Stormy Weather II

[Old Grumpy]

Agree. No 1 offenders are the water companies for not fixing leaks. However we all have to play our part and I think water metering and judicious use of hoses (lawn sprinklers should be banned outright IMV) are also part of the solution. I am not convinced of the "future rainfall will be sufficient" argument.

[Serial_Apologist]

If you want to ban hosepipes and make water metering compulsory, now is a good time to score a few points.

Sorting out supply issues in our leaky mains pipes is apparently way down the agenda. Meanwhile, we have had a wet year, 2020, a slightly dry year, 2021, and a very dry year this year.
It will resolve, as it did after a dry 2010, even of we are in for a few tricky months, albeit with the wettest part of the year to come.

Incidentally, the Met Office figures quoted in the national press are showing figures from November 2021 onwards. Not sure why they are using that as the start point , but it is true to say that we had a very wet October last year. Draw your own conclusions.

I hears someone asking yesterday if the reason for the sea level rises was all the unfixed leaks!

[teamsaint]

Agree. No 1 offenders are the water companies for not fixing leaks. However we all have to play our part and I think water metering and judicious use of hoses (lawn sprinklers should be banned outright IMV) are also part of the solution. I am not convinced of the "future rainfall will be sufficient" argument.

Plenty of people opt for water meters. Many people have genuine need to have higher water usage. Unmetered water really needs to remain an option IMO.

I’m not convinced by the “ CEO of infrastructure company demands higher bills argument. “
And the long term trend in annual rainfall is markedly upwards.

https://climate-change.data.gov.uk/climate-weather

[oddoneout]

Plenty of people opt for water meters. Many people have genuine need to have higher water usage. Unmetered water really needs to remain an option IMO.

I’m not convinced by the “ CEO of infrastructure company demands higher bills argument. “
And the long term trend in annual rainfall is markedly upwards.
https://climate-change.data.gov.uk/climate-weather

The split between metered and unmetered is historical, can be inequitable and doesn't address those with legitimate higher water needs. People who stay in the same house for decades and haven't had a meter installed, such as my immediate neighbours, - installation hasn't ever been compulsory here, although it came close, I don't know about elsewhere - can remain unmetered and possibly living next to a house where a meter has been installed and where the occupants have a higher usage need and so much higher bills. There are alternative tariffs available for such need but how well they work in practice I don't know - having to prove eligibility isn't always either easy or consistent for such things.
The current set-up will result in bills continuing to increase greatly if the companies are made to do the basic work necessary to address some of the problems as they will maintain the same or larger profits for shareholders and CEOs etc rather than using the profits to fulfill their obligations. Water will join the list of basic requirements that more and more people cannot afford. In the meantime that expensive commodity will be supplied by outfits responsible for needless waste of an increasingly scarce resource and unrepentant sewage dumping, in which they are aided and abetted by government, which among other things is happy to rig the planning laws to remove obligations on developers and prevent local planners having any control over such development. Can't upset our donors old boy, what what.
And it's time to ditch the "showers use less water" myth. It may have been true 30 or so years ago when it first started being said and showers were pitiful and erratic trickles but it ain't anymore. Modern showers use large amounts of water and people use them more often.
I wish I could use my bath water in the garden, as I did in a previous house, but with an internal downstairs bathroom that isn't possible. I save the cold water before the boiler kicks in when running a bath, and I suppose if things became really bad I could find some kind of pump to remove the used water into buckets. As I use so little, scooping it out wouldn't get very far.

[BBMmk2]

I honk we’ll see rain today?!?!?

[Serial_Apologist]

I honk we’ll see rain today?!?!?

Toot toot? Methinks not.

However car washing often does the trick of prompting the rain gods - one thing's almost sure: wash the car and it will rain!

[Joseph K]

22, sunny and with not too much of a breeze - pleasant.

[Serial_Apologist]

22, sunny and with not too much of a breeze - pleasant.

Well it's dropped back a degree to 25C in this part of London in the past hour, with two-thirds coverage of cumulus mediocris suggesting a teasing possibility of showers, but probably without enough convective oomph to get the necessary cloud-building processes sufficiently strongly underway. Light morning showers were indicated over Kent and Sussex earlier on near when BBM resides, likely caused by emergent sea breezes generating a convergence line against the prevailing sou'westerly current; but what is increasingly desperately needed is rain, preferably moderate rather than of the torrential kind that just washes surface soils down drains, and on a widespread scale to replenish reservoirs, rivers, and soils and vegetation.

Edit: Just now I checked the average temperatures for last month here - they were 3.8C above the month norm, which appears to be the general difference throughout western Europe as a whole, including France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland and the southern half of the UK, Scotland and N Ireland being nearer to what might be expected. Interestingly - arguably worryingly - over the past 1 and a half years, monthly averages for this part of London have only been below mean on 3 occasions. I don't actually know if temperatures are officially averaged over given time periods or since records began. My own figures for calculating are probably below what I should be expecting them to go by. Unfortunately I have not been keeping continuous records since I began collecting in 1963 - and I have of course moved several times geographically during all that time.

[DracoM]

15C, WET and distinctly autumnal

[BBMmk2]

Toot toot? Methinks not.

However car washing often does the trick of prompting the rain gods - one thing's almost sure: wash the car and it will rain!

Indeed.

23C. Intermittent cloud, with a high of. 24C. Been trying to rain, but not successful.

[Joseph K]

Well, I've had covid, and it manifested as a relatively mild cold which lasted around a week (ending approx. last Friday). But this morning after a shower for some reason I felt a strange and unpleasant feeling in my sinuses and a few of my teeth had gone numb for some reason - and I felt drowsy and queasy, I had to forsake my morning guitar practice to just lie down and got a bowl in case I had to throw up (I never did). After about an hour and a half I was feeling a bit better and I've been for a walk and just had lunch. I'm not sure what it was, perhaps this weather which is warm, windy, cloudy and more stuffy than at any previous point this year (at least here) might have had something to do with it - or maybe I hadn't drank enough water...

[oddoneout]

Indeed.

23C. Intermittent cloud, with a high of. 24C. Been trying to rain, but not successful.

The temperature has risen rapidly as has windspeed - 26 degrees and gusting up to 30mph is quickly finishing off the last remnants of the useful rain we had in the early hours of Sunday morning. More of the same tomorrow. It was good while it lasted to have a bit of a break from the never ending watering... I have drastically reduced the plants getting such attention (5 new fruit trees, some veg and about 6 containers of decorative - permanent not annual - planting and 3 of salad and tender veg - which would have been in the ground in other years), but the conditions have been such that just pottering round with a watering can of an evening doesn't suffice - especially when a mole is excavating underneath and blackbirds on top.

[DracoM]

As I post, here is COLD - i.e. 11C - damp, and being bashed by a fierce North-Westerly.
August.............? Huh!

[teamsaint]

Well, I've had covid, and it manifested as a relatively mild cold which lasted around a week (ending approx. last Friday). But this morning after a shower for some reason I felt a strange and unpleasant feeling in my sinuses and a few of my teeth had gone numb for some reason - and I felt drowsy and queasy, I had to forsake my morning guitar practice to just lie down and got a bowl in case I had to throw up (I never did). After about an hour and a half I was feeling a bit better and I've been for a walk and just had lunch. I'm not sure what it was, perhaps this weather which is warm, windy, cloudy and more stuffy than at any previous point this year (at least here) might have had something to do with it - or maybe I hadn't drank enough water...

Hope you continue your recovery with no more problems JK. Covid does seem to affect people in unpredictable ways. Me and Mrs TS had it a month or two back. It was pretty mild really, ( though announced itself with a banging monday morning headache in my case) but we both felt really tired for a fortnight afterwards.

A somewhat gloomy start to the day here that developed into a lovely afternoon and evening.

[Joseph K]

Hope you continue your recovery with no more problems JK. Covid does seem to affect people in unpredictable ways. Me and Mrs TS had it a month or two back. It was pretty mild really, ( though announced itself with a banging monday morning headache in my case) but we both felt really tired for a fortnight afterwards.

Thanks and yes - there is a lingering tiredness.