Drought conditions may worsen before improving as little rain in sight

Conditions in the most parched areas of the United Kingdom could worsen before they improve, according to the latest forecasts.

The coming days will offer little relief to the areas that need it most, including eastern, central and southern England, and the entirety of Wales.

Meanwhile, August as a whole is showing a trend towards warmer and drier-than-average conditions.

It comes as Natural Resources Wales (NRW) extended its drought declaration to the entirety of the country on Thursday, adding that the high temperatures were causing the natural environment to "deteriorate".

It follows a similar announcement from the Environment Agency on Wednesday which plunged more than half of England into drought conditions.

Parts of the UK can expect to see some rain through Friday and into the weekend, though for the areas of England and Wales under drought conditions the coming days look set to remain dry.

Friday will be rather cloudy across northern areas of the UK, with the chance of some scattered showers which may be locally rather heavy.

Further south, though, it looks set to be another generally dry day with variable amounts of cloud and some sunny spells.

South-east England, which is officially in drought, will have another warm day.

Into the weekend, the dry weather looks set to continue for most, with the exception of Scotland, which may see some isolated showers across the far north.

Next week, the forecast looks more unsettled, with more of a chance of rain, though it is likely to be northwestern parts of the UK which are the wettest.

Some forecast models do suggest that more southern areas may receive some useful rain, but this is much less certain.

Despite some rain in the forecast in the coming week, it will not be enough to end drought conditions.

When rain falls in the summer months, high daytime temperatures can mean that the water quickly evaporates away from the soil.

Meanwhile, a series of quick downpours such as heavy summer showers or thunderstorms may appear to give large rainfall totals, but the rain falls faster than the soil can absorb it.

The ideal scenario is for rain to fall overnight to mitigate the loss from evaporation.

However, to alleviate the drought there would still need to be a prolonged spell of rain over a number of days and weeks. This means the rain forecast in the coming days is likely to do very little to quench the parched earth.

Wales has received just 8% of its long-term average rainfall for July, putting it on course to be the driest July there since records began 190 years ago.

Rhian Thomas, Sustainable Water and Nature Manager at NRW, said: "The toll on the environment, our land and agriculture is clear to see, with many of our teams still dealing with the aftermath of extensive wildfires which have devastated forestry, grassland and special habitats."

In England, July has brought just 7% of expected rainfall, falling to 1% across southern England.

On Wednesday, the Environment Agency, warned that the hot and dry weather meant people are "using water faster than nature can replenish it".

Heading into August, the forecast trend is for warmer- and drier-than-average weather, meaning drought conditions could worsen before they improve.