The Great Meteorological Thread

Ian D J

Ian D J

Michael Fish
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Ian D J
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I am as I enter the 32rd day without recording any measurable rainfall here at Kent.

This is a friend's little boy who will grow up working for the Civil Services as he inspects cracks forming at his back garden (not my garden, of course!).

Thomas%2Bwith%2BCrack.jpg



Will this trend get broken over the weekend? I hope so as my lawn is dying a horrible death (don't want to use the hose as I'm now on a metered supply).

Speaking as an amateur meteorologist, I'm still betting the farm that the summer will fall apart as soon as we enter June. :lol: But on a serious note, I am hoping for that to happen in order to avoid a repeat of 1976 - and the older members amongst us in here know what that was like.
 
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I have two weather stations, both with rain gauges and have had no recordable rain since the 30th of March and then it was only 0.3mm.

At the time of posting our water pressure is reduced to a trickle. I telephoned Anglian Water who said they had problems in my area, this is the second time in the last four weeks. I am beginning to wonder if they are deliberately reducing overnight pressure to conserve supplies.
 
Not me, I hate the bloody rain. Plus it's supposed to be cOming in July and aug
 
Nope, I don't want rain we get enough of it here most of the time - and I wonder why, whilst many countries I visit have next to no rain at all and survive well, we in the UK come to a grinding halt after just a few weeks without rain. Is it all down to Thames Water leaks?
 
We had a bizarre experience here in Crawley last weekend. My house and very very local area was hit by a torrential downpour lasting about an hour. Heaviest rain I've seen since a Florida monsoon years ago where I was forced to stop driving because I couldn't see past the front of the bonnet. Yet areas a mile away or less had nothing. And one person told me of a shopping parade in town where half of it was hit by the rain and the other half remained dry.
 
I think it's where we do live in a mild and temperate climate that we are used to having this constant regular-as-clockwork rainfall amounts nearly all the year around and have taken it for granted. As a result, when it does deviate from the norm it does come quite as a shock to the system.
It is strange to think that it was only three short years ago most parts of the UK was literally underwater with the stuff. But here in Kent, this looks like being the third exceptionally dry Summer in a row - and yet we're only in May.
It does look like being a South East/North West split across the UK as far as rainfall amounts are concerned. The North West getting normal amounts while parts of the South East only has 4% of the rainfall amounts so far this year. That part of the world being heavily populated probably isn't helping matters, along with leaking water pipes.
The agriculture side of things are already struggling as crops are a month behind schedule so expect rising food costs - right down to the cost of hay to feed livestocks.
Then there are the threat of bush fires - which is already evident in places across Southern England.
Actually, as a side thought; the Scottish Isles, while always wet at the best of times, are still just as prone to getting droughts because of it's rock-based surface - any rain that does fall doesn't get soaked into the ground but simply runs off into the sea. Here in the South East, at least the porous soil mean underground lakes can form so it isn't too much of a problem.

Personally, I think metered water supply had suddenly become quite a good idea.
 
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Hmm, what lack of rainfall? We got a break - and some sunshine - for about a week, then the usual incessant rain started again the day before yesterday.
 
Ian D J said:
I am as I enter the 32rd day without recording any measurable rainfall here at Kent.


But on a serious note, I am hoping for that to happen in order to avoid a repeat of 1976 - and the older members amongst us in here know what that was like.
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I think it's quite scary - I can't remember the last rainfall here in the New Forest, apart from 2 very light showers overnight which did nothing to help.

And, yes, I remember 1976! We were living in Bedfordshire and our new garden was a dust bowl, but more worrying was the threat of standpipes. We had two children under 3 and Mr JG was away from home weekdays. I couldn't work out how I was going to collect water from the village with the kids in tow! :eek: Incredibly, it started to rain 3 days before our water was to be switched off!!!! And then, of course, it seemed to rain for ever. Much as I love the sun, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. :)

Jean
 
Never mind washing cars, water pressure or the garden, the real problem is in agriculture, where my youngest son works.

No rain = no crops or very poor, very late crops. Last year was bad, this year is looking much worse. If you take just hay as an example, the price doubled last year because of lack of rain, and as a result there is pretty well none of last year's hay left over for this year, making the problem even worse.

There will plenty of food in the UK of course, but a lot of it will have to be imported at enormous cost (especially as fuel costs are now so high) leading to much higher costs for us and, in some cases, starvation in the countries we import it from.
 
MisterE said:
We had a bizarre experience here in Crawley last weekend. My house and very very local area was hit by a torrential downpour lasting about an hour. Heaviest rain I've seen since a Florida monsoon years ago where I was forced to stop driving because I couldn't see past the front of the bonnet. Yet areas a mile away or less had nothing. And one person told me of a shopping parade in town where half of it was hit by the rain and the other half remained dry.
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We had something similar the other weekend. All we actually got was the lightning, but about 5 miles away they had a downpour for about 20 minutes. I think we have rain coming sometime around Sunday afternoon.
Personally I'd be happy if it were just to rain during the night so we can have warm/hot sunny weather during the day.:thumbs:
 
jeangenie said:
I think it's quite scary - I can't remember the last rainfall here in the New Forest, apart from 2 very light showers overnight which did nothing to help.

And, yes, I remember 1976! We were living in Bedfordshire and our new garden was a dust bowl, but more worrying was the threat of standpipes. We had two children under 3 and Mr JG was away from home weekdays. I couldn't work out how I was going to collect water from the village with the kids in tow! :eek: Incredibly, it started to rain 3 days before our water was to be switched off!!!! And then, of course, it seemed to rain for ever. Much as I love the sun, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. :)

Jean
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Hi Jean! Indeed, I was eight years old at the time but it was that very Summer which sparked off my interest in meteorology and it kinda grew from there.
Regarding that infamous Summer, it wasn't so much the heat (even though there were a few days which saw to temperatures rising above the 90 F mark and remember feeling how pavements where often hot to the touch), but the constant dryness with well-below average rainfalls that started in the previous summer and kept going through the winter and into 1976 that caused the problem.
I can also remember how it all very quickly broke down with heavy rain and thunderstorms in about the third week of August and it lead to the wettest September for 200 years.

Am very interested to see how the Summer of 2011 will turn out. Although I am still recovering from August 11th 2003 when it reached 99.8 F at my location . . . and what did I used to do at the time? I was working in a greenhouse as a tomato farmer. :gag:
 
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We had the downpour here in Colchester last Thursday evening. It rained so hard it actually woke me up! So, we've had some but we desperately need more. It's supposed to rain this weekend!
 
I'm a bit puzzled by all this. I grew up in the UK but lived in South Africa for most of my life, and we didn't get any rain in the winter at all. It was bone dry for 4 - 5 months, and we did have water restrictions at times, but it was manageable. I've been back here for just over a year and it never seems to stop raining. How can a few days without any rain cause so many problems? Don't they store it in reservoirs?
 
MartynK said:
I'm a bit puzzled by all this. I grew up in the UK but lived in South Africa for most of my life, and we didn't get any rain in the winter at all. It was bone dry for 4 - 5 months, and we did have water restrictions at times, but it was manageable. I've been back here for just over a year and it never seems to stop raining. How can a few days without any rain cause so many problems? Don't they store it in reservoirs?
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They do, but as a nation used to unlimited water supplies falling from the heavens, we are not very good at restricting our use before levels become critical. Add on to that the useless water companies that allow leaks to go unplugged for days and weeks and it adds up to problems.

However, I am guessing it will be like the last couple of years, very dry spring, followed by a damp a soggy summer. Our lawn ha cracks so big now that the jack russells keep disappearing, but looks otherwise healthy [well, the weeds and moss are nice and green], so will resist watering until absolutely necessary even though we are not metered.

As an aside, given the dryness, make sure you bird water drinkers/baths are topped up too :thumbs:
 
i dont know whether we as a country just use a lot of water or we just have a lot of leaks but levels do appear to be pretty low in some reseviors.

Garry Edwards said:
If you take just hay as an example, the price doubled last year because of lack of rain, and as a result there is pretty well none of last year's hay left over for this year, making the problem even worse.
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and the lack of rain is only going to make matters worse..
 
Given the amount of rain in January and February (after it stopped being -9C all the time) I'm not expecting any problems any time soon. The ground under my lawn was still very soft as little as a couple of weeks ago.

Unfortunately I sowed a load of grass seed last week on what was the allotment part of the garden and it's not had any water since, so I'm not expecting that to grow much.
 
Up here in the south west of Scotland, I can only remember a handful of times where reservoirs have run very low. I might be wrong but I can't ever remember a hosepipe ban. So bring on the sun the more the better.:)
 
I was on the Isle of Mull a few years ago and we stopped on a bridge over a small stream and it was sunny on the boot of the car and chucking it down on the bonnet, very strange experience.

Andy
 
Andysnap said:
I was on the Isle of Mull a few years ago and we stopped on a bridge over a small stream and it was sunny on the boot of the car and chucking it down on the bonnet, very strange experience.

Andy
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You in the front, mother-in-law in the back?
 
What on earth is the point of worrying about the "lack" of rainfall?

There is not a lot you can do about it, unless you think a rain-dance will work?

I suppose you could move to our green and wet land though!
 
Mikesphotaes said:
What on earth is the point of worrying about the "lack" of rainfall?

There is not a lot you can do about it, unless you think a rain-dance will work?

I suppose you could move to our green and wet land though!
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:plusone: No point worrying about what we can't change! And in the mean time i'm going to continue enjoying this lovely sunny weather :D
 
Mikesphotaes said:
What on earth is the point of worrying about the "lack" of rainfall?

There is not a lot you can do about it, unless you think a rain-dance will work?

I suppose you could move to our green and wet land though!
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:D There is that, but this is the ex-farmer and amateur meterologist in me talking. ;) Old habits die hard.

Indeed it is nice to have a drop of sunshine - but when it drags on for nearly five weeks straight along with no rain at all and everything is wilting around me, it's time to be just that little bit aware of it, especially if a house is built on clay-based soil and subsidence start to show up.

And this is still only mid-Spring. If this trend continues into the Summer, then perhaps it may be too little too late.
 
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It's troubling, and I'd appreciate a good week or so of heavy rain to say the least.
 
neil_g said:
just checked the forecast and rain all weekend here aparently
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I think that's being more hopeful than anything else. :D

I do predict tomorrow to carry on in the same fashion as far as the South East of the UK is concerned; remaining dry. Then it does look like isolated thunderstorms may start to break out in the latter part of the afternoon and into the evening but even those will be hit and miss affairs.
It should all lead to cooler and fresher conditions with showery light rain on Sunday and into Monday before turning dry and bright again for the remainder of next week.
 
I must say, having moved from the south side of Glasgow to East Kent, the biggest difference I've noticed is in the weather. I'd say Kent is roughly 6-8 weeks ahead of Scotland on the weather front. It's a massive difference in the weather in just 500 miles.
 
killwilly said:
At the time of posting our water pressure is reduced to a trickle. I telephoned Anglian Water who said they had problems in my area, this is the second time in the last four weeks. I am beginning to wonder if they are deliberately reducing overnight pressure to conserve supplies.
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Same here in Hertfordshire, only problem is we only have half decent pressure when it's on full for everyone else, after about 7.30am we can't use our shower :(

So yes lots of rain would be nice.

David
 
*Babs said:
I must say, having moved from the south side of Glasgow to East Kent, the biggest difference I've noticed is in the weather. I'd say Kent is roughly 6-8 weeks ahead of Scotland on the weather front. It's a massive difference in the weather in just 500 miles.
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:thumbs: That's a great post - really does highlight how the weather can vary wildy over quite a small country such as the UK.

Indeed, with that in mind, when it comes down to the weather, the UK is a massive place! And that is the reason why I'm so into meteorology. :)
 
Considering the UK is an island entirely surrounded by water you'd think there wouldn't be an issue with water shortages! A collection of solar powered de-salination plants would seem like a sensible solution to drier areas of the country. Considering all the greens keep complaining about rising sea levels, baling out a load of sea water seems like the logical solution :)
 
srichards said:
Considering the UK is an island entirely surrounded by water you'd think there wouldn't be an issue with water shortages! A collection of solar powered de-salination plants would seem like a sensible solution to drier areas of the country. Considering all the greens keep complaining about rising sea levels, baling out a load of sea water seems like the logical solution :)
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My thoughts precisely! Indeed we are surrounded by trillions of gallons of the stuff and yet we can't drink it or use it for anything else! But the de-salination system would certainly solve any drought-related (and rising sea levels) issues.
 
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Oh I never worry about any "adverse" weather
I just blame that Ian DJ bloke, he seems to be able to predict it
With uncanny accuracy ;)
So it must be his fault :D
 
We are, got 700 acres of ungrowing crops at the moment :thumbsdown:
 
Cobra said:
Oh I never worry about any "adverse" weather
I just blame that Ian DJ bloke, he seems to be able to predict it
With uncanny accuracy ;)
So it must be his fault :D
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:razz: :D :lol: HI Cobra! Long time no hear!

Briony said:
We are, got 700 acres of ungrowing crops at the moment :thumbsdown:
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Now THAT is every reason to be worried about the lack of rainfall and why I came up with this thread. Just hope the coming weekend does provide some useful rain (thunderstorms likely to break out from 4 pm until 12 am Saturday) and then becoming cooler and fresher with patchy showery rain on Sunday.
 
Went for a walk through the woods earlier, and one stretch that is normally only passable with wellies even in the summer is bone dry. Since 1st April we've had 5.1mm and 4.6 of that came in a storm last sat afternoon
 
:woot: :banana: :banana: Just seen the weather forecast - bring it on :clap:
 
I remember Keilder being described as a White Elelephant................lol now.
 
Had a brief shower earlier and it's looking stormy tonight. Could please some of you!
 
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