Despite being dry last week, the rain of the week before caused the water level in the aquifer to rise again. It did so steadily throughout the week, only peaking in the early hours of yesterday morning. Today, the level has started to fall slightly. Unsurprisingly, the Environment Agency has not updated the Flood Alert status since Monday 20th January and the groundwater Flood Alert for the Salisbury Plain area remains in force.
Last week, we were suggesting that we might be lucky and get two consecutive rain-free weeks, and this was echoed by the Environment Agency who did not expect rain until a frontal system moved into the UK after 3rd February. It seems we were wrong about this as we are now expecting rain today and tomorrow with some forecasters suggesting a further period of rain on Thursday and Friday. In the longer term, moving into February, the weather seems to be initially very unsettled, with the risk of a little more rain, then steadily becoming more settled towards the middle of the month. That all suggests that we might see water levels fall steadily for the next 4 or 5 days and they may even fall below the 99.00m AOD flood level for the Tilshead borehole, but after this, the level will rise again for a further week. It seems unlikely that the Environment Agency will lift the Flood Alert just yet, or if they do, it could be re-instated within a matter of 4-5 days.