How relentless rain is affecting farms and businesses
Rain, rain and more rain - the start of 2024 has seen some record-breaking wet weather. Farmers and business owners tell the BBC how they are navigating the deluge.
For what feels like months now the weather forecast has been dominated by the words unsettled and rain.
Throughout the West Midlands we've seen record breaking amounts of rainfall during the winter months.
In fact, by the end of January - with one month of meteorological winter left - we'd already seen 89% of the average rainfall for the season across the country.
But as we know, there was no let up in February, where rain gauges in Pershore in Worcestershire recorded nearly 300% of the average monthly rainfall.
With the arrival of meteorological spring and March, there was hope things would improve, but both Gloucestershire and Worcestershire saw at least double the amount of rainfall they'd expect for the month.
April isn't looking much better yet.
At Weir End Farm in Ross-on-Wye the tractors were finally out in the fields this week planting some spring barley, but farmer Ally Hunter Blair told me they're about eight weeks behind schedule.
"It’s just been relentless, so to be actually putting seed into mud, maybe soil at the moment, has made me feel a lot better, but the forecast for the next 10 days is terrible," he said.
"Planting is probably a strong word, we're mauling it in. That should have been in end of February or early March. It's going in, but it's not going to win any prizes."
While we have always experienced spells of good weather and spells of bad weather, he said the pattern had changed even in the 15 years he had been farming.
Josh Egan-Wyer, head of horticulture at Pershore College told me: "Everything is very kind of upside down with the weather as we get used to climate change and things like that.
"Everyone needs to relearn how they garden, you can’t go by the books any more."
But why has it been so wet recently?
Much of that is down to the jet stream - the fast moving ribbon of air high up in our atmosphere.
It’s been sitting to the south of the country sending weather fronts and areas of low pressure towards us.
We need the jet stream to move to the north of us, or weaken, to allow pressure to build, settling things down.
The wet weather has also had an impact on the building trade, making it difficult to lay bricks and concrete, as one firm working in Boldmere explained.
“Just because it’s raining, I can’t turn around to the customer and say do you mind covering my time that I have off work,” Alexander Copson, owner of AJC Building & Landscaping, said.
“Obviously if you’re doing nothing then unfortunately you’re not going to get paid for that.”
Other small building firms across the region reported being two months behind on jobs, meaning they were expecting to complete fewer projects this year, hitting their income.
The outlook for the rest of this week is for more spells of rain. With the suggestion this weather pattern could remain until at least the middle of the month.
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