Amazingly dry, this past month...
I walked past a local stream - the Patchway Brook - near my home in Bradley Stoke today and was struck by how dry it was. Have a look below at the photo I snapped on my mobile 'phone.
Barely a trickle of water running through it and almost entirely overgrown with long grasses and weeds.
No fun for frogs: The Patchway Brook, running through Bradley Stoke, is almost devoid of water.It's hardly surprising, after such a prolonged spell of almost completely dry weather lately.
Weather-watcher Barry Horton in Totterdown has reported only 3.8mm of rainfall in his part of Bristol from 4 September until yesterday. Meanwhile Martyn Hicks, whose weather station in Horfield is closer to my district, has recorded even less precipitation - a mere 1.4mm between the same dates. Incredible.
No wonder the Patchway Brook is more akin to the Patchway Wadi at the moment.
We will see some rain on Saturday, especially during the morning, but I'm not expecting the sort of deluge likely to turn my local brook into the sort of spectacular, small-scale raging torrent if often becomes during periods of very heavy rainfall.
I wonder what impact this lengthy lack of rainfall has had on the aquatic wildlife in these small urban brooks?
I'm Ian Fergusson, a BBC Weather Presenter based in the West Country. From benign anticyclones to raging supercell storms, my blog discusses all manner of weather-related issues. I also provide updated race weekend forecasts tied to our BBC coverage of Formula One. You can follow me on 
Comments Post your comment