England's southern counties have entered severe drought after the driest April to September in over a century. The immediate cause is a summer of record heat and almost no rain.
The deeper story, however, is a system with thin margins, a rainfall dependency it can no longer afford, and a recovery that may take longer than the weather alone suggests. On paper, this shouldn't have happened.
Heavy rain in late 2025 and early 2026 had refilled England's water stores, and in the spring the system looked healthy. Six months later, Wimbleball Reservoir on Exmoor is about 16% full, Ardingly in West Sussex is near 19%, and the Environment Agency has declared severe drought across parts of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, East Sussex, and West Sussex.
The agency would expect storage of about 75% at this point in the year. Persistent high pressure settled over the country in June and barely moved.
Sky News analysis of Met Office data found that stations across the affected counties received almost 40% less rain than normal between April and September. The average of 232mm beat the previous record low of 239mm, set in 1976.
The extremes were stark. Between 15 June and 15 August, Hurn weather station near Bournemouth recorded 1.4mm of rain, about 1% of its usual total for those weeks.
England and Wales had their driest July since records began in 1836, and the south-east received roughly 1% of its expected July rainfall. Locations in Devon and Hampshire went 50 and 49 consecutive days without measurable rain.
Heat compounded the shortage. The Met Office reports an average daily maximum of 21.3°C this year, beating the 21°C record set in 1976, and 34 days reached 30°C or above somewhere in England.
Hot air pulls more water from reservoirs and soils, so every dry day costs more than it would in a cooler year. England has now had droughts in 2022, 2025, and 2026, three in five years.
Droughts in the UK have historically arrived every five to ten years, which means the gap is narrowing. The Met Office says heat extremes are becoming more likely and more intense due to human-caused climate change.
The government's answer to the storage problem is nine new reservoirs by 2050, but critics argue this timetable is too slow for a crisis that is already here.