Provisional Met Office figures suggest that this September will be UK’s driest since at least 1910
Pic: Lee/Flickr
By Sophie Yeo
The UK is set to have its driest September since records began, with just 20% of the average rainfall falling during the month.
Between 1-28 September, the UK as a whole received 19.4mm of rain. Northern Ireland was especially dry, receiving just 7% of the expected rainfall.
Records in the UK date back to 1910, meaning that this is the driest September in at least a century.
It follows on from what the Met Office said was the wettest winter on record earlier this year. January to August was also the wettest such period on record.
This has balanced water levels across the UK, meaning there is no danger of a water shortage.
“Following the wettest January to August on record, water resources in England are around normal for the time of year,” said Trevor Bishop, deputy director of water resources at the Environment Agency.
This September is also likely to be in the top five warmest.
So far, the mean temperature for the UK has been 13.9C, which is 1.2C above the long-term average. The record was set in 2006, when average temperatures hit 15.2C.
Much of the strange weather that the world has experienced this year has been down to climate change, a coalition of 92 scientists from 14 countries concluded yesterday in a report in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
Climate change had a hand in the heatwaves across Asia, Australia and Europe this summer, as well as heavy downpours in the US and north east India.