Lack of precipitation East Dorset

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Martin Rowley
Posts: 34
Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2015 8:32 pm
Location: West Moors, East Dorset

Lack of precipitation East Dorset

Post by Martin Rowley » Fri Jun 15, 2018 3:24 pm

... With a groan I heard one of our illustrious weather presenters recently trot out the phrase ... "much needed rain", when discussing a cold front swinging SE'ward over England. Said front produced 0.1 mm of rain here.

We are beginning to experience a marked deficit in rainfall hereabouts. The recent 'winter-half' precipitation [October - March] for us represented 91% of the LTA, and it was only thanks to a >200% out-turn in March that the figure wasn't lower.

April was also wet (166%), but by then of course the evapotranspiration (ETp) figures are climbing sharply. And both May (59%) and this month so far (just the aforementioned 0.1 mm) have been notably dry, when the ETp figures are, on average, around 80 - 90 mm per month; we had a spell of low RH/ east-northeasterlies recently which must have locally enhanced those figures.

The output from longer-range models (e.g. GFS) don't offer much relief this month, and neither do the GPC/MetOffice outputs for June, July, August.

Could be an interesting situation developing for the southern part of England/Britain .... anyone else got thoughts on this?

Martin.
Martin Rowley
West Moors, East Dorset
Lat: 50deg 49.25'N, Long: 01deg 53.05'W
Height (amsl): 17 m (56 feet)
COL category: C1 overall/TRSHEUN=CC-A03-

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Len Wood
Posts: 102
Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2015 8:41 pm
Location: 1 km from coast in Wembury, SW Devon

Re: Lack of precipitation East Dorset

Post by Len Wood » Mon Jun 18, 2018 11:08 am

Compared to your location Martin, our dry spell only started in May.
37.3 mm in May. (Average 61 mm)
8.8 mm to 17th June. (Average 65 mm)

The 'winter-half' precipitation [October - March] for Wembury was 130% of LTA.

Our South West Water reservoirs are fairly full at around 90% so there is no worry on that count atm.
There is only Burrator which is 55%, but the others can supply when this gets too low.

https://www.southwestwater.co.uk/enviro ... -storages/
Len
Wembury, SW Devon coast

83 m amsl

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