Are there summer water shortages on the way after a 'dry' winter?

The last few winters have seen news reports full of images of disastrous winter floods: Carlisle, York, The Somerset Levels, The Thames, Tadcaster's bridge collapsing and The Lake District having washed-away-roads out of action for months. But the winter of 2016-17 has been short of rain - so much so it has been the driest for 20 years. Farmers in the east and south are getting desperate for silage-making and new crop growth. How bad is it?

The British Isles are reckoned to be wet. But the regional variations make that generalisation pretty inaccurate; parts of East Anglia have a dryness that matches part of north Africa and southern Spain. This year has been particularly arid with long-lasting High Pressure systems blocking the usual spring depressions tracking across the country and providing the necessary moisture for crop-growth. Whether there will be shortages of key agricultural produce later in the year, and the associated rise in prices - it's a bit early to tell. But this article on BBC news sets the scene. 

The maps of rainfall and river levels used in the article are available in weekly summaries produced by the Environment Agency. Usually 4-page documents, the maps are on pages 2-3 and give a useful indication of the relationship between precipitation and river levels. You can access them here.

The most detailed live-logging of river levels for all rivers in the UK is available from Shoothill GaugeMap. This award-winning website is superb for analysing the current status of individual rivers and selecting various timescales to see how flow has altered over the past weeks, months and year. In addition, the 'Groundwater' option from the menu bar on the left shows whether things really are getting desperate (they're not... yet...). This is a great source of data if you are conducting some fieldwork on a local river and will help place your recordings in a longer-term context as well as a regional spatial context.