Fire Risk

When I hear the word "drought" I immediately think of a desert landscape in Africa. I still can't get used to the term being applied over here. I imagine African tribeswomen who have hiked dozens of miles across a desert to join the queue at the only well for miles around would be rather bemused to find out that over in the UK we are talking about droughts.

 

That's possibly more a reflection of your lack of understanding (and/or utilisation of stereotypes) than anything else. A drought can be well defined as a loss/absence of expected resources (less rain in Britain's maritime climate), rather the expected absence of necessary resources (lack of rain in sub-Saharan Africa). So, a lack of rainfall leading to a shortage of water in the UK could well be defined as drought. A lack of water in an area where rain itself is expected to be a less than annual occurrence is a different, albeit difficult, situation.

The definition therefore lies between what is expected and what actually happens. Climate change will probably make such differences more frequent. For non-meteorological incidences of drought, I refer you to the scoring records of both Gary Birtles at Manchester United, and Tony Cascarino at Aston Villa.

 

All fair points, but it isn't about the availability of water but the dryness of vegetation. The BBC report says there is no official definition of drought, but there is - the standard, official one is the 15 days one. I agree that the country won't run out of water after 15 days, but for NR's fire risk, 15 days in high summer will be more than enough to create very high risk conditions.

 

Not according to Defra "There isn’t a single definition for drought"
https://deframedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/08/09/drought-explained/

or the EA "Droughts are natural events that cannot be defined, as every drought is different."
https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2025/08/11/what-is-drought/

 

What sort of rainfall will be needed to bring fire risk back to 'normal'

 

Lots...
Depends which but of normal you want back.
For fire-risk reduction purposes in the short term, a week of steady drizzle would probably be best, as it gets all the dry dead stuff damp, which is the short-term problem.
For a longer-term solution we need heavier rain and lots of it (but not too heavy as it will flash off).
If were ordering rain now, I'd book 2-3 days of heavy drizzle, followed by a week of steady all-day rain followed by 1 full day's rain a week for the rest of the summer. That way we start to get the soil, rivers and aquifers topped back up.

 

In the South East, the most likely rain we will get over the next few weeks is as we got on 27 June - rainfall radar below.

That usually depends on the storms developing over Normandy and then crossing the channel in a NE direction.

No sign of that happening at present.

Bryan

 

We had a rain shower this morning that actually woke me up - and then it was gone.

A couple of decades ago a team of us were working in Athens for three months and the relentless heat and sunshine actually made some of us depressed - I was one of them. So much so that when we heard it was raining one Sunday afternoon whilst we were working, we all ran to a large picture window in the building to watch it fall - for a total of five minutes. That's all we saw in that time.

I find myself repeating my Athens experience.

 

The similarities this year to 1976 seem strong, but there are significant differences. In 1976, the previous summer was also notably hot and dry and the winter between them was only average in term sof rainfall. At least this year we had a wet winter. However, it's notable that the UK's water storage and delivery regime has not changed very much since 1976. If anything, the pipes are now so much older that they are failing more and are under more pressure than ever from higher usage, and damage from traffic and the never-ending number of other utility works around them. No real increase in reservoir capacity has happened so, in effect, we are in a worse situation than in 1976 overall. Of course, none of that affects line-side vegetation. This year's weather regime has been dominated by nearby high pressure since spring, and I can't see that breaking down soon (notwithstanding those who say that the school holidays will bring rain!). I would dearly love to be wrong, but August seems to be set to be dry, or exceptionally dry, over much of England and Wales. I watched the rain on the radar maps coming in from the WNW yesterday as it dwindled away to fragments as soon as it hit the UK mainland, as has been the story so often this year. The implications for the steam ban are obvious.

 

I am looking at the Flying Scotsman Bristol to Minehead in mid September but given the forecasts and that it will take a while for the situation to turn round the answer is I think no