Drought declared in Reading after driest month in 150 years

No water has fallen this month in the town and 3mm of rain was recorded in July, as climate change pushes temperatures to their extremes.

Thames Water said it was ‘ready’ to declare a hosepipe ban ahead of the announcement by the National Drought Group.

READ MORE: Hottest temperature on record hit in Reading

Dr Stephen Burt, a climate scientist at the University of Reading, said around 6mm of water was evaporating each day and that July was the driest month in the last 150 years in the town.

Football pitches surrounded by scorched grass in Woodley, photographed by Nathan Long

“Every day we’re losing twice as much in evaporation as we received in rainfall for the whole of the last month,” he said.

“We have known that hotter and drier summers have been likely for the last 20 or 30 years and our water sources and infrastructure haven’t really been adjusted to cope with anything other than the 1950s climate they were designed for.

“They [water companies] need to factor in these kinds of things into future planning. By the time we get to 2080, this could be a cool summer and that’s really scary for water resources.

The result of Wildfires in Tilehurst, photographed by Tony McGinn

“We’re already tight on water resources in the South East of England but a summer like this every year: Well it would be catastrophic.”

READ MORE: Firefighters still tackling woodland blaze almost 24 hours on

Drought has been announced in eight areas of England: Thames, Kent and south London, Herts and north London, the east Midlands, Devon and Cornwall, Solent and South Downs, East Anglia, and Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire.

Thames Water’s drought plan includes hosepipe bans, restrictions on non-essential water usage like window cleaning at businesses, before moving to restrictions of 80-100 litres per person per day.

“I think the biggest worry for the water authorities at the moment is if we end up with a dry autumn and a dry winter, because then we will be in a really serious situation by this time next summer,” said Dr Burt.

Forbury Gardens today at 1pm (August 12)

“So I would imagine they will be being cautious. There’s probably enough water capacity to look after us in the short term – we’re not going to run out of water before November – but obviously if the reservoirs are running low at that point and then we should happen to have a dry winter, then things could get very severe very quickly.”

In three of the last four years, Reading has seen temperatures of 35 degrees: a phenomena that used to be restricted to once every 50-80 years.

“Climate change is going to make these sort of events more frequent.

“The computer models have for thirty years or more have been saying that in the UK, we’re likely to see hotter and drier summers. And that’s very much what has been happening."