PROLONGED UK SUMMER DROUGHT 2018 BROKEN BY WELCOME RAIN

Some people might consider the United Kingdom weather as being highly erratic, and they would be right.  However, as most of us realise, people across the world have been experiencing weird weather for some time.  After a long spell of exceptionally dry weather, the UK might be getting back to the summer norm with a mixture of sunshine and rain.  A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of a long dry spell, we had a day when rain came down heavily with weather-forecasters warning of the possibility of floods, and then we were back to dry. While rain can be a nuisance at times, especially for those on summer holiday, the drought has caused problems nationwide and not just for farmers but for gardeners too, of course.  It was only when I recently watched an episode of the BBC's 'Orbit: Earth's Extraordinary Journey' (available on DVD) that I had a clearer idea of what is going on.  Right over our UK heads, two vast rotating weather systems collide.  One system comes down from the Arctic and one system comes up from the Tropics.  Seems like the Arctic is usually the winner.

I want to acknowledge here how great our local water authority, Yorkshire Water Authority (external link), has been.  They have managed the water systems well throughout this extensive dry period and we have had no hosepipe bans, simply requests to use water judiciously.  The people of Yorkshire listened and the YWA even put a thank you on their website.




So I am thankful of rain today.  I am sick of lugging the watering-can around, even for my small garden. I've realised just how many plants I grow in containers! Way too many!




Global Circulation Patterns (Met Office external link)





The BBC are now, after almost a century of using our Meteorological Office for BBC weather forecasts using Meteogroup (external links) for its weather predictions.   Seems that the BBC thinks a foreign country knows more about our British weather than the British do.  Meteogroup's parent country is, apparently, General Atlantic, a USA organisation based in Connecticut.  It seems to me that the BBC has been somewhat disloyal and unfair to the Met Office. The truth is, no one can predict our weather accurately all the time because the weather is so mercurial.





As the saying goes 'If you want to know what the weather is doing, stick your head out of the window!  Right now, it's raining.