Possible drought

The News this morning is stating that the South East will end up with a drought this year. So what does the stats say?

The table below shows the rainfall since Oct 2005 and you will see that last year was exceptionally dry at 418mm of rain (March and April only had 3mm of rain!!) Jan and Feb 2012 have started off the same as well.

So far in Feb we have only had 8 days of rain compared to 16 days last year and a record of 25 days of rain  in 2010.

The graph shows how the last 12 months rain has been compared to the average of the last 6.5 years.

Looks like the hosepipe won;t be coming out this year!!

	JAN	FEB	MAR	APR	MAY	JUN	JUL	AUG	SEP	OCT	NOV	DEC	TOT
2005										14	22	13	50
2006	5	39	27	38	66	30	16	56	64	64	45	63	514
2007	42	64	38	6	60	22	52	19	20	23	35	27	407
2008	50	11			71	29	59	87	47	59	104	33	550
2009	90	75	42	30	34	66	82	30	18	30	151	84	732
2010	38	90	47	12	26	33	14	90	34	62	38	40	524
2011	76	30	2	1	16	71	39	36	24	24	38	62	418
2012	35	12											47
MIN	5	11	2	1	16	22	14	19	18	14	22	13	407
MAX	90	90	47	38	71	71	82	90	64	64	151	84	732
AVG	48	46	31	17	45	42	44	53	35	39	62	46	519

Feb 2012 cold spell

With Last week's snow still around how cold has this could spell been? Today we have had a little snow shower and whilst driving home from Newcastle on Thursday the snow on the A1 and M11 was bordering on dangerous with the outside lane covered in snow. Great fun though especially driving with 2 new Pirelli tyres on the rear of the car after one of my other tyres developed a puncture whilst driving up on Monday. Whilst I hate run flats due to the price it was good to be able to run to Leeds on them before having them changed.

So some comparisons to previous Feb months and to the cold spell in 2010:

1st - 11th Feb	2012	-0.527
1st - 11th Feb	2011	7.8
1st - 11th Feb	2010	3.35
1st - 11th Feb	2009	1.32
1st - 11th Feb	2008	8.84
1st - 11th Feb	2007	4.2
1st - 11th Feb	2006	3.78
1st - 11th Dec	2010	0.245
25th - 9th Dec	2010	-0.586

You can see November into December 2010 was colder by 0.05 degrees but the cold spell was longer, over 15 days where the current cold spell will probably only be over  today at 12 days as temperatures will warm up from this afternoon.

So overall a great cold spell but not as great as 2010 where it was colder with 12 inches of snow and not 4.5!

Picture below is the snow still lying around.

Today's snow

Feb 5th snow Event!!

4.5 inches of snow

Well we received a dumping last night, in fact 4.5 inches of snow and much better than I thought. Temperatures have stayed low throughout today and this means the snow is still here.

The mean temp for today is - 0.4 and this is the 4th day in a row with a negative mean temp. To put this into perspective the last negative mean temp day for Cliffe Woods was the 26th December 2010. This just goes to show how mild 2011 really was.

With the temp outside dropping and snow still here there is expected to be a lot of black ice around overnight which is worrying as I need to drive to leeds first thing.

Clearing the drive

At least the drive is prepared as Pavan and I  have shovelled all the snow off.

We had great fun in the snow today, cleaning the drive, the cars, having a snow ball fight and then finally taking the sledge to the main hill in Cliffe woods.

It was packed, probably 100+ people there, all having fun. Pavan had a few near misses on his sledge with sign posts and a parked car. Unfortunately his lack of skill at controlling the sledge and with a non helpful push from Pinky he ended up underneath a wooden fence of someone's front garden. This was game over and he cried all the way home....well until he decided it was fun to throw snowballs at a not very pleased Pinky!

I charged the camera up last night to take some photos, although I must admit it is difficult to find fresh and interesting photos  It was fun to take photos of Pavan clearing the drive whilst dodging snow balls and I did get a nice macro shot of the snow. If you click on the picture and zoom in you can see some nice flakes.

Snow taken with macro lens

Next week: 

So what will happen next week?

 I think we are in the prime location in the SE as we are expected to keep the easterlies for some time but there is also a possibility of some northerlies. Either way it looks likely to stay cold for at least the next 7 days with some possible snow showers.  10 days ago I would have said winter was over but looks like Feb is going to be an interesting and cold month!