Three quarters of the UK now in drought

The UK’s severe drought has now spread to 71% of the country, affecting more than 27 million people. Farmers have had water restricted and are struggling to irrigate crops.

A combination of very hot and dry weather has resulted in a ‘flash drought’

The East Midlands, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, Kent and East Sussex, and Solent and the South Downs became the latest parts of the UK to be officially declared in drought this week.

Most of the country (71.3%) is now experiencing a so-called ‘flash drought’, where a combination of very low rainfall and higher temperatures bring conditions about very quickly.

Seven areas of England were officially put in drought areas at the end of July. The new designations take the total number of people living in a drought-stricken area to 45 million. Over 27 million people now have restrictions on water use.

The North East and Yorkshire have moved to ‘prolonged dry weather’ status, the stage before drought.

July was the driest in 190 years, according to the Met Office, with just 6.5mm of rainfall recorded – just 10% of its long-term average for the month, and less than half of the previous record of 13.4mm set in 1911.

Farmers are struggling and harvests falling

Farmers have reported their earliest harvests in 20 years, with reduced yields, in particular of wheat.

Livestock farmers have started to use winter forage stocks to feed animals earlier than normal due to

Original Record.

This archived record authored by ‘Catherine Early’ at ‘METEORED (Your Weather)’ was recovered from data set:

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