Thread by @althecat

Tracking thread on rain/drought in Europe.

Last three days have seen some, which is very welcome to address a 500 year drought. I posted the thread below on Aug 14th when rain finally came to Bretagne, France.

#ClimateChangeNow Thread

Its worth pointing out that an extreme drought in Europe is not as bad as elsewhere in the world. Europe is used to getting lots of rain, and will likely continue to do so - and it has good reservoirs to deal with drought - this one is basically from June.

This thread consists mostly of satellite imagery over the past three days + some forecast data images which help explain what is going on. But not too many. And it looks at water transport from the Nth Atl & the West African Monsoon.

Day 1. 13-14 August - East NATL

Day 1. 13-14 August - Western Europe

Day 1. 13-14 August - Western Sahara

In a sense the 1st and 3rd images can be seen as the causation for the 2nd one - you can see the visible atmospheric water flows (Note: there are also invisible ones).

Here's the first forecast data set. Precipitable water - Atmospheric water over Europe 14th-19th August (3 days forecast)

Day 2 of rain 14-15 August. Again we start in the Eastern North Atlantic where the lows are obstructing dry air from moving in. Theres also a 2nd atmospheric river over Bretagne.

The atmospheric river running WNW over Morocco is feeding the 2nd low over E.Eur.

East NATL

Day 2 (yesterday). 14-15 August - Western Europe

Neither low pressure system is making much of a go of forming into storm - but there are lots of thunderstorms.

Day 2 (yesterday). 14-15 August - Western Sahara.

The area of Atlantic convection which was just east of Senegal before powering one of atmospheric rivers which brought rains to France at the weekend is now mainly on an Italian Adriatic trajectory.

These three foreacasts (14/15/16 Aug) are all for Friday 19th Aug. The lows are expected to be pushed East - but not very fast.

Day 3 of rain 14-15 August: The low over the Bay of Biscay is doing a lot of work trying to form a circulation but thee wind from the south is blowing it north and keeping it ragged. This it evening it is bringing more rain to Galicia & Compostela in NW Spain (the wettest part).

Day 3 (last night and today). 15-16 August - Western Europe. Both lows are still working hard to try and stay in place but are struggling to do so with Southerly winds aloft dragging a lot of moisture north over Scandinavia. Big line of storms from northern Italy to Austria.

Day 3 (lastnight and today). 15-16 August - Western Sahara.

I'll keep updating this so long as the rain lasts. Europe is still very much in drought.

Here are the latest 3,5,10 and 16 day forecasts for accumulated rainfall. It looks as if Germany still has at least five days to wait but that after that it will get a fair few decent showers.