@wilsonchan.bsky.social
Hydroclimatologist UKCEH | PhD Uni Reading | Climate change and hydrological extremes | Views my own 🇭🇰🇬🇧
The Rainfall Observers
Over the past three centuries, thousands of people across the British & Irish Isles have recorded rainfall, often every day for decades. Here we recognise some of the individuals who made particularly important contributions.
rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Heading to IAHS 2025 in Roorkee 🇮🇳? 🌏
I’m co-hosting a side event + giving a talk with the ROBIN Network!
Let’s talk reference hydrological networks, drought indicators & climate change detection!
🧵👇
Climate change is not a con-job. If you want to know more about the evidence for and causes of #ClimateChange, head to our website: royalsociety.org/news-resourc...
23.09.2025 15:49 — 👍 114 🔁 64 💬 6 📌 1
Excited to host a hands-on #IAHS2025 workshop with @sayaliuk.bsky.social & @wilsonchan.bsky.social
🗓️ 6 Oct, 18:00 IST | 📍 Roorkee, India
Explore the ROBIN dataset, drought indicators & FlowScreen.
More info: iahs2025.com/SEROBIN
Register: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
#ROBINHydro #Hydrology
📢 New paper! Events like the winter 2023/24 floods are wetter with higher river flows due to climate change.
A worst-case “storyline” shows flows could be even higher - anticipating UNSEEN extremes is vital for adaptation.
🔗: doi.org/10.1088/1748...
@ukceh.bsky.social @climatecocentre.bsky.social
Map of UK with shaded areas showing principal aquifers annotated with information from the September 2025 UK Hydrological Outlook as outlined in the accompanying post.
🌊 Latest UK Hydrological Outlook: Normal to below normal river flows likely in southern & eastern areas over the next 3 months, with low flows for the time of year persisting in some catchments.
River flows in northwestern areas likely shifting towards normal to above normal by November.
🧵🧪 1/
📢 New paper! Events like the winter 2023/24 floods are wetter with higher river flows due to climate change.
A worst-case “storyline” shows flows could be even higher - anticipating UNSEEN extremes is vital for adaptation.
🔗: doi.org/10.1088/1748...
@ukceh.bsky.social @climatecocentre.bsky.social
With exceptionally dry conditions in many parts of the UK this year, hydrologists at UKCEH address the question of whether #globalwarming is increasing severity of #droughts in a guest post for @carbonbrief.org
27.08.2025 12:28 — 👍 14 🔁 6 💬 1 📌 0
NEW – Guest post: Is climate change making UK droughts worse?
✍️ Jamie Hannaford, @wilsonchan.bsky.social, Lucy Barker, Stephen Turner
➡️ Read here: buff.ly/boBB8nU
Photograph of bright sun in a clear blue sky with clouds at the bottom. Text reads: 'Met Office NEWS RELEASE 26 August 2025 – This summer will ‘almost certainly’ be warmest on record for the UK.'
Provisional statistics from the Met Office show that summer 2025 will ‘almost certainly’ be the warmest summer on record for the UK.
It would move 2018 off the top spot and relegate 1976 out of the top five warmest summer in a series which dates back to 1884.
👉 www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/new...
🌊🏜️🌍 New job opportunity @ukceh.bsky.social for a Hydroclimate Scientist to work on the @climatecocentre.bsky.social and @canari-science.bsky.social projects to advance understanding of hydroclimatic extremes in the face of climate change!
Apply now: ceh.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-GB/CEH_Ca...
Map of UK showing river flows as percentage of average
The UK Hydrological Summary confirms heightened risk of drought impacts this summer — especially in eastern Britain.
June was the warmest on record for England and 2nd warmest for the UK overall. Rainfall showed stark regional contrasts, with some areas seeing less than half of average.
🧵🧪 1/
What is the hydrological outlook for the UK in the weeks and months ahead? Steve Turner talks us through the likely situation for river flows and groundwater levels.
See the full outlook: hydoutuk.net/latest-outlook
🧵🧪 1/ #WaterResources @steveturner.bsky.social
Showing the rainfall of 14th July 2021 (upper left) and 5 alternative scenarios derived from a climate model, conditioned to the atmospheric circulation patterns of the observed event. Similar to fig.6 of https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02386-y
📣 New paper:
💧💧💧 In July 2021 record breaking rainfall hit western Europe, we use ensemble boosting to explore different plausible storylines. These show it could have rained for longer, or over a larger area, or in a different place. Are we prepared?
doi.org/10.1038/s432...
Our @ukceh.bsky.social team have written about how studying North Atlantic Ocean patterns can predict UK droughts a year in advance.
Read more here: www.ceh.ac.uk/news-and-med...
🌊 Streamflow Stripes are here!!! 🌊
Just in time for #ShowYourStripes Day – 21st June 🌍
Our team at @ukceh.bsky.social has created UK river flow stripes to visualise how these have changed over time.
📖 Read more: climatelabbook.substack.com/p/visualisin...
#ClimateChange #Hydrology #DataViz
CANARI scientists from @ukceh.bsky.social have created UK river flow stripes.
High flows are rising in the north/west and drought risk growing in parts of the south/east. Adaptation is needed to reduce impacts from swings between wet/dry.
🔗 climatelabbook.substack.com/p/visualisin...
(4/4)
🔊21st June is #showyourstripes day 🌍
2024 was the warmest year on record globally. The stripes help start a conversation about climate change and climate action🥵
Download your warming stripes here:
showyourstripes.info
(1/4)
Comparing temperature anomalies in summer 1976 and summer 2024
As we seem to, yet again, be talking about the hot UK summer of 1976, a reminder that the UK is not the world.
Yes, it was hot that summer over our small region, but the bigger picture tells a different story.
And, we've had hotter UK summers since.
Two maps of UK indicating river flows for May 2025 and March to May 2025
UK Hydrological Summary for May: Recent rainfall brought some respite but summer began with depleted river flows, groundwater levels & reservoir stocks.
Increases risk of further dry weather impacts, with climbing evaporation rates limiting rainfall effectiveness
🔗 nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/sites/defaul...
New CANARI research reveals predictability for UK summer droughts up to 1.5 years in advance 🏜️
Find out more in the paper published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, led by @amulyachevuturi.bsky.social: www.nature.com/articles/s43...
North Atlantic Ocean patterns can signal UK summer droughts up to 1.5 years in advance; offering major potential for early drought forecasting.
📢 Published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment! Read it here doi.org/10.1038/s432....
#UKDroughts #Teleconnections #Forecasting
The Telegraph is now having to publish so many corrections to articles where it attempts to find *any angle whatsoever* to attack net-zero polices that it makes sense to start tracking them here.
These are the ones published since Labour won the election.
"We are happy to correct the record."
Thread on new paper by @wilsonchan.bsky.social et al: Climate variability conceals emerging hydrological trends across Great Britain ⬇️
27.05.2025 08:09 — 👍 8 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
Map of UK with shaded areas showing principal aquifers. map annotated with notes from the UK Hydrological Outlook
UK Hydrological Outlook for May-July ☀️🌈
River flows likely to be below normal across most of UK, with potential for current low to exceptionally low flows persisting in some catchments.
Flows in western Scotland and Northern Ireland are likely to be in normal range.
🔗 hydoutuk.net
💧 1/
This Spring (March-April-May) may end up being the driest on record for the UK.
This would also make it the driest of any season in a dataset that goes back to 1836.
Spring in 1852 currently holds the record for driest season at 100.7 mm averaged across the UK.
www.bbc.co.uk/weather/arti...
📢 Excited to share our new paper!
We used large ensemble simulations to show that climate variability masks emerging hydrological impacts - and changes in droughts may remain statistically undetectable for decades.
🔗 doi.org/10.1016/j.jh...
@ukceh.bsky.social @canari-science.bsky.social
📢 Excited to share our new paper!
We used large ensemble simulations to show that climate variability masks emerging hydrological impacts - and changes in droughts may remain statistically undetectable for decades.
🔗 doi.org/10.1016/j.jh...
@ukceh.bsky.social @canari-science.bsky.social
Image of gauging station by a river and text: ROBIN is a remarkable initiative, creating an open, harmonized foundation for global climate research. It supports scientific collaboration and boosts the visibility and use of regional datasets in international scientific efforts." Dr Camila Alvarez Garreton
Gauging station at Troutbeck
ROBIN logo
📢 We're excited to announce the #ROBINHydro dataset & paper are published! 🌏
This makes available for wider use data for 2,386 global gauging stations with natural or near-natural catchments— a major step forward in accessible, global-scale streamflow data.
🔗 www.ceh.ac.uk/news-and-med... 🧪
A hand drawn graph showing the rise in global land temperatures published in 1938.
87 years ago.
In April 1938, Guy Callendar published the first evidence from thermometer observations that the world’s land areas were warming.
He also linked the observed warming to the increase in atmospheric CO₂ from burning coal.
87 years ago.
rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
