Drought/Low Rainfall Watch - Summer 2018

Alun wrote: »

Saw a rather odd statement in one of the newspaper articles about this where they said that while filling a paddling pool from buckets filled from a tap was ok, filling one with a hosepipe was not.

Well that is correct, it is a hosepipe ban not a "using water for things you would usually use a hosepipe for" ban. :pac:



It's really just to stop unnecessary waste. For example, if you're watering your flowers with a hose, you'll probably waste a lot more water than you would filling up a watering can from a tap. It also has the effect of making people more vigilant about wasting water, it puts the fact that there's a water shortage in people's minds, so hopefully people will not fill paddling pools with buckets!

I was surprised to see them issue a drought warning because when I read their warning system page, there was no mention of drought. As a result, I took the liberty into alerting the people who look up to me for forecasts on my social media of drought concerns.

Anyway, we'll see how she goes. I'd like to share this blog post I've done on droughts in the UK and Ireland - so keep in mind, some of the wording might sound strange on here. It will be interesting to compare this drought by the end of it to historical ones like those mentioned in the blog post.

Met Éireann has now issued drought warnings for Ireland. Hosepipe bans have come into force for Northern Ireland and the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) of the Republic of Ireland. As a result, the big news now is likely to be "drought" in both countries. If the lack of rainfall continues, it is highly likely that the UK Met Office will also begin issuing drought warnings. What is a drought exactly though?

As far as I see it, there are two kinds of droughts.

1. Absolute drought - I like to personally call this a "short-term drought" rather than absolute drought because it leads to less confusion with the other kind of drought. A short-term or absolute drought comprises of at least 15 consecutive days with 0.1mm of rain or less. An absolute drought varies on return period for each place. For example, England & Wales are more likely to receive absolute droughts than Ireland and Scotland. Examples of recent absolute droughts include November/December 2016 and July 2013.
2. Long-term drought - A long-term drought does not have a specific definition but in general, it can be described as a year or more with a lot of below average precipitation months. Long-term droughts can last very long depending on how weather patterns establish themselves. Examples of recent long-term droughts include 1995-97, 2004-06 and 2010-12. Unlike absolute droughts, long-term droughts can be difficult to break and they require several runs of very wet weather in order to not be a drought anymore as such happened in Autumn 1976 and April 2012 onwards.

Here are some notable absolute droughts that Dublin Airport has recorded since it began record keeping in 1941:

• 7 August - 6 September 1947 (31 days)
• 4 July - 1 August 1955 (29 days)
• 19 April - 13 May 1984 (25 days)
• 8 April - 1 May 1982 (24 days)
• 6 - 29 June 1992 (24 days)

The August-September 1947 absolute drought was as a result of one of the most prolonged easterlies to ever be recorded in the British Isles - the longest being the January-March 1947 easterly (fascinatingly in the same year) which of course culminated in the phenomenally snowy and cold Winter of 1947.

Some of the UK absolute droughts have been far worse than this Irish 1947 drought though and examples include:

• 4 March - 15 May 1893 (73 days) at Mile End, London
• 14 August - 9 October 1959 (56 days) in parts of eastern England
• 30 July - 17 September 1947 (50 days) in Kent

June 2018 has officially recorded an absolute drought for parts of the UK, especially over southern England but others like Ireland have yet to reach the official criteria in spite of drought concerns. The issue for them being was that usually when rain fell, they came in small amounts. However, since June 21, an anticyclone has kept things bone dry and we're vulnerable to absolute drought as a result.

Meanwhile, here's my usual daily update on the sunshine totals.

Sunshine totals (hours) for Irish stations from the 21st-29th June 2018.

Cork Airport in first place now but only beating Valentia Observatory by 0.1 hours and Valentia in turn only beating Shannon Airport by 0.1 hours.

Cloudier day over Malin Head but very sunny again otherwise.

Station|21 Jun|22 Jun|23 Jun|24 Jun|25 Jun|26 Jun|27 Jun|28 Jun|29 Jun|Total
Belmullet|12.7|13.6|14.2|15.8|14.0|11.2|15.4|15.9|15.3|128.1
Casement Aerodrome|14.1|15.8|13.4|14.8|10.7|9.8|12.8|15.8|15.8|123.0
Cork Airport|13.2|15.7|14.8|14.9|11.7|11.8|15.5|15.7|15.5|128.8
Dublin Airport|12.9|15.6|14.4|15.6|12.5|11.3|13.8|15.9|15.8|127.8
Gurteen|8.1|14.7|15.5|15.9|11.0|12.2|13.7|15.8|15.9|122.8
Johnstown Castle|2.9|15.8|15.5|5.6|14.0|11.6|15.9|15.5|15.8|112.6
Knock Airport|10.8|10.9|13.7|16.0|12.6|10.7|14.7|15.2|15.3|119.9
Malin Head|12.7|10.9|12.6|15.2|14.8|8.4|16.4|16.5|5.9|113.4
Shannon Airport|13.3|15.1|15.6|15.2|10.5|13.3|14.7|15.5|15.4|128.6
Valentia Observatory|12.3|15.3|15.5|15.5|11.1|14.5|14.1|15.3|15.1|128.7


Data comes from Met Éireann.

RobertKK wrote: »

Meanwhile parts of Southwest England and South Wales have a thunderstorm warning issued for the first time by the Met office. Between 30mm - 40mm of rain where they do occur could fall in a hour with lightning and hail.
Even there hit and miss.

Doesn't look like we will get much if any here. Drought or drought like condition for near all look like what most will get.

RobertKK, you must be burning up on the hills

Dublin A will end the month with 4.8 mm, 7% of normal, and Oak Park 5.2 mm, 8% of normal. Cork is at 12% of normal with 10.4 mm and Dunsany is a soaking wet 16% from its 11.4 mm total. Johnstown Castle has managed 18% (12.7 mm). OTOH MtDillon is above normal at 82.2 mm (113%).

RobertKK wrote: »

https://i.imgur.com/eoGuhYm.jpg

Yeah everywhere is burning up and worse each day. That pic is from a couple of days back. It is worse in some other areas of the farm.

Not great hurling ground.

Some cloud rolled in from the South here in Wexford but is literally burning off and disappearing.

Rougies wrote: »

There are a lot of dead leaves on the ground around here. I noticed some types of trees in particular aren't handling it very well and look like they would in late October.

Yeah I noticed trees shedding leaves too, probably a coping mechanism to reduce water demand.

I was on the Shannon today a day the difference in grass colour driving back east this evening was striking. Gone from green with slight yellow around the edges to basically yellow/brown from Kinnegad east.