It could be a case of weather whiplash in England this fall. Even with drought conditions currently impacting much of the country, predicted above-average rainfall for this autumn could quickly lead to dangerous flooding, according to meteorologists.
England has had seven straight months with below-average rainfall. The country just had its driest August in over 20 years, receiving only 42% of the average rainfall for the last month of meteorological summer. Despite drought conditions being reported across large portions of England, if the forecast for a wetter-than-normal fall verifies, flooding could be in their future.
"Those two things are not mutually exclusive," Will Lang, chief meteorologist with the Met Office, explained to the Guardian. "You can have heightened flood risk as well as drought conditions. The current forecast for unsettled weather; that is unlikely to be enough to reverse the effects of drought over the next few weeks over the autumn."
The public water supply in some of England's reservoirs has fallen to less than 40%. Much of the central and northern parts of the country, including both the East and West Midlands and Yorkshire, is experiencing drought conditions. It might seem counterintuitive, but dry ground could actually exacerbate flooding when autumn rain falls.
"Heavy rainfall on really dry areas can actually cause flooding; really hard soil can act like concrete, causing runoff onto roads and harder surfaces," Carolina Douglass, the Environment Agency's executive director for flooding, told the Guardian.
A study published in Nature found our warming world is supercharging floods and droughts. "The frequency and intensity of hydroclimatic events, such as extreme precipitation and droughts, are increasing due to human-induced greenhouse gas emissions," it concluded. "Under warming conditions, climate change manifests itself through water by intensifying the water cycle — exacerbating evaporative demands during dry events and increasing atmospheric moisture that fuels heavy precipitation."
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The authors of the study pointed out that extreme droughts and floods impact every continent, threatening health, damaging infrastructure, destroying crops, degrading ecosystems, and fueling crises such as hunger and conflict.
The UK's Floods Resilience Taskforce met Sept. 8 when it was advised on how best to prepare for potential fall floods by experts from the Met Office, the United Kingdom's national weather and climate service, and the Environment Agency.
"As we head into autumn, we need to think about flood risk even though drought is still being felt in some parts of the country," Douglass said in a press release prior to the meeting. "Our priority is to ensure communities are protected from the risk of flooding as our changing climate brings more extreme weather."
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