The time has come to start speculating about the chances of another hosepipe ban in Devon and/or Cornwall in the summer of 2026.
On their web site South West Water helpfully provide graphs comparing water levels in their biggest reservoirs with last year and 2022, when the hosepipe bans lasted for many months. The most recent ones currently available are dated January 18th:
As you can see, water levels are significantly below those in the drought year of 2022 at the moment. However, perhaps help is at hand from the weather gods? Here is the current set of Met Office weather warnings for West Devon:
Total water storage across the South West has now reached the level of the same date in 2022. There is still a way to go to reach last year’s level, and even further to go achieve the ideal of 100% full by the middle of March! In particular, Colliford Reservoir in Cornwall is only just over 3/4 full.
However, more help is at hand due to heavy rain caused by the recent passage of Storm Chandra across the UK:
This weekend’s numbers should show significant further improvement.
To be continued…
