UK rainfall | Wanstead Meteo

July 2018 was the warmest month locally in a record going back to 1797. The mean temperature of 21.7C is 3.2C above the 1981-2010 average and exceeds the previous warmest July (1983) by 0.3C. Indeed, it is the warmest calendar month ever.

Just 16.7mm of rain fell, all of it coming after the 47 day long drought ended with a thunderstorm on the 27th. The amount is 38 per cent of average and is the driest July since 2010 and 7th driest in the local record.

There were 273 hours of sunshine, 142 per cent of average, making it the sunniest for five years and 10th sunniest on record.

As well as many hot days the lack of rainfall was most noticeable with catastrophic results on Wanstead Flats.

The warmest day occurred on the 26th with 34.7C.

The wettest day occurred on the 27th with 7.3mm falling.

This summer has seen less than a millimetre of rain fall across our region, less than some parts of the Sahara desert!

The lack of precipitation has had catastrophic results, not least being a big contributing factor to the huge grass fire that swept through parts of Wanstead Flats at the weekend.

Wanstead flats fire now #staysafe #wansteadflats pic.twitter.com/0wemgOnu4W

— Sam Saleh (@Sam_Saleh) July 15, 2018

https://twitter.com/MPSCannHall/status/1018587768245628928

Since May 29th just 0.7mm has fallen in Wanstead, less than the 2.9mm recorded in Bechar, Algeria, and far less than Agadez in Niger which recorded nearly 108mm.

Of course the fact that the mean temperature of Wanstead over the same period is at least 13C cooler than both Saharan towns means that the dunes won’t be blowing across the Temple any time soon.

The affects of the dry weather can also be seen across the UK in these MODIS images, the lush greens of last year looking much paler and browner.