Yahoo News For one in seven counties it was the driest July since records began in 1836, Sky News analysis reveals
This year has been unusually dry for 60% of counties in Great Britain.
Total rainfall in the first seven months of 2022 was considerably lower than the historical average in 54 of the 91 areas, according to Sky News analysis of Met Office data.
The biggest shortfall has been in counties in the south of England like East Sussex and Kent.
But the situation is bad in other parts of the country too, with 14 counties experiencing significantly less rainfall up to July than during the same period in 1976, when the UK experienced a severe drought.
Most of these places are in Scotland and the others, Tyne and Wear and Merseyside, are in the north of England.
Nuria Hernández-Mora, co-founder of the New Water Culture Foundation, says that northern Europe will have to adapt to a Mediterranean climate, with droughts becoming the "new normal".
"Droughts are going to be longer, more intense and the impact is going to be felt by everyone if we don't take the adequate measures," she says.
In the chart below you can see how 2022 compares to previous years in your local area.
The situation has been exacerbated by the heatwave, which has evaporated the remaining water from reservoirs and rivers.
Professor Nigel Arnell, Professor of Climate System Science at the University of Reading, says that the hot weather is a result of climate change.
"It's virtually impossible [for the heatwave] to have happened without the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations that we've seen," he says.
"The rainfall is much more difficult to attribute to climate change, but taken together, the sort of drought that we're experiencing at the moment is much more likely now with increased greenhouse gas concentrations."
One in seven counties experienced the worst July on record
It has been a dry year for Great Britain, but July has been especially bad.
Monthly rainfall in July 2022 is below the average between 1991 and 2020 for most of the country.
For 13 of the 91 counties it was the worst July since records began in 1836. It was in the worst 20 for an additional 31 areas.
So, how much rain is needed to restore water reserves and river levels to where they should be?
Jamie Hannaford, principal hydrologist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), says that it will take a few months of "exceptional rainfall" to return things to normal.
"Much will depend on what the autumn holds and it's too early to say the forecast," he says.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
