August 26th, 2025

Hi All,

As I took in the beautiful Cedar of Lebanon tree at Canons Ashby House yesterday, my eyes were drawn upward to the whispy cloud formations. Our old friend, The Mares Tail, or Cirrus uncinus if you want to give them their formal name, signalling a weather change on the cards. Mares Tail's signify the first signs of moisture from an approaching low pressure system pushing up and over a resident high pressure system and freezing in the upper atmosphere as ice clouds. Ice clouds that we see as Mares Tails. I did laugh to myself as I evidentially spent a lot of time staring up at the clouds and people around me started to look at what I was looking at, human nature eh.....of course no one asked and probably dismissed me as a 'bit of a one' (I'll take that kindly)

As I type this blog the first drops of rain since August 2nd are landing on my patio and I have to say I feel a little smug as I renovated, over-sowed and top dressed my barely-alive back lawn yesterday. No sooner has it started than it's finished and dried up, but no worries as this is just the start......

As mentioned in last week's blog, the storm system called Hurricane Erin has turned out to be a key driver in our weather and crucially the position of the jet stream, forcing it south and thereby allowing free passage for a succession of Atlantic low pressure systems to bring rain. Uncanny how this year's drought will break on exactly the same period as it did in 1976, i.e. the last week of August.

Recently, we have seen more and more coverage of our dire water reserves, up and down the country, with the geographical reach of this drought felt much further northwards than previous droughts. The north east and east of Scotland in particular are showing significantly-impacted water levels.

Image courtesy of https://lionsaltworks.westcheshiremuseums.co.uk/whatissalt/

I was reminded recently of one of the little-known consequences of a significant drought and that is saline contamination. Many years ago I saw a situation where a golf course 10 miles inland suffered saline contamination of a borehole as the freshwater table retreated inland (due to drought) and the saltwater table followed it inland. With depletion of our water reserves widespread in 2025, I wonder how many times this scenario has repeated itself unknowingly ? Remembering also that the U.K has significant inland salt deposits as the map shows above, so it isn't just potentially a coastal issue.

Image courtesy of tropicaltidbits.com

General Weather Situation

Now despite the arrival of a strengthening jet stream, the 'forecastability' is still highly changeable, with a new Atlantic low pressure system popping up on the GFS in the latest run today that wasn't there yesterday. For now though we have a strengthening westerly / south westerly airstream and the first showers are already pushing across Ireland and the U.K. Few and far between for sure but this is just the forward guard for some more significant rain arriving overnight into Ireland and then quickly crossing The Irish Sea into Wales and western areas tomorrow before moving eastwards across all areas. As the low pressure moves across Ireland, it will push in more showers and heavier rain for the rest of the week and the first part of the weekend, with a particularly heavy dump on Saturday. Denmark will see showers and then heavier rain arriving from Thursday / Friday and also across the weekend through Saturday / Sunday. That same low pressure will continue to push showers across all areas on a strong south westerly wind through to the start of next week before things calm down a bit temporarily. A brief respite I think before more heavier rain pushes through from mid-week / next week. Temperature-wise, that warm / hot air of the U.K Bank Holiday will be ushered aside and replaced with more 'normal' September temperatures, i.e. mid to high teens. So if you have been sitting wanting rain and I think as an industry we are probably of a universal mindset, I think you'll get it. So no moans please :)

Agronomic Notes

So with the change in our weather comes moisture and humidity and probably in my mind, a higher than usual disease risk for September. Lack of heavy dew has been a feature of this summer compared to last and so I think the disease pressure has been lower. Nevertheless I would not be surprised to see Anthracnose and Dollar Spot put in an appearance through September, particularly as the nights begin to draw out. So be on your guard from this perspective as I am sure the disease models will pick up a pace soon. Remember though, windy and wet weather rarely promotes disease, it is the high pressure systems that form in-between the low pressure systems that brings disease, they're the ones to watch for.

The drought of 2025 has been a long and sustained one, commencing way back in the 3rd week of March. It has left facilities with water reservoirs dangerously low, clubs reliant on boreholes having to switch to mains supply at great cost and to me a big question mark over water as a resource for our industry. With the present government's 'pledge' to build all these houses, there is a even bigger question mark as to where the water to supply these houses is going to come from and then where is our requirement from a pecking order perspective ?

How do we justify how much water we need to run our facility and what of our water quality requirement ?

It is an oft-repeated assertion for our industry that future-proofing relies on an investment in drainage and irrigation. Who could argue looking at the last two years !

My town, Market Harborough, sits on the River Welland, now a mere piddle of a river, mostly clogged with reed. In the winter, it sometimes sits barely contained within its banks, has flooded the town to the point of evacuation by boat last November and I watch all that water go out into its final destination in The Wash. Wy can't we just store more when we get it ?

In March this year, Anglian Water reported its water reserves were running out 97%, now it's 80%, our river levels are described as 'notably low' and our ground water 'below normal'. Numbers are one thing but the reality is we are going to need significant recharge from October to March to bring things back to err....'normal'

Now most years we receive more rainfall than E.T, so simplistically we receive more moisture than we lose by evapotranspiration. The problem is that it doesn't fall evenly across a year of course and in the months that rainfall is scarce, E.T is on the up and that's where we have an irrigation requirement to bridge a % of that gap. Now of course we then come down to which areas we can afford to irrigate, with many golf clubs cutting back on watering tees for example in favour of prioritising our reserves for greens. The problem there and on other areas of traffic is that without water, the grass doesn't grow and therefore cannot recover from wear, so just turns to dust. At the other end of the spectrum we have un-irrigated winter season pitches that are in a dire state after months of below average rainfall / above average E.T that need to be ready for play this autumn / winter and that's going to be tricky. The only positive is that with moisture beginning to arrive now, we can make a start on overseeding, whilst we still have good soil temperature and light, so recovery can commence. The window for recovery is also longer now because we stay milder later into the year. That said with ryegrass for example, we know we experience a seasonally drop off in DLI (Daily Light Interval) at the end of October, that's 8 weeks away as I type this. With Bentgrass it is even earlier. Better get busy then eh !

All the best.

Mark Hunt