South has driest July in almost 200 years
WITH homes ablaze, scorched crops and melting airport runways, the extreme heat of the past month will live long in the memory.
And now the Met Office has confirmed that southern England had its driest July for almost 200 years – since records began in 1836.
South-east and central southern England saw an average of just 5mm of rain last month, while East Anglia had 5.4mm.
The country overall had an average of 23.1mm – the lowest figure for the month since 1935 and also the seventh lowest on record.
Southern Water announced a hosepipe ban for parts of Hampshire last week – which
will come into force this Friday affecting half a million households. But the Met Office said it was hopeful that the recordbreaking July temperatures of over 40C (104F) were unlikely to be repeated this month.
Forecaster Alex Burkill said yesterday: ‘There are no signs it’s going to be as exceptionally hot as a couple of weeks ago. We will still see hot spells, but we’ve most likely had the worst of the heat this summer.’
The extreme weather wreaked havoc across the country with homes going up in flames in the east London suburb of Wennington. Both Luton Airport and RAF Brize Norton had to suspend flights amid reports of melting runways.
Meanwhile farmers have complained of stress to crops with the parched conditions also severely hampering grass growth which could hit hay supplies for winter. It comes as
Cambridge University scientists warned rising temperatures from climate change could trigger nuclear war, cause widespread famines and allow lethal diseases to escape labs.
The team said a ‘climate endgame’ could be set in motion if global temperatures rise by 3C in the coming decades.
Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, researchers said extreme heat would add to existing risk factors for wars such as rising inequality, growing populations, misinformation and the development of lethal weapons.
It would also make it harder to cope with ‘natural shocks’, such as solar flares and volcanic eruptions.
One future scenario they describe involves ‘warm wars’ in which technologically advanced superpowers fight over giant experiments to block out sunlight in the atmosphere.