh Gogarbank during January.
We have had a little bit of rain over recent days but even with that, a total of just 8.8 mm of rain has been recorded at Edinburgh Gogarbank during this month so far which is well below what we should be getting at this stage of the month, given that we are now almost a third of the way through this month.
Here in Edinburgh, this spring was preceded by a drier than average winter with February being our only wetter than average month. Before then, last autumn with the exception of last October was also drier than average. In addition that, last Spring and summer were both drier than average here overall and so, you have to go all the way back to the winter of 2020-21 to find our last wetter than average season.
All of that adds ups in the end and with the country being so dry in recent times, this is bound to raise concerns about possible water shortages and hose pipe bans in at least one of the UK if this trend goes on during the summer as well. On that note, I have stumbled across this report which highlights the concerns that SEPA have that there could be ongoing water shortages here in Scotland during this summer if we don't start to get some more significant rainfall soon.
According the latest model output, the outlook is a bit more unsettled across Scotland overall than what it is across the rest of the UK but even here, there are hints that we could get another big build of high pressure by this time next week, so the general outlook is actually looking all that unsettled even here for very long.
Indeed, I have just watched Brian's latest video on the official TWO YouTube channel and according to the 10 day charts on that video, the totals for the east of both the east of Scotland and the east of England in particular still look very low after that period. Of course, it may well be that we get the rain that we need and everything is alright on that regard in the end. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that this will be the case in other parts of the UK. Because of that, I have decided to post this in order to raise aware of this situation to to find out whether or not these concerns are shared in other parts of the UK.
As for the cause of all of this dry weather, the Scottish YouTuber with the name of Mark Vogan has been talking about that in a few of his recent videos and now that Gavin P. has just returned to that scene after his recent cancer surgery, he has also started to pick up on that in his videos as well.
Mark Vogan seemed to be a little bit puzzled at first because he has been pointing out that we have had a warmer than average Atlantic Ocean for quite a while now, and you would have thought that this would promoted more in the way in rainfall with those warmer SSTs warming the air around there in such a way that it would then be able to hold more moisture as a result.
However, Mark Vogan has also been pointing out in his videos that we are going into an unprecedented third year of a La Nina event in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean, and has come up with a possible theory that this might be what is putting that massive dampener on our rainfall totals at the moment.
On that note, I would be interested to see what your thoughts on that were.
Edited by user
10 May 2022 18:51:51
|
Reason: Not specified
The north of Edinburgh, usually always missing out on snow events which occur not just within the rest of Scotland or the UK, but also within the rest of Edinburgh.