Strange wet stuff falls from the sky

``Rain stopped play.'' Sweet words of summer, which we thought we might never hear again. But yesterday eight cricket matches were halted as real water fell from the sky.

The Meteorological Office is confidently forecasting a genuinely wet weekend. And, peering courageously into the future, it predicts unsettled weather in the first half of May, with still more precipitation.

Instead of April turning out to be a freakishly, record-settingly dry, it now looks as if the month might merely have far below average rainfall. Until yesterday, rainfall in England and Wales this April had only averaged 9 mm - compared with the long-term average for the entire month of 60mm.

Even less rain had fallen in the nation's most parched regions of East Anglia, the Thames Valley and the South.

But now at last there has been widespread, steady drizzle, which had dumped more than 3mm on London by yesterday afternoon. It was capital's first proper, prolonged rain since 23 March. ``Our sensors show it's still raining,'' said a spokesman indoors at the London Weather Centre. ``We could well go to over 4mm.''

So unusual was all this dampness that the Associated Press, the leading US news agency, told the world's media. ``It rained in London, Friday. News? You bet,'' its report began.

England and Wales have had their driest 24 successive months since reliable records began just over 200 years ago. There was well above average rainfall in February, but precipitation in January and March was exceptionally low for the time of year.

Much more is required to avert the threat of hosepipe and sprinkler bans across large parts of southern and eastern England. From now until the autumn, the ground is too dry and evaporation too swift for surface and underground water resources to be replenished by rain. But any rain that falls cuts the demand from gardeners and farmers, helping to eke out supplies.

``This week's rainfall is unlikely to have any real effect on supplies; what we really need is a great deal of consistent rainfall,'' said Jane Farncombe of Southern Water, which still has a long-running hosepipe ban in East and West Sussex. ``We have already experienced one surge of demand in April due to the warm weather.''

Flows in every one of the Environment Agency's 35 indicator rivers are well below average for the time of year. In most, the flow is less than a third of what is normal for late April.

If Labour wins the general election next Thursay, it has promised to crack down on the water companies, demanding that they speed up their programmes to reduce mains leakage and repair customer's leaking pipes and taps free of charge.

Weather, Long Weekend, page 31