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Well, the roads'll be a bit slippy after these showers...
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Yes please. Had stuff all this year. We need some steady rain. Not heavy stuff, we don't want to flood anyone out, just steady for a few weeks. But only overnight, I don't want to spoil anyone's holiday.
JH
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We just need some bleeding rain...:-)
Only had three or four brief light showers here over the last four or five months - not much use in a sandy soil area...
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>> Well, the roads'll be a bit slippy after these showers...
>>
True, nothing like the first rain for weeks to lift the accumulated oil and rubber. Usually catches a few out.
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Ssssssshhhhhhhh!!! I'm fed up with the rain in June & July!
We're reconsidering upping sticks and moving to Oz again...
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Been hovering around 30C in Stockholm for the last week or so, about 5 minutes rain in total in that period. I though it was supposed to be cold up North!
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Ok we've had some light showers... now can we have some proper rain... it is Summer, afterall!
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When I went to work in the morning after the first night of rain for weeks, I noticed foam along the edges of the road. At first I thought a lorry had dropped some diesel, but it was everywhere. I can only put it down to the accumulated chemicals left on the road by vehicles and baked by the sun. Bizarre.
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>> I noticed foam along the edges of the road. At first I thought a lorry had dropped
>> some diesel, but it was everywhere. I can only put it down to the accumulated
>> chemicals left on the road by vehicles and baked by the sun.
I have for some time thought that there's a good deal to be said for this idea. Fuel contains some sort of "detergent" - a cleaning agent. This must come out of the exhaust pipe in some form or other. Perhaps it's a build-up of this - as well as oil, rubber particles, etc. - on the road which makes it slippy when water is added.
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>> Ssssssshhhhhhhh!!! I'm fed up with the rain in June & July!
>>
>> We're reconsidering upping sticks and moving to Oz again...
>>
Cheers then!!
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Away and raffle yer donut MD
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>> >> Well, the roads'll be a bit slippy after these showers...
>> >>
>>
>> True, nothing like the first rain for weeks to lift the accumulated oil and rubber.
>> Usually catches a few out.
>>
Yep. PLUS here we have a summer which lasts ages, then winter rainfall. So in addition to the slippery roads you mention, there's also some notable follies amongst the car-users
1) another 8 months of tyre wear since the last rains to contend with. Whoops.
2) 8 months of accumulated dust, residue and grime on windscreens, which turns into a lovely smeary paste when it encounters the first rains... and that paste is smeared beautifully by the wipers, which have perished over the past months as well...
Add to that our hyper-efficient local council, which only discovers the stormwater drains are blocked WHEN the roads get flooded.
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>> Well, the roads'll be a bit slippy after these showers...
>>
Its fine, most car's today have ABS and traction control - how on earth could slippy roads matter? ;-)
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Physics beat ABS / ESC / TC any day. :-)
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Hosepipe ban here in Rainchester !
Filled up a spare wheely bin the day before ban, with hose, so I can just dip a bucket in and water me pots.
May sneak out in the dark when it's empty and fill it again. It'll take a while to get through , though.
Ted
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Hosepipes are not banned in Sussex yet so I have to water the garden every evening at the moment under strict instructions from SWMBO as we have had no substantial rain for weeks now. I find it very therapeutic.
The garden is south facing, well sheltered and a complete sun trap. I love the earthy smell of the garden after watering and the blackbirds come out worming on the lawn after its had a soaking.
Despite the watering and the preparation care lavished on them , scarifying , weeding and seeding etc I just do not recall the lawns being so brown or the hydrangeas being so droopy....
Luckily after much personal investigation and with the assistance of SWMBO and friends I have found the lawn colour seems not to affect the imbibing of wine or other alcoholic beverages whilst reclining on steamer chairs under a large parasol ...... but just to make sure I will continue my investigations at the weekend.
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It was 38C in Munich at the weekend. The mother of all thunderstorms hit us on Sunday night, since then blazing sunshine again. We're lucky though, the german Baltic Sea coast got hit by a tornado on Sunday!
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I was surprised when I saw the bird's eye views of Silverstone at the weekend and how parched the countryside is around there. Looks more like the end of August than July.
We've had a mix of 30-plus sunshine and huge thunderstorms and rain here - I walked to the end of the paddock yesterday and found new bamboo shoots four feet high, in less than a week.
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>>>I walked to the end of the paddock yesterday and found new bamboo shoots four feet high, in less than a week.
It's a bit like that here with browning grass in a parched paddock yet the dykeside reeds sprout tall through the struggling grass many yards in from the dyke... and they look lush. I assume they have roots several yards long going back to the water.
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you should see my grape vine, in the space of a week away in Northubria, I came home to find a giant multi limbed triffid trying to strangle next doors cat.
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>>..so I can just dip a bucket in and water me pots.>>
Nothing to stop you using your normal source - it's the use of hosepipes that's banned, although you can use one connected to a water butt or other storage medium...:-)
However, as many have been quick to point out, having had no rain means that they are empty anyway.....
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About an inch today (North end of Cheshire). Hurray!
JH
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>> About an inch today (North end of Cheshire). Hurray!>>
That will undoubtedly help, but what's really needed is a sustained period of normal rainfall, rather than too much all at once which would just run off the very hard ground rather than be absorbed.
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They are having to close some of the canals up here because the water levels have reached an all time low. How will this affect car cleaning businesses?
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>>How will this affect car cleaning businesses?>>
It doesn't as they are exempt, along with similar businesses.
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Loads of rain in N Wales today - add to the excitement of a ride first thing tomorrow for some work on the GS before it goes up for sale. That bike likes rain, I'm going to miss it :-(
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Aha I did wonder how factories etc would go on. So the ban is just domestic, makes a lot of sense.
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put feed n weed on grass. Good timing its raining tonight here in east yorks. Not had much at all really.
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I will probably find my FIAT is nothing more than a pile of rust in the morning. Certainly need to watch those stopping distances tomorrow.
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Bet there is some accidents on M1 this evening and morning. Apparently a band of rain has come down along the length of M1.
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>>I will probably find my FIAT is nothing more than a pile of rust in the morning>>
Time to get real, Rattle...:-)
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I'm more concerned that it will dirty my car and promote rust.
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Here in (currently, not so) sunny Hampshire, we got our first "proper" rain for weeks overnight. Lovely rainbow effects on the roads this morning, one almost unbroken up the middle of the lane for nearly a mile, as all the accumulated crud of the last few weeks is now sitting on a lovely film of dirty water.
Definitely One of those days I was very happy not to be on two wheels.
On the plus side, hopefully my lawn will now start to come back to life.
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Blowing up a beauty in Dorset at the moment - the wind is hammering in past Portland, over the Purbecks and whistling up the Frome Valley. Heavy rain overnight, the Frome has actually risen slightly, which is nice. NOT slightly is not nice - it tends to come up the garden and fill the ponds to bursting, which gives the geese no end of amusement. I'll not be felling any of the Ash trees at the bottom of the garden today! Back to strimming and fencing it is then.
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No keeping ornamental coy carp in the ponds then ND!
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No, but I might pick one up next time it floods. Tincleton Koi is about 4 miles upstream......
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Pay up or the fish gets it!
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Nah, Charlie who runs TK is a sound fellow. Now if I sheep were swept down into our garden it would be a different kettle of mutton stew.
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In the Middle East some additive is put in the tarmac to prevent it from melting at 40+C. This seems to result is some chemical sweating out of the tarmac and, when the first rain does come, it is like oiled black glass on the road. I was in Jordan when the first rain for 6 months fell it is was lethal.
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>> In the Middle East some additive is put in the tarmac to prevent it from
>> melting at 40+C. This seems to result is some chemical sweating out of the tarmac
>> and, when the first rain does come, it is like oiled black glass on the
>> road. I was in Jordan when the first rain for 6 months fell it is
>> was lethal.
>>
Theres a stretch near me where the road comes over a bridge, and downhill to a set of lights.
The anti-melt component of the surface migrates downhill, and the stretch leading up to the lights is lethal in the wet. As I discovered when braking one evening and gliding across the red. Fortunately nothing was coming across.
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Was that it then? A few drops since Thursday but that's all. Nothing serious on the weather forecasts unless you look at the met office page (ha ha!). Come on! Some steady rain for the next week or two please.
Anyone got a virgin handy, for sacrifice to the weather Gods? You've all put lawn fertiliser down haven't you? You should know better than that.
JH
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You've all put fertiliser down haven't you?
But it doesn't seem to have attracted any virgins yet!
:(
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mine is awash with virgins, what did you use?
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As a beekeeper, I have loads of virgins... They come out to greet me..
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Well, yes, but, that's a bit different, isn't it. How long have you looked after these little darlings?
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"Well, yes, but, that's a bit different, isn't it. How long have you looked after these little darlings?
"
Started this year - built my own hives. Fascinating. Not many stings (yet). Take classes from N Staffs Bee Keepers..
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The wrong stuff obviously. Funny how lack of experience is valued...
JH
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>> The wrong stuff obviously. Funny how lack of experience is valued...
Its because they know no better....
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Went over woodhead pass today torwards Manchester and the all resevoirs that lead you down to Glossop turn off were all bone dry as in cracks in the floor and it was raining today!
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I did this trip the other weekend and thought they had drained these on purpose for maintenance. I have never seen them so empty. They were not low they were empty.
Then they announced the hose pipe ban and I knew it was lack of rain. And that weekend I'd planned to wash my wife's car because I've not been able to for 6 months in rented..... so I did it on the Thursday night when it was raining due to the need to use a pressure washer.
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>> Then they announced the hose pipe ban and I knew it was lack of rain.
Let's wait until the reservoirs are completely empty and then announce a hosepipe ban. Genius.
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Friends of mine were collectors of stone age tools (flint) and they used to take me to various sites they knew in Cornwall & Devon,
The sites were mainly around reservoirs because the action of the water would erode the top soil at the waters edge and so expose the ground level as it would have been 1000's of years ago.
The ideal time was obviously in drought conditions like now.
They both had vast collections of axeheads, arrowheads, scrappers etc.
I have quite a bit myself as well inc. a perfect leaf arrowhead which is lke a jewel, to me.
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>>..and I knew it was lack of rain.>>
Not too difficult to deduce when it's only rained perhaps three or four times in four or five months......:-)
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>>Anyone got a virgin handy, for sacrifice to the weather Gods?>>
Stuff the rain...:-)
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>> >>Anyone got a virgin handy, for sacrifice to the weather Gods?>>
>>
>> Stuff the rain...:-)
>>
on second thoughts, stuff the virgin!
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Rain! - Tooslow
