Extreme drought in UK, wildfires & semi-arid/desert climate in places.

[UK_Palms]

Okay, so something has clearly changed in regards to our climate. It is not the same climate that I grew up with in the late 90s, early 2000s. It is MUCH, MUCH drier now than it used to be and our rainfall is far more unreliable. In fact the change is extremely dramatic to see. 

As it stands right now, I have only recorded 3.6 inches of rainfall since January 1st and we are nearly halfway through 2019 now. Even more astonishing, I have only recorded 8.1 inches of rainfall over the past 12 months (since 20th May 2018). That constitutes a semi-arid climate by definition. Although the high humidity and low dew points seem to provide much needed moisture, which in part, counterbalances the severe lack of rainfall. 

But it doesn't change the fact that we are experiencing a severe drought again, off the back of another severe drought in summer 2018, which we failed to recover from due to inadequate rainfall. A number of rivers, creeks & streams have dried up and disappeared completely and I am noticing a large number of dead animals (foxes, deer, badgers, rabbits etc). That is possibly due to the lack of water sources, or from foliage die back as trees, plants & shrubs are dying back by the masses. The whole landscape appears to be changing in my area as a result of this apparent climate change. 

Whenever rain is forecast on a given day, we are lucky to see an accumulation of 0.1 inches due to how light the rainfall is. Like it is ridiculously light to the point that it isn't even recordable, so most days that have rain, it isn't even measurable. That is further complicated by the fact that I have only recorded rain on 17 days this year so far, in the whole of 2019. This is very worrying. If the current trend continues, we will be lucky to see 10 inches of rain this year. We may even see as low as 7-8 inches.

Fires are also running rampant across the whole of the UK, but are particularly bad in the southeast of England where I live, which has been hit the hardest by the droughts. There have been numerous bush/wildfire outbreaks over the past 12 months and they seem to be getting progressively worse. There seems to be a new fire every single day now and there are two active fires raging in my county as I type this. The amount of woodland and heath that I have lost in my area due to the fires is insane...

[UK_Palms]

I even have what I can only describe as a 'desert' forming in my area. Sand is appearing in woodland areas, along pathways and in open fields in Surrey... in places where it never used to exist, and it is now covering a large portion of the landscape, which is extremely worrying. 

I have a theory that the sand is being deposited by Saharan winds, which is blowing in our direction, and the lack of rainfall is allowing it to build up and accumulate. The sand is even several inches deep in some places, where dirt and mud once used to stand. This is clearly evidence of apparent desertification in this area. Even the sheltered woodland areas are becoming sandpits and the 'desert' like zone now covers an enormous area and is ever expanding. No doubt due to the severe lack of rainfall and paltry 3.6 inches of rainfall in 2019.

You can see the edge of the 'desert' line which is creeping further and further north with each passing week, even into the woodland areas. Last year, it was was around 30 meters further back from where it is now, but the sand has crept further and further northwards due to the drought. The pictures taken below are in forested areas, where the sand has appeared and is creeping northwards...

[kinzyjr]

Hopefully things turn around like they did for us last year.  We had a very long drought from the fall of 2017 to May 2018 here in Florida.  After that, we had 30+ straight days of rain, depending on your location in the state.  In my location, we darn near matched our record rainfall even without a named storm.  That's some awful dry landscape for the UK.

[NC_Palms]

Thanks for sharing. These photos really are an eye-opener to our climate crisis. Here in the Southeastern U.S, we're in a dry heatwave and temperatures are reaching above 35ºC, which is abnormally warm for this early in the season. 

[UK_Palms]

14 hours ago, kinzyjr said:

Hopefully things turn around like they did for us last year.  We had a very long drought from the fall of 2017 to May 2018 here in Florida.  After that, we had 30+ straight days of rain, depending on your location in the state.  In my location, we darn near matched our record rainfall even without a named storm.  That's some awful dry landscape for the UK.

We'll never have 30 days straight of rain here, not in this location. Just due to the geography and climate of my area. In recent years, the most consecutive days of rain is probably around 4-5 days here. But again, the rain here is just so light that it barely amount to anything. It could rain for 10 days straight and we'd probably still only register about 1-2 inches at most. Unlike places such as Florida, or the eastern US that sees real heavy, thundery downpours during the warmer months where you can register like 3 inches a day. We just don't experience that.

I can't even remember the last time we had a week solid of rain and registered more than an inch during a wet spell. It just doesn't happen anymore. We'll maybe have a day or two of very light rain that amounts to say 0.2 inches, then it won't rain again for a good 10-14 days. So in theory, hardly any rainfall is being deposited. It never used to be like this though. It's changed for the worse in recent years. 

I got excited when I felt some raindrops this afternoon, but that only lasted about 20 seconds and it was gone. Very, very light raindrops as well that wouldn't even be recordable. And if it was, it would have been like 0.001 inches we experienced this afternoon. And we had 80% chance of rain forecast for this afternoon. I actually got my hopes up...

[UK_Palms]

12 hours ago, NC_Palms said:

Thanks for sharing. These photos really are an eye-opener to our climate crisis. Here in the Southeastern U.S, we're in a dry heatwave and temperatures are reaching above 35ºC, which is abnormally warm for this early in the season. 

We certainly haven't had temperatures above 35C, with ours mostly in the more mild 20-25C range. But I have only had 0.4 inches of rain in the whole of May so far and only 0.3 inches of rain last month, in April. So even without the really hot temperatures, everything is still bone dry now. God forbid if it remains this dry going into summer, when the temperatures do start really warming up... which was the case last summer. We're forecasted to be approaching 30C in the next 7-10 days.

In recent years we have had massive heatwaves in early summer June/July and temperatures close to 100F around the summer solstice. Last year we had 97F on June 21st. The year before that it was 99F on the 21st. We desperately need some decent rainfall before the solstice arrives this year! I'm not convinced it will happen though...

[sipalms]

Has an official drought been declared?

[UK_Palms]

3 hours ago, sipalms said:

Has an official drought been declared?

Technically my area has been in a state of drought since June 2018, so going on 12 months now. As far as I know, it was never officially lifted. Apparently a hosepipe ban is due to come into affect on June 1st.

I think I may be in one of the worst affected areas, due to being in a rain shadow and one of the driest parts of England (I only average 18 inches of rain a year here). I am definitely suffering severe drought conditions here, as is the rest of the southeast. I would wage money on us being one of the driest parts of Europe over the past 12 months. Unfortunately all the talk of 'Brexit' is distracting people and politicians from the climate change debate and more important issues.

Much like the streams and rivers, my local reservoir is completely empty now. Not a drop of water left in it. The river I used to fish in as a kid has dried up and completely disappeared and is now a ditch with grass and plants growing in it. A sign of the times...

This is what the grass looks like on my street right now... bearing in mind we are still in spring here...

[Tyrone]

What you are reporting is truly ominous. Only 200mm of rain in the last twelve months is definitely arid. That’s like the Australian wheatbelt in a very bad year. If that happened here the authorities would weld your taps shut. With summer still to come I don’t know how the uk will cope with this. The natural vegetation in the uk just isn’t built for bushfires. If this keeps up long enough the picture of the polite green lush rolling English fields will be transformed into an arid cool climate scrubland more like dry parts of Chile or Peru. 

[Nj Palms]

Never would have thought Southern England could have brushfires. With the summer coming better hope there are no heat waves.

[UK_Palms]

11 hours ago, Tyrone said:

What you are reporting is truly ominous. Only 200mm of rain in the last twelve months is definitely arid. That’s like the Australian wheatbelt in a very bad year. If that happened here the authorities would weld your taps shut. With summer still to come I don’t know how the uk will cope with this. The natural vegetation in the uk just isn’t built for bushfires. If this keeps up long enough the picture of the polite green lush rolling English fields will be transformed into an arid cool climate scrubland more like dry parts of Chile or Peru. 

The dry parts of Chile and Peru are in the rain shadow of the Andes and only get around 1 inch of rain a year, so we will never be that dry haha.

The problem here isn't so much the lack of precipitation and rain days, but more the fact it is just so light and barely measurable. In parts of the wheatbelt and northern outback, I think I am right in saying that you get tropical storms and really heavy downpours from time to time, due to the tropical airmasses, meaning you can have several inches of rain deposited in a single drenching. Whereas here it can rain for 12 hours straight and we'd still only record like 0.1 inches due to how light it is. That is the main issue. I mean usually when it is 'raining' here, I can go out in a t-shirt and barely get wet... put it that way. It's usually just 'spitting' with rain to coin and English phrase. So bugger all accumulates. 

The fires are definitely worrying though. Things are starting to heat up this week as well, as we move into June. I have 27C forecast for Saturday and 26C for Sunday. Hopefully some rain arrives before then, otherwise it is going to be very touch and go. Potters Heath, about 5 miles west of me, got gutted by a bushfire this Sunday just gone. 4-5 hectares of ancient heath and forest burnt to the ground. I'm hearing a foil BBQ was to blame apparently. No surprise there. As of last month, it is a criminal offence to light BBQ's on public land around here, due to fire risk, so hopefully charges are filed. I'm really on edge about what this summer has in store for us now though...

 

2 minutes ago, Nj Palms said:

Never would have thought Southern England could have brushfires. With the summer coming better hope there are no heat waves.

There are heatwaves every year in the southeast of England. We never go a whole summer without experiencing at least one or two heatwaves, sometimes 3 or 4. Last year my average high temperature for the month of July was 29C, with 11 days reaching or exceeding 35C, including 11 consecutive days above 32C, 5 consecutive days above 35C, and two back two back days of 37C. That also coincided with the 10 week drought we suffered from mid May - early August when we didn't register a single drop of rainfall here. 

Even more surprising is that we have already recorded more fires in 2019 than all of 2018, despite the drought and heatwaves last summer.  That is a testament to just how dry it has been in 2019 and probably also a knock on effect of how dry it was last year as well. If we have a summer heatwave and drought of last year's magnitude, that will be devastating. Spring 2018 was quite wet and then the summer drought and heatwaves were bad enough. Spring 2019 has been the driest on record, so the same conditions this summer will be devastating.

[Tyrone]

Maybe total fire bans need to be implemented from May to possibly October in the same way as they are here in Australia during the hot dry weather. 

As for tropical storms in the wheatbelt that drop inches of rain, that kind of happens every 10-15 years out here and are normally due to decaying cyclones. They are kind of useless for agriculture and flood everything and take miles of fences and top soil away, and are usually followed by extended dry periods. I wouldn’t be a farmer in this country. No way. 

[UK_Palms]

1 hour ago, Tyrone said:

Maybe total fire bans need to be implemented from May to possibly October in the same way as they are here in Australia during the hot dry weather. 

As for tropical storms in the wheatbelt that drop inches of rain, that kind of happens every 10-15 years out here and are normally due to decaying cyclones. They are kind of useless for agriculture and flood everything and take miles of fences and top soil away, and are usually followed by extended dry periods. I wouldn’t be a farmer in this country. No way. 

There already is total fire bans (year-round) in some locations, which have been in place for years. We've been having wildfires in the south for decades, but this year seems particularly bad already, and we're not even in summer yet. No doubt the drought is the main cause of it. 

Although saying that, we actually got quite a bit of rain on Wednesday afternoon. At last. Pretty heavy rain as well. Probably the biggest single rainfall event I have seen in several months, since February/March and it went on for several hours. Only 0.3 inches recorded though. But at least we got some rain before we enter the summer season, with some hot days forecast ahead. It was much needed. 

[UK_Palms]

Quick update. That rain we got has done absolutely sod all. If anything the drought conditions have got even worse since I made this thread a few days back. Further complicated by the fact it has reached 29C here today. And probably 27-28C tomorrow as well. This is getting really bad given the severe lack of rainfall. 

My drought related casualties for the season are starting to mount up. On top of the Cordyline 'Pink Passion' which dried up and died last month, I have had a Washingtonia go completely brown and stop growing, as well as a Phoenix Sylvestris which has also gone completely brown and stopped growing. I have tried to give them both as much water as possible, but I fear it is too late and they have dried out and already died.

I have also just lost 4 cucumber plants have been killed off completely as a result of this drought. I think they were unable to put down roots properly due to how dry the soil was and with there being no ground water available. I did try to keep them watered, but clearly it was not enough. An almost impossible task when the soil is bone dry 6-9 inches below the surface now. It's just extremely hard to grow anything in the soil this year, although the tomatoes seem to be doing okay strangely enough.

 

I have attached a picture of the soil that I am having to work with here, bone dry and almost completely devoid of life. I plan on putting some sunflowers in the spot in the image below, assuming they will grow in that sun-baked, drought ridden ground. It's almost impossible to dig a hole here though, it's just that dry and compacted. 

I am also concerned by the fact that the trees are starting to shed their leaves already, in late May / early June. And the leaves look totally brown already. I have never seen this happen before around here. The leaves aren't supposed to come down for another 4-5 months. I don't know whether this is linked to the drought, or not? What are your thoughts?

I also went to inspect some nearby fire damage at one of my local reserves. It's still cordoned off after last month's fire, so I can't get too close at present. All that remains is a burnt out skeleton of a tree left standing on the horizon. Notice another big, burnt tree trunk lying on the ground in the centre of the picture. That was a 150 year old oak that got incinerated by the flames and collapsed. Everything around it is burnt black, extending over the horizon. Unfortunately the fire was far worse than I realised. A beautiful moor and forest reserve, just a few miles from me, quite possibly lost forever. 

[sipalms]

How come the Washingtonia went completely brown and stopped growing? These guys are right at home in the desert...

[UK_Palms]

10 hours ago, sipalms said:

How come the Washingtonia went completely brown and stopped growing? These guys are right at home in the desert...

Not sure. Something is definitely amiss. And it's not just my larger Washingtonia specimen that has stopped growing, all of my smaller Filibusta hybrids have been stopped in their tracks as well, and look like they are dying. These are palms that continued to put out good growth throughout our very mild winter here, right up until late April. Then its just suddenly went to sh*t. Whereas my Trachy's, Chamaerops, Phoenix etc are all growing fine still. 

I want to say it is a combination of the heat and drought in recent weeks, but like you say, Washies are right at home in the desert, so that wouldn't make sense. The one Filibusta hybrid that is doing okay now, is planted in the ground, whereas the others are in pots. That might have something to do with it. Ironically that particular specimen was planted in the ground because it was my worst looking specimen at that point. Now it is the only one I have that is actively growing. 

I'll post up some pics tomorrow. 

[Exotic Life]

After a cool but still very sunny/dry may I hit 33C up here yesterday.  It is a little but not much better here at the other side of the northsea with also in our little huge local differences. 
This dry change is only from the last few years here with summer 2018 as his peak because before that we had unstable warm/wet summers that brought heat and sometimes destructive thunderstorms.  We are drier than 2018 at this moment confirming this figure below which is country average but in fact this figure should not have started at zero but much higher as we never recovered from the drought last year. Specially the southeast and east are the driest parts of the country at this moment. 

The biggest danger at this moment and is directly the difference between you and me is that our landscape is still looking green and fresh at the moment.  Because the little winter rains and some small showers the past few weeks the top layer like grass was wet enough to grow. If you dive deeper the real problems begins and this is visuable a pits and puddles that normally and full with water but empty now.  This past few months we have been a different regime than past summer which also brought almost no rain but this regime looks like is changing. The only question right now will be a similair dry but now warm regime or a more humid and so on wetter southwest regime.  I fully agree that if it becomes dry and warm like last summer again also here the landscape will turn brown very quickly. 

 

[Matthew92]

Just saw live news coverage from London and it was raining there. Also a decent amount of rain in the 10 day forecast. Is the pattern shifting now?

[UK_Palms]

1 hour ago, Matthew92 said:

Just saw live news coverage from London and it was raining there. Also a decent amount of rain in the 10 day forecast. Is the pattern shifting now?

Yeah, it has rained here this afternoon. Not much though, due to how light the rainfall is. I mean I have only recorded 0.1 inches today. The sun is out shining now though. You wouldn't even know that it had rained earlier. 

There is some rain forecast over the coming week, but again I am not expecting it to register much due to how light it will likely be. We'll be lucky to see 0.3 inches this week. The temps are below average at present though, so at least the ground won't be getting died out too much more. 

[Matthew92]

2 hours ago, UK_Palms said:

Yeah, it has rained here this afternoon. Not much though, due to how light the rainfall is. I mean I have only recorded 0.1 inches today. The sun is out shining now though. You wouldn't even know that it had rained earlier. 

There is some rain forecast over the coming week, but again I am not expecting it to register much due to how light it will likely be. We'll be lucky to see 0.3 inches this week. The temps are below average at present though, so at least the ground won't be getting died out too much more. 

I visited London about this time last year, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky for the week+ we were there along with hot temperatures. Hopefully the rain currently in the forecast is a sign that it is at least trending away from those completely desert-like conditions.

[UK_Palms]

Well, the rain has definitely arrived. This week has been an absolute wash out, especially today. I have received more rainfall in the past 7 days than I have in the past 6 months! Certainly no chance of any more fires for the rest of this month at least.

There is actually a lot of flooding in places due to the sheer amount of rain we have received over the past 12 hours, and from the previously drought-stricken ground not being ready to take or absorb it. Some roads in my area are impassable due to them being flooded out. 

I have also recorded my coldest June day in 107 years here, with a pathetic little high of 12C today. It's more like March weather than June weather. We should be back up to 19-20C tomorrow though. 

[Tyrone]

Glad you got rain. Floods are not so good though.

[Exotic Life]

Same here, specially the last 10 days have been crazy.  Some places received over 100mm of rain during heavy showers or even destructive thunderstorms, even a small tornado has been reported that caught big hail and heavy winds. The past two weeks we as a little country have been on the border from warm/hot air in Germany and further east but in the meanwhile cool/cold air more to west in UK. Very active weather with cool days and also warm days.  Forecast is rising temperatures up to 30 degrees again by next tuesday/wednesday so it is going up an down at this moment. If this weather will continue this summer than it looks like our old new climate summer are back which means warmer but also wetter and likely to see heavy weather now and then. 

 

 

Edited June 15, 2019 by Exotic Life

[mdsonofthesouth]

My father just got back from Scotland and he said it didn't really go above 58F and rained all but 2 days in the two weeks. But then again he did spend the first few days in Northern-ish Ireland (from Dublin to Belfast).

[UK_Palms]

3 hours ago, mdsonofthesouth said:

My father just got back from Scotland and he said it didn't really go above 58F and rained all but 2 days in the two weeks. But then again he did spend the first few days in Northern-ish Ireland (from Dublin to Belfast).

Very, very weird weather in the UK right now.

Off the back of the warmest winter on record, with the highest average temperatures on record, and a new record high set in February (23C) and the driest spring ever on record, we are now experiencing our coldest and wettest start to a summer on record. You couldn't write this stuff. The first half of June has been wetter and colder than any other on record. 

There is no extended heat in the forecast either, with highs of around 23-24C next week at best, which is a massive contrast to the 30-35C we were experiencing for weeks on end at this time last year during the 2018 summer drought and heatwave. 

For the past 3 years, back to back, the temperature has consistently been around 36-37C on the summer solstice (June 21st), however this year it looks to be a paltry 20C. 

The last time this happened though, with a cool-wet June... both August and September saw massive heatwaves and droughts. So I have reason to believe it will be a similar case this year. As last year when we had the heatwaves and droughts early on, in June & July, it was followed by a wet and cool August and September. 

It seems the first half of summer is either cool and wet, followed by a hot and dry second half of the summer. Or vice versa, it starts off hot and dry, then the second half is cool and wet. And it just so happens that we are in a cool-wet early summer cycle. 

Met Office is reporting that there is a monstrous heatwave due to hit in the last few days of June, with a 60% probability of 100F temperatures occurring in July. I think July is set to be far hotter than average, going by the Met's forecasting, so perhaps this month of June has just been a one-off abnormally. It looks like July - September may be a scorcher with well above average temps.  

Edited June 15, 2019 by UK_Palms

[mdsonofthesouth]

Last year we started off cool and shattered yearly rain averages by May to June depending on which county. But temperatures ramped up whereas this year we started pretty warm with a nearly record hot May only to have a cooler than average June. So far June feels like April and that's not good for pool season....liveable sure, but not preferable. But as far as plants go they seem to love it!

 

Rain seems to be average and we have already had our share of tornados thus far.

[Exotic Life]

Full week of summer ahead... 
The beginning of the week looks pretty sure, but after thursday it is still changing now and then from cooler too warmer.
In quite some moments I am a little warmer than the forecast so hot days and warm nights to come.

 

 

Edited June 21, 2019 by Exotic Life

[NorCalKing]

Your native vegetation is in for a rude awakening if you are in fact turning into a semi arid location. Unlike here in California where our native trees have had centuries to adapt to months of zero rainfall. I fear your native trees won't fair near as well. Good luck. And hopefully you get your normal rains.

[Exotic Life]

At least the arid weather is back on track right? Only this time with a wetter underground because the early summer/late spring rainfall.
Are we at the beginning of a historic week? We never reached 40 degrees/104F here in the past but it is back on the cards again.  Models are going up and down after wednesday but there are chances for sure. We have seen this in the past few years as well but finally we never reached that 40C border.  Southeast of the country have the highest chance I think.

 

[UK_Palms]

19 hours ago, NorCalKing said:

Your native vegetation is in for a rude awakening if you are in fact turning into a semi arid location. Unlike here in California where our native trees have had centuries to adapt to months of zero rainfall. I fear your native trees won't fair near as well. Good luck. And hopefully you get your normal rains.

It depends, because the rainfall is becoming more and more unreliable/erratic each year. Like how I had 3 inches of rain during the first 5 months of 2019, only to then receive 2.5 inches of rainfall in the space of 2 weeks at the start of June.

Native vegetation may be able to recover if events like that happen, as I cannot see any real damage at present. The recent rains seemed to have greened everything up significantly. I guess time will tell, whether we have any long term damage/effects of this dry/wet cycle. It definitely isn't consistent year on year though, as I didn't have a drop of rain last June. Whereas the first two weeks of June this year were the wettest on record.

It looks like we're entering another dry spell though, going into July.  Looking at the current forecast models, July and August are going to be scorchers. I think the heat will be as much as an issue for the native vegetation as the lack of rain. 

[UK_Palms]

Corrr bloody hell, I've just sweated through my warmest June night on record with a low of 21.5C last night. We may well beat that tonight though with lows around 20C forecast. If it stays as overcast as it is now, I can see us only dropping to 21-22C. 

Today as well has been absolutely unbearable. Not particularly hot, only around 27C at 3pm, but the humidity has been around 80-90% all day, so it has felt more like the low 30's. Working in that sort of tropical, sticky heat was vile. No rain, but completely overcast and lightening in the distance. Thunderstorms forecast for the early hours. Reminds me of Brisbane in summer time, that sort of heat & humidity. 28C forecast for tomorrow, but 32-35C by end of the week and humid still. 

[Estlander]

29 minutes ago, UK_Palms said:

Today as well has been absolutely unbearable. Not particularly hot, only around 27C at 3pm, but the humidity has been around 80-90% all day, so it has felt more like the low 30's. Working in that sort of tropical, sticky heat was vile. No rain, but completely overcast and lightening in the distance. Thunderstorms forecast for the early hours. Reminds me of Brisbane in summer time, that sort of heat & humidity. 28C forecast for tomorrow, but 32-35C by end of the week and humid still. 

Enjoy it while it lasts. Imagine getting 32-35C with high humidity almost every single day for seven months straight, and even longer in South FL. The only time it drops to mid 24-27C range is with heavy cloud cover and rain. Currently it's 35.2C here. Florida summers are quite something, I tell ya! lol.