UK braced for drought after ‘excessively dry’ April

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Credit: BBC / Met Office

Contrasting weather situations for the UK and the US, post El Niño. Even the wettest place in England is ‘bone dry’.

There are fears the UK could be braced for widespread drought this summer after “excessively dry conditions”, says ITV News.

The Environment Agency said the UK saw just 35% of its normal rainfall in April and farmers have been warned crops could fail.The unusual weather spell follows the driest winter since 1995-1996.

Minette Batters, Deputy President of the National Farmers’ Union, told ITV News: “I think many of my farming colleagues in East Anglia, in the south east are seeing excessively dry conditions.”

Farmer James Winslade told ITV News: “Arable farmers, grass farmers, dairy farmers – it doesn’t make any difference. They’re all worried. They’ve all cut grass earlier than they normally would have done and we haven’t had the rain to get the grass and crops growing back”.

Rupert Evelyn said the water level at Wimbleball Lake in Exmoor is already “much lower than it was in 1995, when it was a drought year.” He added: “On the surface everything looks fine. But it’s actually about 90% full.”

The situation is repeated around the UK, with the River Derwent in Yorkshire – reportedly the wettest place in the country – bone dry, with spring barley in Somerset struggling to take hold through cracked clay.

Source: UK braced for drought after ‘excessively dry’ April – ITV News
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Meanwhile, many parts of the US have the opposite situation, as Seth Borenstein reports.

That whole April showers thing went a bit overboard last month in the United States.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday it was the second wettest April on record, averaging 3.43 inches for the nation, nearly an inch above the 20th century average. Only 1957 had more April rain. Records go back to 1895.

Only 5 percent of the U.S. is in drought, the lowest drought footprint the 17-year-old U.S. Drought Monitor has recorded. NOAA calculates that 0.75 percent of the Lower 48 states are considered “very dry.”

NOAA climate scientist Jake Crouch said many storms kept chugging over the U.S. in April from the Pacific.

Crouch said April fits global warming patterns of increasing heavy downpours interspersed with drought.

Source: Near record amount of April showers drench US last month | Phys.org