Welcome rain potential for drought-hit areas
Only a few days ago, the Environment Agency released a report that looked at the prospects of drought across the UK in the coming months, highlighting that drought conditions could spread if the dry weather continues.
During the last 18 months, there’s been a huge contrast in the distribution of rainfall across the UK.
Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and western England have had average or above average rainfall, but central, southern and eastern parts of England have been much drier than normal.
This contrast has been down to the position of the jet stream – a fast moving ribbon of air high up in the atmosphere that determines where our rain-bearing weather systems go.
For long periods of time during the last year and a half, the jet stream has been sitting to the north west of the UK, steering most of the wet weather there and leaving a short supply of rainfall across southern and eastern areas.
The impact of this has been that water resources are becoming increasingly challenged, with water companies applying for drought permits to use rivers to top up reservoirs. Some water companies are also putting hosepipe bans in place in order to conserve water.
Another possible impact highlighted in the Environment Agency report for the coming months was that agriculture may be affected with less water available to nurture crops and livestock.
February was a drier than average month for the whole of the UK, with just 63 per cent of the rain falling that would normally be expected.
The more startling detail lies in the regional figures with East Anglia and south east England having just 33 and 36 per cent of their average February rainfall respectively.
In first week of March some welcome rain fell for most places, with Norwich receiving all of its March rainfall in a few days – around 50mm.
The past week has been largely dry due to an area of high pressure across us, but that will change for Friday and the weekend, as an area of low pressure develops, bringing showers or longer spells of rain.
There’s still some uncertainty as to exactly where the heaviest rain will fall, but there is an increasingly strong signal that it could well be across the drought-hit parts of central, southern and eastern England.
Some weather computer models are suggesting that there could be as much as 20-30mm, locally more during Saturday and Sunday.
Whilst the rain falling in the areas that really need it may be good news, the bad news is that next week high pressure will return. This means that once again a return to largely dry conditions can be expected.
Don’t forget, you can stay up to date with the latest forecast on the Channel 4 Weather website. I’ll also be tweeting regular updates on Twitter – @liamdutton