washing car with hosepipe ban!

[craigowl 0]

Statistics are OK unless in the hands on non-specialists, or those with an axe to grind.

Actually, the last ten years or 30 years as a whole does not matter in the affected parts of England. It is the last 2 or 3 years which play the major part in developing the drought.

As a professional meteorologist for the past 47 years and involved in rainfall measurement and mapping in Scotland since 1978, you can rest assured that our Met office's maps give a good representation of the facts. Also, I have maintained a daily rainfall record at my home since 1978 and inherited another record back to 1956 from our town's Burgh civil engineer (water).

 

Just because a couple of lows are giving bitter winds and squally showers this week does not mean that Yorkshire's ground water is up to normal.

The millions of gallons of good water lost every day due to the much needed and costly replacement of Victorian water mains does not help.

With the pipeline from Loch Katrine, Glasgow's main water supply transformed overnight in about 1840 from often fetid wells in the city to one of the purest in Europe.

I visited people at these works several times and they all said we owe a great deal to our Victorian ancestors, but we are baulking at replacing the infrastructure as it would "cost too much". Mains are replaced as they fail bigtime, but many leaky ones will have to wait.

Clearly, this situation is more serious in parts of the UK with relatively low rainfall. Most Brits and water-dependent industries are in the driest parts of Britain. The Scottish and Welsh hills and the Lake District can catch up to 8 times more rainfall than Essex some years.

Our Loch Lomond holds enough water to last Scotland about 40 years - assuming no rain fell again - so the water authorities tell us.

 

Too dry where you are? Simple, move northwest. Move northwest and uphill for even more!

 

"You never miss the water till the well runs dry."

 

---------- Post added at 2:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 2:20 PM ----------

 

Weather geek on

Its the lack of water under ground in aquifers that is the problem in areas affected by the drought, it needs normal winter rainfall just to balance the losses over summer and more than normal to regain deficit.

It doesn't matter how much it rains now because it won't recharge the groundwater unless we get above average rainfall next winter. High evaporation and transpiration rates in spring and summer means that the net balance of water reaching aquifers is minimal.

Three Winters in a row with considerably below average rainfall is too much to cope with.

Weather geek off

 

Ha! Ha! - nice to know you Gus!

 

---------- Post added at 2:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 2:22 PM ----------

 

..worked with rainfall data for 34 years. No one in the Met Office that I knew of had any motive other than quantifying data from properly certified standard stations.

This is not America, where immoral scientists have represented, say, tobacco and oil companies with slanted information.

OK - be paranoid in these mad times, but make sure of your facts. Every person in the street thinks they can be the expert in a free country like ours, but only good data interpreted by accredited and well-informed specialists will get you near or at the truth.

Edited April 19, 2012 by craigowl

[Kevin Bacon 5]

The millions of gallons of good water lost every day due to the much needed and costly replacement of Victorian water mains does not help.

 

Yep. The press jumped on that one immediately as being the main reason behind the drought.

 

I visited people at these works several times and they all said we owe a great deal to our Victorian ancestors, but we are baulking at replacing the infrastructure as it would cost too much. Mains are replaced as they fail bigtime, but many leaky ones will have to wait.

 

Typical British too little, too late, way of doing things. Wait until at least 20 people die crossing a dangerous road before underpassing it. Wait until the country has practically no water left before replacing the pipes. Wait until complete grid lock occurs before building new roads. Wait until a massive housing shortage occurs before building new ones. When did UK government lose the ability to be proactive?

 

Germany was comprehensively bombed, as we were, during the war, and yet they have less than 10% water leakage rate, which is a lot lower than ours. Obviously the Germans replaced destroyed pipes with better ones, whereas we just patched up the old Victorian iron pipes instead of taking the oppurtunity to replace them with plastic.

[davidwort 0]

it's ****ing it down here again, bloody weather :)

[Kevin Bacon 5]

It's been p1ssing it down here in East Anglia (the driest region of the country!) since the ban was enforced.

[KADVR6 0]

It's been p1ssing it down here in East Anglia (the driest region of the country!) since the ban was enforced.

 

 

yeh but it dont bother you as you dont like washing your car anyway do you??

[davidwort 0]

Too dry where you are? Simple, move northwest. Move northwest and uphill for even more!

 

on that note, think I might have found the reason why everyone wants to live in the south-east :)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]59665[/ATTACH]

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/averages/ukmapavge.html

[Portent 0]

I just had to take the Corrado out in the pouring rain. Normally I take the golf if it's raining. It's filthy now. Not happy. Will have to throw a few buckets over it.

[craigowl 0]

on that note, think I might have found the reason why everyone wants to live in the south-east :)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]59665[/ATTACH]

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/averages/ukmapavge.html

 

Two surveys showed that the best quality of life in the UK are to be found in Perth and - a very recent one this - Shetland!

 

Personally, I like the sunshine, but not great heat - the Underground in London was like a baker's oven at times when I was down there in the 1960s.

Sun ain't everything as I found when living and working in the "home counties" for several years.

Yorkshire seemed a good compromise for me.

Edited April 19, 2012 by craigowl

[guildmage 11]

Another week has passed... and rain? as it was raining it still rains.. non-stop! I think it is getting on my nerves a bit. I like rain, it helps everything grow... but this is too much for me.

I am genuinely looking for some sunshine now... I want bbq and I want to to be able to work on my car. However, checked weather forecast and it will rain till 8th of May at least, dam.

[dragon green 4]

Imagine how hard it would be raining if we weren't in a drought !!