Cycling and walking about today, struck by the number of almost dry natural ponds. But this is Essex. Lovely conditions in the forest for riding, however.

Dry autumn.

Relatively dry autumn here in the Midlands, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the water table is low and parts of the country face shortages next year if rainfall stayed below average.

Mind you, rivers round here seem quite full at the moment, and this afternoon’s ride was distinctly on the sloppy side.

Yes, a mostly dry autumn, there are moans all around the whitewater kayaking world as rivers are really low in many places.
I think that land drainage has been responsible too, last week the Tay rose 2 metres in 6 hours, then dropped back down again over the next 12 hours. It used to be mid to high levels from the end of October until March, now it is surges once it has rained.

round here (north/west yorkshire well inside the 70-90% color region) that map seems pretty theoretical..plenty of standing water in all the usual places and the trails are the usual winter mess.

Plenty of puddles around here (North Hampshire) but the river is about a foot down on normal. May not sound much, but we’re near the source, so it’s very noticeable.

While there’s been rain down here in the SW, it’s been drizzling as much as anything, so while the ground is s bit damp and slippy, the water table is low.
I went over to Avebury for my traditional Boxing Day walk, and walked to Silbury Hill and West Kennet Longbarrow, and the Winterbourne was dry except for a few puddles here and there, the Swallowhead Spring which was dry, so the Kennet was dry from that point.
As a ‘winter-born’ river, it should have a couple of feet of water in it, but Swindon abstraction means it gets sucked dry if there hasn’t been much rain.

My parent’s cellar is right on the brink of the local water table and floods in really wet times, they’re on the flood plain behind all the defences but the house hasn’t flooded in 95 years (house is 160 years old). Has a pump permanently in there with a water table probe going down 5m. Usually registers about 4m at this time of year (1m below the cellar floor), currently registering 1.6m so a good 2.4m below here it should be and it tkaes a lot of rain to raise it 1m!!. Has been very dry recently!

round here (north/west yorkshire well inside the 70-90% color region) that map seems pretty theoretical..plenty of standing water in all the usual places and the trails are the usual winter mess.

Bear in mind the MET Office autumn is Sept-Nov. So it could have been pissing down for the last 26 days and nights and the map wouldn’t show it. Here near Glasgow it was a dry autumn (so map 50-70% band correct) but a wetter Dec and torrential the last week.

Weather summary page at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/anomacts

Choose your own years, months, seasons for temp, rainfall or sunshine.

We are now in the dry season and can expect monsoon in the summer.

It’s been below average rainfall in most places.

Just provoking the gods isn’t it, making statements like that when I’m on flood standby this week…

This might help (I like maps and graphs) 🙂

UK monthly hydrological summary from CEH and BGS

Just as dry here in south east Ireland,neighbour had to have new well drilled for water ,previous one had lasted the 85 years of his life so far.
Took 2 lots of drilling to find a decent enough flow rate too.

Then thinking last decent rain we had was early part of the year.