I tell my blues they mustn't show

[venta]

This drought we're having in the south-east: it's very... damp.

Comments

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

It's probably the wrong sort of rain though.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Yes that's one of the questions I address in my article about drought. The fact that a few days' rainfall doesn't mean the drought is over.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do realise really that a few days' heavy rain won't sort it all out. And that summer thundershowers actually pretty much are the wrong sort of rain.

Drought is a serious thing, and even if the current weather won't "fix" it, I assume it will at least help - the ground near my office that was all cracked and crispy and starting to form fissures a fortnight ago is looking considerably healthier. So it is a good thing that it's raining at the moment.

It's just particularly galling to have to get completely changed due to drenching when there's a hosepipe ban :) I await the day that one of those buses with a "We are in drought" advert on the side will spatter me with puddle-water!

[venta.livejournal.com]

As someone just said to me: but we've had all the kinds of damp in Ealing today! Heavy damp, hard damp, light damp, thunderous damp... :)

[erming.livejournal.com]

Most of this I think will get absorbed by the ground - very little will probably make it to the ground water / reservoirs!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh, I actually thought the problem was the other way round - heavy, hard rain on dry ground runs straight off into rivers/reservoirs, instead of being soaked into the ground where it will help boost the groundwater levels.

Maybe sammason will set us straight if she comes back, it sounds like she knows about these things...

[erming.livejournal.com]

Mum said last week that when digging in the garden it was dry a few inches down. So anything landing on it I thought would go to rehydrating the soil and it taking a substantial amount more to get through the dry soil and into the water table.

Of course I could be very wrong on the whole subject, here is hoping sammason gets back to us.

[erming.livejournal.com]

I think the big difference is in this weather people don't water their gardens, and water butts get replenished, which means a marked reduction in present water use that continues for a while later.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Oh dear I should be able to live up to this expectation, shouldn't I? But I'm not sure that I'm quite that much of an expert. Yet.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, sorry to heap the expectations on you! I got carried away by the Argyle, I should think...

[venta.livejournal.com]

I imagine that certainly does make a difference, yes.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Sounds equally plausible :)

I remember from being a kid hearing about flooding in drought-ridden Ethiopia, and being confused about it. Apparently the earth's surface was baked hard enough that the water from a torrential downpour just ran straight off - you need lots of steady, light drizzle to soften it up before water gets absorbed properly into the ground.

I don't think we were quite at that level of drought, though, so it may not be relevant at all.

(Also, holy crap, the weather in West London is positively biblical at present...)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Yes it was quite a biblical flood when we went to sort out the river last night and ended up cancelling the event.

[erming.livejournal.com]

Africa's soil if I remember correctly is quite heavily clay based, so baking would make a little more sense.

Well watch out for a plague of frogs!

We had the biblical rain at lunch time today in the west end.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Well that's understandable ;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I can't help feeling that the quickest way out of this mess is just to let the Israelites go...

[erming.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm, I think it has just reached us, just as I was planning on escaping the office. I think I'll pass on the 4 mile walk I was going to do this evening!

[uitlander]

I was just thinking that looking out the window. What are you doing inside my head?

Meanwhile, Look North has spent the week congratulating itself that it has rain and is not in 'The South', which IIRC lies just beyond Durham.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm... sounds like we're both right:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17836246

A spokesman there is saying that all the rain is going to be absorbed into dry soil or run off the surface... but either way it doesn't get down far enough to top up groundwater levels.

[erming.livejournal.com]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17875456 for a full explanation