UK weather: Drought may worsen before improving as little rain in sight

Despite some rain in the forecast in the coming week, it will not be enough to end drought conditions.

When rain falls in the summer months, high daytime temperatures can mean that the water quickly evaporates away from the soil.

Meanwhile, a series of quick downpours such as heavy summer showers or thunderstorms may appear to give large rainfall totals, but the rain falls faster than the soil can absorb it.

The ideal scenario is for rain to fall overnight to mitigate the loss from evaporation.

However, to alleviate the drought there would still need to be a prolonged spell of rain over a number of days and weeks. This means the rain forecast in the coming days is likely to do very little to quench the parched earth.

Wales has received just 8% of its long-term average rainfall for July, putting it on course to be the driest July there since records began 190 years ago.

Rhian Thomas, Sustainable Water and Nature Manager at NRW, said: “The toll on the environment, our land and agriculture is clear to see, with many of our teams still dealing with the aftermath of extensive wildfires which have devastated forestry, grassland and special habitats.”

In England, July has brought just 7% of expected rainfall, falling to 1% across southern England.

On Wednesday, the Environment Agency, warned that the hot and dry weather meant people are “using water faster than nature can replenish it”.

Heading into August, the forecast trend is for warmer- and drier-than-average weather, meaning drought conditions could worsen before they improve.