How much rain will cure hosepipe issues/canal depth/reservoir levels?

Wet may, hot June, and summer will be over soon
When May is dry summer heat will be high, and we'll all rejoice in the afternoon
 
Plenty of rainwater here.

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Two babies three dogs and a sunroof fortunately.

Rescued by the police this afternoon.

There is a ford next to the bridge but it's rarely attempted.
 
PabloPicasso said:
Wet may, hot June, and summer will be over soon
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...then, presumably this summer will go on and on till Christmas?! :( :mad: :rolleyes:

It's getting silly now, in the south. Washing out the Jubilee was obviously God's little annus dribblis, sent to irk Her Majesty...

...but now I find I keep forgetting what month it is. Have we had summer? Is it November? I have various winter clothes, normally stowed out of sight by June, all still close at hand. It's confusing! I feel like one of those penguins, whose ice-islands have melted.

But...can we console ourselves with the reflection that the recently-piddling puddles we rely on for tapwater, are at last topped-up, or nearly so? Am I sad, for wondering if there's an online lake-level status-gauge for reservoirs? And less beach to drag the dinghy up?
 
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dancrane said:
..... It's getting silly now, in the south. .......
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Welcome to what is normally my world experience. I don't wish it on you but I am glad that at least for a bit this year we have not had it too bad, so far, in the Central Belt. We might just scrape past the current deluge, or it will pass overhead during the night.

At least your reservoirs are being topped up, I assume. Over at Largs one of the eater reservoirs is very low as well, lowest I have seen it.
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
At least your reservoirs are being topped up, I assume. Over at Largs one of the eater reservoirs is very low as well, lowest I have seen it.
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That's what concerns me: we get days of remarkably heavy rain, deluging torrents of which, drain into rivers and the sea...

...while reservoirs remain below their maximum capacity. Surely some mistake? It mayn't be an easy one to work to our advantage, but there ought to be some consolation for a wash-out summer so far.

In truth, I'm personally quite relieved by the rain...because I'm not missing much, having failed to buy a boat as planned...
 
gdallas said:
In Hong Kong in the 1980s seawater was used for toilet flushing....
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Probably not treated before going back into the sea?
Would putting large amounts of seawater into the sewers make treating the waste water harder?
Does the process rely on bacteria which would not survive salt water?

Anyway, I think loo flushing is somewhere down the list of water uses in the South East, below watering lawns etc. Hong Kong is a different story. Not so many lawns?
 
dancrane said:
That's what concerns me: we get days of remarkably heavy rain, deluging torrents of which, drain into rivers and the sea...

...while reservoirs remain below their maximum capacity. Surely some mistake? It mayn't be an easy one to work to our advantage, but there ought to be some consolation for a wash-out summer so far.

In truth, I'm personally quite relieved by the rain...because I'm not missing much, having failed to buy a boat as planned...
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In the summer, most of even heavy rain does not drain into rivers; that's the problem! The ground is dry; it takes a while to soak the ground again. The plants are working hard to send the water back into the atmosphere, and of course the higher temperatures of the summer mean that a lot simply evaporates again. I notice, for example, that the ground here near Cambridge is dry within a few minutes of a heavy shower passing over. So, even heavy rainfall in the summer doesn't recharge reservoirs, because it never makes it there. This is especially true where the reservoir is ground-water, as in much of the East and South-East, where there are few convenient places for conventional reservoirs to be put.

The conventional wisdom is that summer rain is of little use for recharging reservoirs unless it is unusually persistent and heavy - which brings its own problems, as weather like that impacts farming yields quite heavily. Basically, reservoirs are best recharged in winter, when low temperatures and few things actively growing means that the rain has a better chance of getting to rivers, or more usefully, into ground-water reservoirs.
 
Many of the reservoirs in the south east are filled by pumping from rivers.
When the water in the rivers is run-off from very heavy rain, there is a great deal of mud and silt in suspension, the hardware is not all designed to cope with that.
The system was mostly designed a while back, when there was sufficient water in the rivers to pump the lakes full in winter.
I guess the pumps, pipes etc are of finite capacity and can only fill the reservoirs over a period of days or weeks.

It really does all come down to money.
We can improve capacity, to varying levels, at varying costs.
To have absolutely sure abundance of water would be very expensive.
It's pretty rare that anyone in the UK does not get enough water to drink, wash and flush the loo.
Should we double everyone's bill so we can wash our cars easily all year round, or accept paying for a few car washes every year?
Where do you draw the line?


We've obviously had the right sort of rain this week, my car is looking quite clean.
 
And then, the rains came...

Ahh…I remember those jolly days we used to have in England, when it didn’t invariably, continuously pour with rain. Of course we weren’t happy then, either.

Can you believe, people used to moan about hosepipe restrictions, and low water levels in reservoirs? The subject even started people chatting about how to save water! :rolleyes:
 
WELCOME, ladies and gentlemen, to 2013...

...it's pouring down here at Newmarket, as we take initial thoughts for starting prices on this summer's weather...

:( :( :( :mad:

I think I just started to feel old...

...I remember Easter 1984...warm weather, sun & light wind...(not enough wind, to be honest)...high tide at Bosham was like a carnival of dinghies, hardly moving...:rolleyes:
 
I have no idea about canals but there is no hosepipe ban here and we never had one, our water comes from aquifers under the South Downs, reservoirs are full and underground aquifers are at their highest level ever. All caused by the heavy rain last year and a fair amount this year including flooding where we live. I had to use a pond pump to get rid of a small lake in our garden, earlier this year. The amount of rain also ruined farmers' crops and cows couldn't graze because of the muddy fields and had to be taken into sheds to be fed. All our local streams are high and flowing fast.

This is in Emsworth, Hamshire, from the OP it seems it might be different elsewhere, is it?
 
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