Drought warnings?

[mankyscotslass]

I've just read an article on the BBC here

I'm not too surprised to be honest - we have had a very dry winter here too.

[HesterShaw]

That screams of mismanagement. We were inundated with water in the months up to December - the ground couldn't hold any more water, which is why it sat on the ground. It has been quite dry since, but good grief!

[mankyscotslass]

I was out for a walk at out local reservoir this morning, and met one of the staff whop monitor the water levels.

He said that we are already verging on drought levels and it's not even summer yet.

He can't remember the last time Manchester had such a dry winter, and although we had a little rain overnight/yesterday, the total rainfall for the last 24hrs was 0.7cm.

We really need a prolonged spell of heavy rain, he said the weather in the last 2 years has decimated UK crop production, and to expect large hikes in food prices if this continues.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Will have a look tomorrow (marking place!)

[Manchesterhistorygirl]

A little rain last night? FFS it threw it down and again today! Plus the snow melt has been very slow and it snowed for an age. Drought my arse!

Up near the reservoirs in longdendale.

[mankyscotslass]

Manchestergirl - you are a bit further out than me!

We had some short heavy hail/rain yesterday, but none of the showers lasted more than 5 minutes and I think we were dry here overnight.

The ground had that horrible stale sick smell when it started to rain - a sure sign it has been dry for ages here!

[leesmum]

Hi Manky I agree, I cut the grass on thurs even though it was only about 2inc high and it was so dry, we had a few showers yesterday but no real downpour. It hasn't rained properly since before Christmas!

[Manchesterhistorygirl]

It lasted for a good few hours up here. There's still snow, well there was Thursday, up on the moors and the reservoirs were full! There's rain forecast today and tomorrow so I'm not worrying about drought yet.

It does need to rain more though to get things growing gain, but given how dreadful the last few summers have been we don't need too much or we'll be facing floods because the aquifers are so high.

[frownyface]

well down south it rained most of yesturday, really heavy showers interspersed with light rain. It has also rained on and off of of last week and we are due more next week. I have sat outside with a cuppa twice so far this year, some spring sunshine would go down very well about now!

[frownyface]

im SE rather than south south if that makes any sense, not sure what our reservors are like mindyou

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

To be honest I hadn't noticed! Here our water table is incredibly high, even though we didn't have any rain for a while now its back our rivers are once again really high and mini lakes in lots of places.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Have a look at this map and select the anomaly period 1981-2010 as well as rain and which month you are interested in.