Sunshine is on its way, but hold on to your hosepipes
THERE has been 4mm of rain in my garden over the past week and the paucity is beginning to show. The leaves of my hydrangea are brown and curling at the tips, and the climbing roses are starting to gum and droop.
My dwindling water butts remind me of my bank overdraft ahead of payday – the bottom clearly visible and nothing coming in.
To avert global insect Armageddon I’m not mowing the lawn this year – something which miraculously seems to have attracted a family of goldfinches into my garden – and the meadow grass remains a verdant green.
But elsewhere I have started to notice those telltale patches of yellow that during last summer’s drought spanned so much of the British Isles.
Across England as a whole over the past week there has been 8mm of rain and for the month as a whole 40mm, which is 66 per cent of the long-term average. In the South East just 2mm has fallen in seven days, while more than half of England’s rivers are currently reporting below normal flows for this time of year.
Perhaps it is churlish to bang on about the rain – or lack thereof – when much of the country will bask in beautifully warm sunshine this weekend. Today highs of 80.6F (27C) are expected in London and even at night will still hover around 62.6F (17C).
However, hold on to your hosepipes, because into next week the outlook is for the possibility of scattered showers. By Wednesday, when Donald Trump will accompany the Queen to Portsmouth to attend the national D-day commemorations, the forecast is longer spells of rain.
Bad news for the presidential comb-over – which has famously fared badly when the weather whips up – but vital for our green and pleasant land to remain just that.
A long summer lies ahead. And the predictable washout we could once depend on no longer seems so.