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Despite promises of heavy rainfall we keep missing the wet stuff here in the lower reaches Otter Valley. I know this is one of the driest parts of the South West by quite a margin but we could do with a good few downpours as the soils are now very dry.

Only 15 mm of rain has fallen since the 16th April and today, of which we had several yellow Met Office warnings, all the rain fell elsewhere and we stayed dry. Yesterday did yield a much needed 3.8 mm but given some sunshine today, it's as if it never had happend. Our sandy soils don't help mind you.

It seems that spring and early summer droughts have become a bit of a feature here over the last few years.

The temperature peaked at 21.8°C this afternoon and it felt rather humid with calm conditions and a DP of 18.0°C.

We missed the rain here in Farnborough until last night. Then the heavens opened. There was 30.1mm in my gauge this morning, and most of that fell between 0200-0800 (BST).
The garden needed a good soaking, though - it was very dry.

We've missed the rain both days here Greg.
0.1 mm on 10th, 0.4 mm today 11th.
Mind you, there looks to be some heavy rain heading west along the south coast tonight.
I wonder if it will keep its intensity.

Last rain here 4.9mm, which fell in a brief thunderstorm during the evening of 9th. Nothing measurable 11th onwards.

Total rain this month 17.1mm

I too seem to be missing all the rainfall.

Only had 3.5mm to date, with the wettest day seeing 1.7mm in the gauge.

My driest May is 4.4mm back in 2010 (records for the area back to 1964).

So my driest May so far, after a wet start to the year with previous months all been above average for this station.

My total up to 19th May is only 23.5 mm.

The average 2001-2010 for May is 74.3 mm, so the rain so far is somewhat below average.

Sadly, it has not been especially sunny.

Still a dry month for this station, with only 11.2mm to 2100 UTC on the 20th.

My average for May is 53.9mm (1964-2016), so well below average so far.

With another 2.0mm in the gauge this morning, I have now reached 50.9mm for May so far, just about the estimated LTA for the whole month. Interestingly, this now exceeds the total I recorded last December (which had record-breaking rainfall in the NW, but was actually drier than average in the SE).
Temperature for May so far has averaged 13.7C (max 18.6C, min 8.8C) which is +1.4 on the estimated LTA.
Sunshine so far I estimate at around 110% of normal.
Hence May so far has been warmer, wetter and sunnier than average - and the garden is responding with everything (including weeds!) growing as if on steroids...

Rain total 49.7 mm with two days of May left.
Unless we have a few downpours it is not likely to reach the average of 74.3 mm.

Len Wood wrote:Rain total 49.7 mm with two days of May left. Unless we have a few downpours it is not likely to reach the average of 74.3 mm.

A bit drier here Len with my May rainfall total now at 35.8 mm. That's well short of my eLTA of 55.8 mm. Garden is bone dry and the lawn is going brown in places.