Fears Of A Summer Drought In Britain

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By Paul Homewood

 

 

The wettest inhabited place in England is "bone dry" as the prospect of a summer drought loomed closer.

Seathwaite, in Borrowdale, Cumbria, typically receives between two and three metres of rainfall per year. But the River Derwent has gone for so long without sufficient rain, its rocky bed is exposed.

Meanwhile, gorse fires in Oban, on the west coast of Scotland, forced a beach to be evacuated over the weekend as temperatures soared to an unseasonal 18C.

It comes amid fears that the country may be subjected to a summer drought, with rivers and reservoirs experiencing dwindling water levels following one of the driest winter in more than 20 years.

The Daily Telegraph reported last week that some homeowners had been told to cut down on water consumption by waiting until their washing machines and dishwashers are fully loaded before running them.

The River Derwent at its usual levels  Credit: Paul Kingston / NNP

They were also advised to swap showers for baths, use sponges instead of hoses to clean cars and to plant plants such as geraniums, marigolds, alyssum and petunias, which resist droughts.

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It’s certainly been pretty dry in Britain in the last few months, but not exceptionally so.

The Telegraph claims that last winter was one of the driest in more than 20 years. But in fact you only have to go back to 2006 to find a drier one.

There have also been 19 drier winters since 1910.

 

Climate scientists, of course, continually tell us that winters are supposed to be getting wetter because of global warming!

 

 

Rainfall in March was actually slightly above average, and April was not excessively dry either.

 

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Of course, drought is an accumulative thing. If we look at the hydrological year so far, since last October, we can see that it has been the 8th driest. The driest was 1975/6.

So again, we find there is absolutely nothing unusual happening this year.

 

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If you really want to see an exceptional spell, you can go back to 1929.

The first nine months that year were, by a long way, the driest on record:

 

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Yet, even more astonishingly, this was followed record rainfall for the next four months.

Not only was this wettest October to January period in the UK, again by a long way. It was also the wettest 4-month period at any time of year.

 

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May 8, 2017 at 10:09PM

Energy Price Cap Concerns

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Sir, The government reportedly intends to impose a price control that would cut £100 off the energy bills of 17 million customers (News, Apr 25). This is despite the Competition and Market Authority’s recent investigation which concluded that such a price control, even if temporary, “would run excessive risks of undermining the competitive process” and was likely to result in “worse outcomes for customers in the long run”.

As part of its investigation the authority calculated, in an unconventional way, that customers were paying more than necessary: it explained that high prices were likely to be “due to inefficiency rather than excess profits” and that a price cap “would create substantial losses for the sector as a whole”.

Surely it is not UK policy to impose measures that would hold prices below cost and inflict substantial losses on companies? A few failed economies have resorted to this. But such measures do not characterise successful market economies nor do they reflect well on UK regulation and competition policy.

Lord Lawson of Blaby, former secretary of state for energy

Stephen Littlechild, emeritus professor, University of Birmingham, and former director general of electricity supply

Sir Callum McCarthy, former chairman Ofgem

David Parker, emeritus professor of privatisation and regulation, Cranfield School of Management

Willy Rickett, former director general (energy), Department of Energy and Climate Change

Clare Spottiswoode former director general of gas supply

Peter Bucks, former non-executive director at Ofwat and senior financial adviser, Ofgem

Xeni Dassiou, reader in economics, City, University of London

Monica Giulietti, professor of microeconomics, Loughborough University

David Henderson, former head of economics & statistics dept, OECD

Tooraj Jamasb, Professor of Energy Economics, Durham University

Eileen Marshall, former managing director, Ofgem

Martin Ricketts, professor of economic organisation, University of Buckingham

Colin Robinson, emeritus professor of economics, University of Surrey

Letter to the Editor of the Times, 1 May 2017

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May 8, 2017 at 09:45PM

May Faces Backlash Over Energy Price Cap

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Theresa May will press ahead today with a promise to cap energy prices for 17 million households despite warnings that the move could force up bills for other customers.

The Conservative general election manifesto will include a pledge to regulate the maximum costs of standard variable tariffs, the default deals for the two thirds of customers who have not sought cheaper alternatives. The prime minister said that she expected the price cap to save families on poor-value tariffs as much as £100 a year.

Introducing a cash limit is the most radical of options that had been under consideration by the government. It is arguably the most significant intervention in the market since privatisation.

Energy companies, which are lobbying against a cap, have claimed that the move would kill competition, deter investment and endanger jobs. They are expected to try to protect their profits by scrapping cut-price deals, which can be hundreds of pounds a year cheaper, so forcing up bills for savvy customers.

Senior Conservatives, including Lord Lawson of Blaby, the former chancellor, have voiced their opposition, with some in government privately pressing for watered-down reforms.

Full story

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May 8, 2017 at 09:45PM

UK braced for drought after ‘excessively dry’ April 

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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

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May 8, 2017 at 09:39PM