UK at 'medium' risk of drought this summer

Boosting plans to protect the UK's water supplies this summer is essential following the driest start to spring since 1956, experts said on Wednesday.

The Environment Agency has warned water companies that more must be done to safeguard water supplies in the coming months

While no area is currently in drought – and there are currently no plans for hosepipe bans - there is a "medium" risk of a drought this summer if we don't get any sustained rainfall.

Many places have gone without any rain for weeks, including Leuchars in Fife, which has now had 18 completely dry days, and some spots in northern England - Morecambe, Preston, Bradford and Emley Moor – are not far behind.

March has been the driest since 1961 and April received just half its normal rainfall.

But there have been large regional differences.

Leeming in North Yorkshire had the driest April since 2011 with only a couple of millimetres of rain falling.

While in west Wales more than two month's worth of rain fell at Milford Haven, mainly around mid-month.

As well as being unusually dry, April was the sunniest on record in the UK, following the third sunniest March ever.

According to the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology's three month Drought Index, large parts of the UK are in the 'extremely dry' category.

River flows dependent on rainfall in hard rock areas, have fallen sharply whilst reservoir storage across England is currently at 84% of total capacity. This compares to 90% at the end of April in 2022, ahead of a summer which saw widespread drought and record temperatures.

According to the National Farmers Union, farmers in parts of the country have already started to irrigate much earlier than usual.

In addition this prolonged dry and sunny weather has led to a larger area of the UK burned by wildfires this year already compared to in any other entire year.

Even in the last few days firefighters have had to tackle in a huge wildfire on Dartmoor which destroyed 1,230 acres (5 sq km) of land.

There's plenty of high pressure around this week, meaning rain is unlikely.

There could be 'blip' on Sunday and Monday as an area of low pressure approaches the south-west of England. This may bring rain to southern England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

However, high pressure will return next week and looks like dominating our weather through the rest of the month.

You can see if it will rain where you are on the BBC Weather app.

Here in the UK climate change is expected to bring warmer and wetter winters, hotter and drier summers, and more extreme weather events.

There is no conclusive link between climate change and dry spells in the UK. However, it is thought that climate change could be leading to more blocked weather patterns.

A blocked pattern means the same type of weather is stuck over the UK for weeks at a time. It could be low pressure bringing rain or high pressure bringing a long spell of dry conditions.