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I wouldn't normally be feeling positive after a depressing day of 14C maximum temperatures and fairly constant rain in the afternoon, but for once I resigned myself to accepting that what happened in Swansea today was a necessary evil.

The aroma emanating from the green areas was a joy to behold, and a good dousing will - so long as it doesn't become the overriding pattern - regenerate the plant life which had started to flag and wither even in my area of south west Welsh coastline.

It would seem that practically all parts of the UK are to receive a healthy measure of rain over the next few days, so if the sun comes out and temperatures rise afterwards, we can look forward to further excellent butterfly conditions ahead.

Fingers crossed.

Thursday afternoon I was at Rodborough Common enjoying some quality time watching Duke of Burgundy in variably cloudy/sunny weather, I made a quick phone call home and my wife said it was raining quite sharply, reminded me of last year - the Severn seemed to act as a south/west dividing line - south had wonderful sunshine, the west and Wales in particular had rain and dull cloud for what seemed weeks on end, I really hope we don't have that again

We had torrential rain with thunder and lightening over most of South Wales last night and today there have been showers, the huge bonus is not just to the larval food plants, but the tinder dry conditions that were so vulnerable to fire have been dampened, places such as Aberbargoed Grasslands and it's wonderful Marsh Fritillary colony are at far less risk for now. Be just great if it would rain in the night and then brighten and warm up sufficiently during the day for us to do our thing...not too much to ask really!!!

Bill

It's not stopped being cold and raining here in Lanc's and Cumbria since May 6th , we could really manage some warmer weather now and less rain. I'm thinking about the butterflies that come out in the middle of May like "The Small Pearl Bordered Fritilaries," how do you think these will be affected. Goldie M

We would certainly be prepared to share some of your rain in our area...
According to the Botanical Gardens data here in Cambridge, March gave us a total of 3mm and April 1.7mm (yes, that's total rainfall for each month). So far this month we have again had precious little and although the forecasters have mentioned downpours for the past couple of weekends, I have only seen the pavement dampened once - for about 5 minutes in total and that had all evaporated within a very short space of time. I have been out to a local site this morning and some areas are getting distinctly brown and crispy. It looks how I would expect to see it in late August, with plants drying up and dying off. What it will look like by August is anyones' guess, but caterpillars will be lucky to get to full size before the fodder runs out and I fear many will perish well before that.

Trev

I stood outside today and three drops of rain landed on my spectacles. I presume that would be called the East Anglian monsoon.

Jack

Wow Jack,
You must have been outside all day!

Trev

It's incredible that in a small island like Britain one area less than 150 miles away from another can see rain to the point of depression whereas the other barely receives a drop.

Some years back East Anglia was officially declared a semi-arid region. We (they, I suppose, now) simply don't benefit from the prevailing westerlies, bringing all that Atlantic moisture. Are they still talking about water-sharing schemes in the UK?

For the record, we've been inundated this weekend in CH, with snow falling as low as 1200m but just howling gales and torrential rain chez moi at 1000m.

Guy

About 4 or 5 years ago, I heard of a plan to pump water down here from the Trent, but I'm not sure how far they got with that. The headwaters of our rivers are subject to considerable abstraction and the powers that be are obviously not keen to restrict this at times when it is most likely to be needed.

Trev

I don't know why the Scots don't devise some scheme for selling water to the English companies. They've got enough for everyone in the UK and a bit to spare.

I overheard a snatch of conversation today while min Saffron Walden.

"It rained a bit on Saturday - I saw a puddle".

Jack

Today it rained again, we decided enough was enough and set off to find the sun. We arrived in Chester to 17c, and it felt lovely. When you think we're the next county to Cheshire and it was 11c and raining here, it seems incredible. You can have some of rain with pleasure, please, just send us some sun. Goldie

Here in NI it seems rain has averaged out with normal amounts, plants have came back, had quite a downpour on Friday night, everything was very wet on Saturday, we still get lots of sun too in between showers.

We've had metres of rain here in Surrey over the past week or so (well, it seemed like metres whilst I was working in it ) Today I met a botanist on Bookham Common. To my untrained eye things looked pretty 'normal' after the recent series of deluges of Biblical proportions but he assured me that the early drought has done some serious damage and the recent rain is too much, too late. In 20 years of botanising Denbies and Box Hill he's never seen such a poor show of orchids and the bramble flowers everywhere were 'rubbish', the wildflowers were 'absent' and 'the insects will suffer'. Doom and gloom, or does the guy have a valid point?

Gibster.