We're In A Dry Spell!

It seems rather hard to believe that at the moment we are in a dry spell of weather. I noticed a Met office article a few days ago now reporting how low the rainfall had been between October 2016 and the end of January 2017. They went as far as to suggest it was one of the driest on record for the time of year. We've been working down on the plot and it didn't seem all that dry.

Certainly the soil in the bed we were cultivating had a habit of sticking to our spades and forks as well as boots. The top of the soil was certainly very clinging but it didn't turn over too badly considering it's February. I decided to consult my weather figures to see if we were in a dry spell.

This chart suggests that we are in a dryish spell of weather as the average rainfall per month has been below average since October 2016, as reported by the Met Office. At the end of September 2016 we'd had more than 720mm of rainfall in the preceding 12 months compared to an expected rainfall of 620mm. By the end of January 2017 we were down to 583mm in the preceding 12 months. Our actual rainfall figures for each month are shown in the table below.

The forecasters are suggesting that our weather, over the next week or so, will be governed by a large area of high pressure sitting over Scandinavia probably meaning colder rather than wetter weather over the next few days.

Judging by the state of the soil on our allotment I don't think we need to worry about a drought just yet.

As Tuesday afternoon was reasonable mild I decided to take a little bit of video of our hellebores and snowdrops before we get any actual snow which may arrive in small amounts over the weekend.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett