Most annoyingly we had measurable preciptation last night. With nothing
since 28 May, a drought was looking likely.

This has been the worst of all worlds: fog, everywhere else in the
country hot (even Motherwell), a parched garden, and 0.2 mm of drizzle
meaning I can't even enter a 1 in my drought column. Haar just isn't
funny (geddit?).

Trevor
Lundie
10 miles NW Dundee
http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~taharley/

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006 09:54:52 +0100, Trevor Harley
wrote:

Most annoyingly we had measurable preciptation last night. With nothing
since 28 May, a drought was looking likely.
...

Lesley, who sometimes gets up for a read between two and three am,
tells me that we had some rain but nothing recorded. We had our last
measurable on 29th May.

--
Alan White
Twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, overlooking Lochs Long and Goil in Argyll, Scotland.
Web cam and weather:- http://www.windycroft.gt-britain.co....her/kabcam.htm

"Trevor Harley" wrote in message
news:2006061109545216807-taharley@dundeeacuk...
Most annoyingly we had measurable preciptation last night. With nothing
since 28 May, a drought was looking likely.

You must be cursing your professionalism, otherwise you could have
pretended it didn't happen
June here has been completely rainless, nothing observed since May 29th.

Col
--
Bolton, Lancashire.
160m asl.

"Col" wrote in message
...

"Trevor Harley" wrote in message
news:2006061109545216807-taharley@dundeeacuk...
Most annoyingly we had measurable preciptation last night. With nothing
since 28 May, a drought was looking likely.

You must be cursing your professionalism, otherwise you could have
pretended it didn't happen
June here has been completely rainless, nothing observed since May 29th.

Col
--
Bolton, Lancashire.
160m asl.


You're getting ahead of yourselves lads. That 0.2mm from the haar is going
to look pretty impressive come 16th September. We've had a massive 0.8 so
far this month.

--
David Mitchell, 70m amsl, Langtoft, East Riding of Yorkshire.

In message 2006061109545216807-taharley@dundeeacuk, Trevor Harley
writes
Most annoyingly we had measurable preciptation last night. With nothing
since 28 May, a drought was looking likely.

This has been the worst of all worlds: fog, everywhere else in the
country hot (even Motherwell), a parched garden, and 0.2 mm of drizzle
meaning I can't even enter a 1 in my drought column. Haar just isn't
funny (geddit?).

A very small amount of rain like the above doesn't break an absolute
drought :

Absolute Drought - A period of 15 consecutive days without rainfall of
more than 0.01" (0.2mm)

So you are just OK.
--
Paul Hyett (change 'invalid83261' to 'blueyonder' to email me)

Felly sgrifennodd Paul Hyett :
Absolute Drought - A period of 15 consecutive days without rainfall of
more than 0.01" (0.2mm)

That's an ineresting definition. So a period of 30 consecutive days without
rainfall of more than 0.03", and that occurring 10 days ago, is not an
absolute drought?

This is of interest to me as I was recently thinking of ways to put up
descriptive words on my weather pages such as "raining", "dry", "very dry"
and "parched", according to the weather. I realised that it is more than
just calculating when the last rain fell. Also to be taken into account
are the amounts that have fallen, when it fell, and also the temperature
(as the term "drought" suggests to me lack of water; if there's no
evaporation then there is no drought).

It seems to me that the definition should contain a formula something like

for each day 15, allow (day of drought)*some constant, maybe temperature
dependent mm of precipitation for absolute drought

and should probably be a fair bit more complex than that. An absolute drought
could therefore be broken by a little rain, then reinstated if it continues
dry for a certain period. This seems logical and sensible.

Adrian
--
Adrian Shaw ais@
Adran Cyfrifiadureg, Prifysgol Cymru, aber.
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Cymru ac.
http://users.aber.ac.uk/ais/weather/ uk

In message , Adrian D. Shaw
writes

Felly sgrifennodd Paul Hyett :

Absolute Drought - A period of 15 consecutive days without rainfall of
more than 0.01" (0.2mm)

That's an ineresting definition.

I got it from my old copy of Guinness Weather Facts & Feats.

So a period of 30 consecutive days without
rainfall of more than 0.03", and that occurring 10 days ago, is not an
absolute drought?

The first 20 days of that period would be, but the 0.03" would reset the
counter.

This is of interest to me as I was recently thinking of ways to put up
descriptive words on my weather pages such as "raining", "dry", "very dry"
and "parched", according to the weather. I realised that it is more than
just calculating when the last rain fell. Also to be taken into account
are the amounts that have fallen, when it fell, and also the temperature
(as the term "drought" suggests to me lack of water; if there's no
evaporation then there is no drought).

It seems to me that the definition should contain a formula something like

for each day 15, allow (day of drought)*some constant, maybe temperature
dependent mm of precipitation for absolute drought

and should probably be a fair bit more complex than that. An absolute drought
could therefore be broken by a little rain, then reinstated if it continues
dry for a certain period. This seems logical and sensible.

See http://homepage.ntlworld.com/booty.weather/FAQ/AF.htm
--
Paul Hyett (change 'invalid83261' to 'blueyonder' to email me)

If not an absolute drought, then is it a relative drought, or am I
misremembering the existence of such a thing?

It's rather academic anyway, because we had a much-needed 10.6 mm the next day.


On 2006-06-11 20:52:50 +0100, Paul Hyett said:

In message 2006061109545216807-taharley@dundeeacuk, Trevor Harley
writes
Most annoyingly we had measurable preciptation last night. With nothing
since 28 May, a drought was looking likely.

This has been the worst of all worlds: fog, everywhere else in the
country hot (even Motherwell), a parched garden, and 0.2 mm of drizzle
meaning I can't even enter a 1 in my drought column. Haar just isn't
funny (geddit?).

A very small amount of rain like the above doesn't break an absolute drought :

Absolute Drought - A period of 15 consecutive days without rainfall of
more than 0.01" (0.2mm)

So you are just OK.

On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 11:05:00 +0100, Trevor Harley wrote in
news:2006061311050016807-taharley@dundeeacuk

If not an absolute drought, then is it a relative drought, or am I
misremembering the existence of such a thing?

I had to check the idea of a partial (relative) drought. It seems in the
UK it is a period of 29 days when the average rainfall doesn't exceed 0.01
inches. See:

http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/gl...rtial-drought1

--
Mike Coleraine 55.13°N 6.69°W posted 13/06/2006 11:05:02 GMT
Where there must be an absolute drought now

On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 12:05:02 +0100, Mike Tullett wrote in


I had to check the idea of a partial (relative) drought. It seems in the
UK it is a period of 29 days when the average rainfall doesn't exceed 0.01
inches. See:

http://amsglossary.allenpress.com/gl...rtial-drought1

And here as well, before I get my wrists slapped:-)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/booty.weather/FAQ/MR.htm

--
Mike Coleraine 55.13°N 6.69°W posted 13/06/2006 11:06:47 GMT