Although rain was predicted at the start of last week, remarkably little has actually fallen on the southern edges of Salisbury Plain. That said, it has been fairly damp and this morning we have a very heavy low mist. The consequence of this is that the water levels rose only very slightly at the start of the week, were static for three days in the middle of the week and only began to creep up again yesterday. Over the week, the level in the borehole only rose 50mm, meaning we ended the week with slightly below average water levels in the aquifer for the 19th December.
We are expecting the next day or so to be very similar to today, with the weather getting colder, drier and sunnier in the early part of the week. After that, a front moves in from the Atlantic bringing in wetter, cold weather that might even turn a bit wintry over the Plain. A white Christmas? I still don’t think so and if there is any white stuff, I think it is more likely to be sleety and fall between Christmas and the New Year. That said, I’d be delighted to be wrong; I love snow.
Beyond New Year the situation gets more difficult to predict, as it does at this time every year. Even with the most advanced supercomputers, the Met Office can get things spectacularly wrong. You can be correct more than 50% of the time by simply predicting that tomorrow’s weather will be much the same as today’s and that the weather on New Year’s Day will be much the same as that on New Year’s Eve. The computers say there is an increased chance of snow and heavy rain at the start of the month and that the south of England will be much colder than usual. Time will tell.
Have a wonderful Christmas and stay Covid-Free!