When will it rain in Portsmouth? Met Office chief suggests it's on the way - but might not alleviate drought
Rainfall could be “below normal for the time of year,” the Met Office has warned.
Autumn rainfall is not guaranteed to reverse the drought conditions in Portsmouth and the surrounding area, a Met Office weather expert has warned.
Will Lang, the organisation’s chief meteorologist, has said that rain is now on the way, but there remains a question mark over how much would fall. In parts of Hampshire, there was not a single “rain day” for 59 days.
Conditions this summer have thrust more than 70 per cent of England into a drought.
Mr Lang said: “Having seen virtually no rainfall in southern parts of the UK, we will see some rainfall. ‘How much?’ is the question. The answer is probably not too much compared with our forecast.
“It’s looking like the overall amount of rain will still be below normal for the time of year. Looking forward into the autumn, though, that’s when we’d normally see a change of conditions.
“We do see wetter and windier conditions and we will see more rainfall.
“Again, ‘how much?’ is the question – and whether that’s enough to alleviate things like the current drought problems, we don’t know yet.”
It’s thought that a wet autumn and winter could be on the cards thanks to El Nino, declared when sea temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific rise 0.5 degrees Celsius above the long-term average.
The Met Office’s Professor Adam Scaife previously said that this year’s El Nino will likely cause “a temporary spike in global annual temperature with the residual heat potentially making next year the hottest in the global series from 1850”.
Asked by the Press Association what sort of effects El Nino might have on the country’s weather, Mr Lang added: “El Nino can start to have an effect on the UK winter. So, one of the things it can do is give a little bit of a boost to rainfall in the latter part of the autumn and as we head into early winter.
“We’re not sure that that will happen at this stage, but it’s something that can happen in El Nino conditions.
“So, that’s one thing we’re looking out for in our forecasts and our models. Beyond that, it’s really too early to tell.”