“Having seen virtually no rainfall in southern parts of the UK, we will see some rainfall. ‘How much?’ is the question.” That was Will Lang, the Met Office’s chief meteorologist, on whether the drought gripping England and Wales is about to break. His answer: probably not by much.
The overall amount of rain will still be below normal for the time of year, Lang said. Autumn is when conditions normally change, with wetter and windier weather, but whether that is enough to ease the drought “we don’t know yet.”
How dry it has been
July rainfall ranged from 26% of the expected average in North West England to as little as 1% in the South East. In parts of Hampshire, West Sussex and the Isle of Wight, 59 days in a row passed without rain.
The Environment Agency says 71.3% of England is now in drought, London and Birmingham included, along with holiday areas such as Devon, Cornwall and Norfolk. Natural Resources Wales has declared a drought across the whole of Wales.
El Nino and the politics
Lang spoke after Prime Minister Andy Burnham visited the Met Office in Exeter, Devon, where he met apprentices and staff. Earlier on Friday, Burnham had been at a wildfire in Stourbridge in the West Midlands. Paramedics treated 54 people there, and 19 were admitted to hospital.
Burnham told broadcasters the country might face “a wet autumn and winter straight after this, because of El Nino,” a point he said had been raised with Cobra. “There’s no point denying where we are,” he said. “We need more clean energy, we need to see that transition accelerate.”
El Nino is declared when sea temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific climb 0.5C above the long-term average. The Met Office’s Professor Adam Scaife has said this year’s event will likely cause “a temporary spike in global annual temperature,” with leftover heat possibly making next year the hottest in the global series from 1850.
Lang was cautious about what it means for Britain. El Nino can begin to affect the UK winter, he said, and can give rainfall a small boost in late autumn and early winter. “We’re not sure that that will happen at this stage,” he said. “Beyond that, it’s really too early to tell.”
Chris Hinchliff, the Labour MP for North East Hertfordshire, wrote to Burnham last week urging “urgent action” to prepare for hotter weather. He asked for a national “nature restoration workforce” to plant trees and restore wetlands to hold more water, a review of how well national infrastructure copes with heat, and faster food security planning, including support for local, community-scale food production.
