Last year was dry and winter here didn't really get wet at any point though of course ground water was boosted to some extent.
This year only February has been near normal every other month has been dry or very dry.
Annual total so far is 170mm which is about half normal for this date.
Summer months after May can be among the wettest in some years so could soon catch up.
Fields are dry and stressed but not brown as yet as here we have have very little heat with plenty of North Sea influence
As I said above, I will need to actually see that happening this year before I will actually believe that.
Last summer was drier than average overall, but I can remember that July 2021 was actually wetter than average overall in terms of the actual rainfall amounts. However, that was only because there was a massive thunderstorm at the beginning of that month which produced so much rainfall from it, that this was actually enough to skewer the overall total for that entire month quite significantly.
Apart from that one blip, July 2021 was actually a very warm (and at times, hot) and sunny month which in terms of the number of official rain days, was actually quite a lot drier than average overall.
I agree that summer months can be the wettest months in some years, but the contribution towards those totals due to relatively short-term thunderstorms can't be ignored.
From this, we can see that there are actually two ways of determining whether or not a month or season is wetter than average because this can be in terms of the actual rainfall amounts, in terms of the number of official rain days or both.
As a result, I have to raise the question of how many of those wet summer months in the past have been wet due to actual regular rainfall, and not just because of the odd thunderstorm which has occurred in what has actually been an otherwise very dry month overall.
When you get a month like that, it doesn't take long for everything to dry up again with the heat of the Sun with a lot of that rainfall also having been lost due to any resulting flash flooding which might have happened.
These types of rainfall events are therefore not all that useful in terms of keeping our water levels at a reasonable level and so what we really need for that, is at least one month (preferably a run of months) which is wetter than average in terms of the number of rain days due to rain falling on a regular basis with the resulting amounts being fairly significant as well (that is, not just amounting to a fraction of a millimeter, or not much more than that every time).
The issue which we have though, is that this is summer and the majority of Brits are usually looking for a decent summer with one of the conditions for that being that it should be drier than average overall. Sadly, these people are also unlikely to be able to fully understand the consequences of what could happen if rainfall remains in very short supply for too long a period of time because they are only interested at the end of the day, in getting some decent weather which will allow them to enjoy their summer holidays.
Edited by user
22 June 2022 09:56:36
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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.