May didn't start off too well with a very dull morning. We finished lunch and decided against an allotment visit in the cool and very dull conditions. Then, almost immediately after we'd decided not to go to the plot, the sun broke through and we changed our minds. It turned out to be a lovely sunny mild afternoon.
We do need a drop of rain for the garden and allotment. We had nothing that amounted to a decent rainfall all the way through April. We're now starting to get into a rather dry spell of weather.
Certainly our rhubarb on the plot looks as though it needs a good drink. I'm sure it will recover once we get some decent rainfall.
Hopefully, the chart above gives some idea of how the dry conditions are developing. Our average rainfall for a year is just over 600mm (24in). At the end of April 2017 that little + sign on the chart shows that in the last 12 months we've had 500mm (20in) of rainfall. As you can see it's not that uncommon for us to be in this position and the drought at the end of 2011 and into 2012 was considerably worse.
April seems to be a rather odd month for rainfall. The average April rainfall over the last 7 years (not including this April) is 37.5mm (1.28in). However, we don't normally seem to get the average amount in April but vary wildly from one extreme to another. Our driest April produced only 2.4mm (0.1in) in 2011 with our wettest year coming the year after with 120mm (4.7in) which is our second wettest month in 8 years of records.
The dry weather means we are now having to do some watering.
Finally, before leaving April's weather data, I ought to mention that for us it wasn't a particularly mild April.
 |
| April Average Temperatures 2010-2017 (All Temperatures in °C) |
If you want to see the detailed figures then clicking on the chart will open a full size version. Basically red on the chart indicates above average temperatures and blue below average temperatures. The bottom row represents April 2017 and has a disappointing amount of red shading.
Posts
The plants must be thankful to your watering work! ;)
ReplyDeleteIt's raining daily here...too much rain...
We hope watering our plants helps a bit. We haven't had a wet day since March.
DeleteI'll second that! I'm delaying sowing carrots. Not because it is cold (although it is pretty poor in Edinburgh), but because it is too dry and I am already fed up watering the sowings/plantings already made. I even watered my early potatoes yesterday!
ReplyDeleteHaven't watered our potatoes yet but I did pour a couple of cans over some rhubarb!
Delete