Dry January

Sunday 10 February 2019

The rainfall in Guernsey last month was markedly less than average, meaning it was a 'dry January' for more of us than had planned it to be.

Guernsey Water has released its water report for January which shows the lowest total for the month in 10 years.

That means that although reservoir storage rates remain healthy, they are 3.4% lower than at this time last year.

Guernsey Water's report also gives details of the weather and soil conditions as well as the predicted state of the reservoir of fresh water. 

"The rainfall during January 2019 was 32.2mm. Rainfall fell (i.e. >0.1mm) on 14 days during the month. The highest recorded amount was on or around Tuesday 29 January when 7.7mm was experienced, mainly in the early morning period – this accounted for 23.9% of the monthly total.

"Rainfall in January of 32.2mm was 66% lower than the monthly seasonal average of the past decade (of 95.5mm) and 65% lower than the longer term climatic mean of 92.5mm. This is the lowest January total recorded over the past 10 years. 

"With the storage reservoir 94.44% full the water supply perspective continues to be in a healthy position for the forthcoming winter period and into 2019. However this is still 3.4% lower than the equivalent figure for 2018 (at 97.8%). Land drainage is not a serious issue at the current time," it read.